CAMDEN COMMUNITY UPDATE - MARCH 2023
VISUALLY IMPAIRED OPEN DAY SUCCESS AT PANCRAS
On Saturday 11th March, the Camden Partnership held its first ever Visually Impaired Open Day at Pancras Square Leisure in partnership with London Sight Loss Council, Thomas Pocklington Trust and Illuminate Freedom. The event was aimed at people with visual impairments to learn about the accessibility of gyms and leisure centres. It was a great opportunity to help grow these users’ confidence with using local facilities and understand that fitness can and should be accessible to all. Sight Loss Council held a VI training session to educating staff on the different types of visual impairment through the use of modified glasses. We also learned about the correct language and physical gestures to use when interacting and working with blind and partially sighted people as well as what tools and resources to use.
The event began with a panel discussion followed by a question-and-answer session. Attendees were able to find out more on how to access leisure facilities and break down any barriers they may face. The panel consisted of Sue Robinson (Community Sport Manager for Camden), Adriana Duarte, (Community Sport Officer for Camden), Martin Symcox (Head of Sport and Leisure and Thomas Pocklington Trust) and Louise Dixon (Founder of Illuminate Freedom). We had some very insightful discussions around how to make leisure centres more accessible for people who are blind or partially sighted and learned about how we can break down the barriers for visually impaired people to access sport and physical activity.
This was followed by an accessible Zumba class with Louise Dixon and seated exercise with Adriana. There in the meantime, attendees were given an opportunity to do a ‘touch tour’ of the gym, learning about the equipment and accessibility features lead by Susana Valenzuela (Duty Manager, PSL) and Luke Blake (Assistant Manager, PSL). Some attendees then stayed for the accessible swim that started directly after the event.
Key Highlights:
- 17 blind or partially sighted attendees
- 2 attendees stayed for the accessible swim session
- Positive feedback for Camden centres “as a blind person, coming here is a dream”
- VI Training held by Sight Loss Council Volunteers educating staff on the different types of visual impairment through the use of modified glasses. We also learned about the correct language and physical gestures to use when approaching and speaking to a blind or partially sighted person through demonstrations.
- Wide range of food and drink available
- Goodie bags handed out to all participants consisting of stress balls, card wallets, lanyards and glasses cleaners.
INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY CELEBRATIONS
On Wednesday 8th March, the Camden Partnership celebrated International Women’s Day by adding additional WO sessions to the daily programme to increase awareness of the campaign. Customers taking part received goodie bags and local Camden organisations visited the centres to give information on their services and signpost visitors to local services.
In addition to this, the Camden Community Sports Manager and Swiss Cottage HF Supervisor attended a celebratory IWD Lunch with one of our valued partners, Central District Alliance, where the topic is the UnBiased project; a research piece looking into the barriers limiting women from reaching their full potential in the workplace.
Overall, IWD 2023 was a great opportunity to celebrate some of the amazing women in Camden who make a difference in each centre every single day and collectively make Camden such a strong partnership!
Key Highlights:
- Crossroads Women organisation at Kentish Town 11:30-13:30
- WO Aqua Aerobics at KT – 16 attendees
- WO HIIT at PSL – 8 attendees
- UnBiased research lunch which was also attended by Cllr Sabrina Francis and Department for Work and Pensions
Communications:
- Promotional material displayed in centres
- Social media posts across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn in the lead up to the day promoting the events and activities being held
- Website news story
- Social media posts on the day across all 3 main platforms celebrating the individual women working in Camden Leisure Centres
- Camden team featured and celebrated on the wider Better social media platforms with motivational comments.
OASIS COFFEE MORNING IN PARTNERSHIP WITH AGE UK CAMDEN
This year we have partnered with Age UK Camden to host and deliver monthly coffee mornings in our leisure centres throughout the borough. We are excited about this partnership and we hope these opportunities support with tackling social isolation, particularly at this difficult time. On Tuesday 14th March, we held the second coffee morning of the year, this time at Oasis Sports Centre. The event was a great opportunity to engage with our community of older people at Oasis, Oasis Together. Oasis Together are a group of older members at Oasis who came together after Covid to revive the Green gym at the back of the outdoor pool. This group provide a supportive network to each other where they celebrate each other’s birthday in the centre, take days out together and even support the centre with maintenance tasks!
PARTNERSHIP WITH MAMMA SWIMS
On Friday 21st March, we established a partnership with Mamma Swims at Oasis Sports Centre. Mamma Swim. Mamma Swim are a community of mums with 0 - 2s who meet up on the side of local swim spots and take turns looking after each other's babies to allow each other some precious time to swim. This community particularly enjoy outdoor swimming and already enjoy swimming at other Better locations including West Reservoir and London Fields Lido. We are excited to be starting this partnership in April, with the organisation coming one Friday every month to begin with. We do not generally have children (even less so, babies) attend Oasis due to its corporate location but cannot wait to welcome a new demographic that will for sure brighten up the centre as well as providing a space for local mums to have a support system and enjoy ‘me-time’ without having to stress about childcare arrangements.
SUPPORTING UNIVERSITY OF EAST LONDON
On Friday 21st March, the community team attended a recruitment fair at the University of East London in celebration of end of their Coaching Week. We spoke to many students who were looking for career opportunities in sport and leisure and was a great opportunity to discuss current vacancies in Camden as well as potential training opportunities such as the STA Award and the NPLQ. We were also able to promote the Graduate Trainee Manager Scheme was seemed popular with students due to its wide range of learning and mentoring opportunities.
QUEST ASSESSMENTS IN CAMDEN
In February, Kentish Town Sports Centre went through their 1-day Quest assessment and received a very solid score of Very Good. The team at Kentish demonstrated a strong passion for the centre with details planned in place as to how they want to improve the centre further with highlights in communities, people development and sustainable energy use. The assessor was impressed with the presentation of the centre, particularly the cleanliness and its high level of accessibility, as well as the wide array of community activities and the strong marketing and communications demonstrated on the website and social media pages. We are exceptionally proud that he Tackling Inequalities module received an Excellent mark for ‘Do’, ‘Measurement, Monitoring and Review’ and ‘Impact and Outcomes’.
Oasis Sports Centre also had their 1-day Quest Assessment on the 28th March so we look forward to receiving the result in the coming weeks.
PROPEL TRAINING WITH THE MASON FOUNDATION
On Wednesday 22nd March, The Mason Foundation held a training session at Pancras Square Leisure for GLL staff who also became the first London cohort of Propel Mentors. Propel was founded to support young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities into accessing meaningful employment. There are 1.5 million people in the UK registered with a learning disability, with only 5.1% of adults with a learning disability being in pain employment. Propel’s mission is to reverse this.
The training involved a series of interactive activities that helped identify the ‘pros’ of employing people with learning disabilities, as well as any ‘cons’ such as costs. Costs of implementing reasonable adjustments for disabled people can be covered by the Access to Work scheme, so cost of reasonable adjustments should not be barrier to employing disabled people. We learned how to break down the barriers people with learning disabilities experience in accessing employment and also once they are in employment. We also covered common misconceptions around employing disabled people as well as the benefits of business inclusivity. The training session also highlighted the importance making recruitment and applications processes more accessible and inclusive. This can be done by having easy-read applications, paper applications, text-to-speech, and so on. Inclusivity can also be achieved by expanding where we advertise our roles and aim to advertise our roles in places that disabled people are likely to see them.
The team was very excited about this training and were all committed to doing their bit in making GLL as inclusive as possible It is important for us as a business to be inclusive so that we can continue to effectively represent and serve our communities. We look forward to continuing to work The Mason Foundation and Propel People to implement plans and strategies to support people with learning disabilities into employment in leisure and enabling them to thrive in their roles with GLL.
#LOVESWIMMING CAMPAIGN
In March, we celebrated the #LoveSwimming campaign. More than 50% of adults feel too intimidated to learn to swim, a figure which is most common amongst men. Latest research by Swim England confirms a number of misconceptions regarding adult swimming lessons, including the belief that swimming lessons are just for children and the embarrassment of having to wear armbands. These damaging misconceptions result in many people missing out on the opportunity to learn a vital life skill.
The #LoveSwimming campaign has been launched in an effort to not only debunk the myths and the stigma around learning to swim, but also celebrating those who have taken a dive into swimming lessons in their adult life and how it has improved their confidence. In Camden we joined in on the social media campaign with regular testimonials posted on the benefits of learning to swim as an adult. In March we also launched adult swimming lessons at Pancras Square Leisure to supplement our adult swimming programmes already in place at Swiss Cottage and Kentish Town.
RAISING AWARENESS ACROSS CAMDEN
A wide range of initiatives and programmes were promoted on social media and retweeted by supporting partners and groups. Additional localised posters and leaflets were created to increase awareness of the IWD, school’s out Easter programme and Age UK coffee morning.
Many initiatives were shared with Camden coms team such as School’s Out brochure and featured on the council website. Centre news items were created to increase awareness of initiatives such as Sleep Awareness month, International Women’s Day and the #LoveSwimming campaign.. All items are tracked and saved monthly in the Camden coms tracker which highlights coverage each month and used for reports and updates as and when needed.