CAMDEN COMMUNITY UPDATE - FEBRUARY 2023
RECRUITMENT UKRAINIAN REFUGEE CASE STUDY
Polina is our new Fitness Instructor at Kentish Town Sports Centre, she has been working with us now for 3 weeks but has been living in the UK as a refugee since June and tells us about the support she has had from GLL since arriving in the UK.
“I have been in the UK since June because of the situation in my country. I have a diploma from Ukraine for Fitness with Babies I asked Kentish Town if they had this service in the UK. I know about Better because they gave a big support for Ukrainians who are in UK now.
I applied for some jobs and one of the few people who answered me was Louis (General Manager). He told me about Kentish Town and I asked him about how I can apply to have a role in his team. He told me about level 2 courses for fitness instructor I did the course and then met with Louis after where I had a job interview and now I’m here!
Kentish Town team have a big support for everyone. They help me every time, explaining what I need to do and how I need to do it. I feel very confident now because they support me.
I love being a Fitness Instructor here. It is my first job in the UK, I’m so happy. I would like to continue my education and become a personal trainer and I think that all of the team would help me with this”
We are excited to support Polina in her journey and progression within GLL.
SCHOOL’S OUT PROGRAMME – QR CODE TRIAL
This month saw the launch of Camden School’s Out Holiday Programme for February half-term. The eight page programme featured all the activities and programmes available across all the centres as well as crash courses and term-time activities. In an attempt to support the GLL Green agenda a QR code was created as a trial which featured on internal posters directing scanners to the downloadable programme. As a result we are reducing printing costs and providing customers with accessible.
CAMDEN PROMOTING ACCESSIBILITY
Camden Leisure facilities are now been listed on Euan’s Guide! Euan’s Guide is the award-winning disabled access charity and it is best known for their disabled access review website as well as being responsible for making thousands of accessible toilets safer. Euan states that "the aim of Euan's Guide is to empower disabled people by providing information that will give confidence and choices for getting out and about." Euan’s Guide was founded by Euan MacDonald MBE and his sister Kiki in 2013 after Euan was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease. They found that the lack of disabled access information made every day experiences for disabled people were incredibly stressful as was their own personal experience.
COFFEE MORNINGS AND WARM SPACES LAUNCH
On Tuesday 14th February, Kentish Town Sports Centre launched the first Camden Partnership Warm Spaces initiative as well as kicking off the first of our monthly coffee mornings in partnership with Age UK Camden. The new initiative has been set up in response to this winter’s cost of living crisis and will offer anyone living in the vicinity of a participating leisure centre a warm welcome, comfortable seating, and the opportunity to charge a phone or device, use the free WiFi or even to have a hot shower.
In Camden, we are proud to provide accessible facilities and activities to our community. Leisure centres are spaces which are not usually associated with or specific to older people, we want to break down this barrier to encourage older people into taking that first step of attending a leisure centre, to then making steps to becoming more active. Our coffee mornings will serve to promote health and wellbeing in a relaxed environment with the purpose of introducing older people to the leisure centre for the first time. It will be a social event to enable people to visit the leisure centre, have the opportunity to look round and ask questions, and take away information on programmes and activities without needing to commit to anything or even take part in an activity on the day.
We are excited about this partnership and we hope these opportunities support with tackling social isolation, particularly at this difficult time in the London Borough of Camden.
Key Highlights
- 7 Camden residents in attendance
- 1 attendee signed up to a membership
- Speeches from CSO, CSM and General Manager where attendees had the opportunity to ask questions about the leisure centre
- Tea, coffee and selection of fruit and biscuits served
- Seated exercise taster lead by Edwina Brockelsby
Communications:
- Promotional material pushed out across the partnership in centres and via Age UK Camden marketing team
- Social media posted and retweeted by partners including Camden Council, and Age UK Camden
- Website news stories
- Age UK Camden video created during the morning of the launch and live on twitter
Partners and VIPs
- Edwina Brockelsby – Founder of Silverfit and GSF supported athlete
Outcomes and Future events
- Next coffee morning is scheduled to take place Oasis Sports Centre on 14th March with support from Silverfit
- Discussion around expanding Silverfit’s offer in Camden
- Warm spaces offer at Kentish to continue every Tuesday 12:00-15:00
- GLL Camden Invitation to be a part of the Camden Older People Advisory Group (COPAG) – those to attend to be confirmed but representation from Camden management team and a member of the community sport team
BIG SWIM WEEKEND
We celebrated Big Swim Day at Kentish Town Sports Centre during our Swim for All sessions between 24th and 26 February. Big Swim Day was an opportunity for our customers and the local community to demonstrate their passion for swimming. It was Community Leisure UK’s campaign to celebrate swimming and pools and the importance of being able to access them at a time where half of the UK’s swimming pools are at risk of closure this year as a result of crippling energy costs. The Big Swim Day is the first essential part of the wider Community Leisure Save Our Pools Campaign, which they will continue to develop and raise awareness politically and through the media of the challenging landscape
This campaign was shared heavily on social media in the build up to the day and then over the weekend, where we continued to share CLUK’s messaging whilst also sending out some of our own. This included video footage of our own customers around the partnership sharing their love for swimming and sharing the physical, mental and social benefits that it has had on them. Our posts were repeatedly retweeted by Community Leisure, Swim England, and lots of local Camden organisations including our client, Camden Council. Across all social media channels, our posts created 5786 impressions and reached 3429 people which highlights the positive messaging used. The campaign was a success. We had over 950 visits over the weekend which means that 950 people came and showed us that swimming is an invaluable service. We also had a ‘goodie’ table at Kentish over the weekend where people could grab trolley coins, pens, lanyards and card wallets whilst chatting to our staff about the campaign. When customers came over to the table we made sure before they took any of the marketing collateral we spoke about the big swim weekend and why we were raising awareness of leisure centres.
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY INITIATIVES AND WOMEN ONLY PROGRAMME GROWTH
On Wednesday 22nd February, GLL Marketing team held a photo shoot at Oasis Sports Centre to embrace equity and celebrate women across the business and communities - women who make a difference every single day. The photos will be used to create a montage to celebrate the women in our community which will be displayed on our website, social media and in-centre screens. Those who could not attend the photo session were still able to participate by submitting their black and white photos. The photoshoot was attended by Camden’s community team and Oasis General Manager. We will be celebrating IWD next month by adding on additional WO sessions on the day and we have invited a couple of local organisations to come down to our centres to give information on their services and signpost women who attend the leisure centre on the day. In addition to this, the community team have been invited to a celebratory IWD Lunch with one of our valued partners where the topic is the Un_Biased project; a research piece looking into the barriers limiting women from reaching their full potential in the workplace.
In February we also began to grow the Women Only programme by introducing WO Swim Doctor sessions at Swiss Cottage on Saturdays. We previously didn’t have any learn-to-swim provision exclusive to women, something that has been in demand for some time. We were finally able to start this programme as a result of improved teaching staff levels.