Behind the Scenes: January ‘25
It might get a bad rap but January isn’t all bad! – as we cruise towards the end of this first month of the year we look back on an action-packed time with lots of events and community activity. Read on to find out where the time has gone over the last month down at your community-run leisure centre:
Centre Life – ‘know your building’
We must’ve missed the memo that told us January is all about hibernation because we’ve been as busy as ever with maintenance and improvements around the building. Unfortunately, that means good news and bad news. Part of our stewardship of this facility involves investing in the ongoing upgrade of our building and plant. As part of our regular monitoring of the facility we identified that significant works are required to upgrade some of the oldest parts of our pool plant. It’s a significant project and will involve a period of pool closure to complete safely. For now, we’re working up the specifics of what that looks like - we’ll of course keep you in the loop as more becomes clear.
This month we finished a project to create a new Assessment Room over in the Health and Wellbeing Zone. The new space is much needed and has been welcomed with lots of bookings for physio, assessments and massage. This is on top of the huge difference it will make for our friends over at Healthy Options.
Swimming – ‘Gala gang!’
We’re looking back on December and January in this issue which means telling you all about some of the many Christmas activities our local clubs and groups put on over the festive period. That includes the team over at Otters with their annual Gala rounding out a very busy year of activity for the swimmers. This year’s Gala was another huge success with all Otters swimming groups taking part. The Gala is a brilliant way to close out the year with a wee bit of healthy competition and a HUGE bit of fun!
Events Programme – ‘…feel that ‘Atlantis buzz’…’
It wasn’t just Otters laying on the events extraordinaire – the Badminton club have had a very busy time of it too. The club held a weekend of both Junior and Adult competitions which filled the Centre. This made for a fantastic programme of competition with players of all abilities joining from across the region. It’s another indication of the sport’s health in our area on top of the Club enjoying enthusiastic support for their weekly club nights and competition play.
Keeping your court shoes on but switching sports, local football and volleyball clubs have all been kicking up a storm lately too. We hosted end-of-year events for several local clubs including Lochnell and David Smith Football as well as Oban Volleyball Club. Group sporting events like footie and volleyball always make for a fantastic atmosphere around the Centre so it was a delight to continue our partnership with these clubs in addition to our regular rhythm together throughout the year.
Jumping over to the Squash Centre, Oban Tennis & Squash Club took a breather and held a film show for wee folks and a quiz night for not-so-wee folks. We love this kind of activity and the way it reminds us that whilst we love our sport and activity, we also love chances to come together as community and enjoy some social time too.
Staff News – ‘the team behind the action’
Our staff team have got right back down to business looking after your community health and leisure centre after the festive break. Training has been the big news story this month with all our duty managers taking part in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and Sexual Harassment training. This paves the way for the rest of the staff team who will undertake the same training as part of their extensive annual training programmes. Whilst a significant expense, we see training as a vital part of our investment in the community; increasing our collective understanding and awareness of important issues whilst upskilling the local workforce for the future.