Behind the Scenes: April ‘25
As the days grow longer and the sun starts to make a more regular appearance, April has seen plenty of activity both inside and outside the doors of Atlantis. From sporting triumphs to essential maintenance, here’s what’s been happening in your community-run leisure centre:
Community - ‘champions among us!’
We were thrilled to host the grand finale of the Interschool Athletics competition this month. This event does exactly ‘as it says on the tin’; where we welcome teams from feeder primary schools in the Oban area to the centre for a packed schedule of athletic competition. It was a high-energy event full of determination, great sportsmanship and some seriously impressive performances from all the schools involved. A huge congratulations to Park Primary School - this year’s champions! It was a brilliant day that once again saw Atlantis bringing our community together through sport and fun!
Centre Life - know your building’
April saw us continuing our behind-the-scenes programme to keep Atlantis operating safely and smoothly. Our gas heaters were serviced and, very satisfyingly, passed with flying colours. These kinds of checks are routine but vital, and we’re always glad when everything is in top condition. The heaters’ clean bill of health also has a positive bearing on our financial management. As part of our prudent stewardship of the Centre, we had been reserving resource for their replacement. This can now be redistributed and used for other pressing needs. Meanwhile, over on the tennis courts, our friends at Sportex carried out one of their regular tennis court revive sessions. This is a deep clean and maintenance sweep that ensures our surfaces are safe, clean, and game-ready. Whether you're a casual weekend player or a competitive regular, we take great pride in keeping our courts in top condition for you.
Events - ‘the season is just beginning’
We were delighted to welcome back the Highlands and Islands Music & Dance Festival earlier this month. The team have been coming to Atlantis for many years as part of their packed programme of competition throughout the town. This month, we hosted their one-day show. This is a lively event that brought together incredible talent and vibrant community spirit. If you missed it, don’t worry – the main two-day event is just around the corner in May. We can’t wait to host even more of the magic next time!
Healthy Options Update - growing together for our community’s health’
Our good friends over at Healthy Options have always had the primary focus of helping our community manage and improve its health and wellbeing. They’ve done this by striving to make accessing the right support at the right time as easy as possible. Throughout this journey, the need for Healthy Options has continued to grow, eventually exceeding the capacity of the charity’s existing workforce and financial resource. Back in January, this led to Healthy Options making the difficult decision to pause referrals to allow waiting lists to reduce and for the design of creative and sustainable solutions.
Happily, this few months pause now means that referrals are able to be reopened for GPs & other Health Professionals. These referrals see new participants enrolled in Healthy Options’ specialist 12- week programmes (Adapt & Thrive). But that’s not all! – we also have a very exciting update about a new partnership development between Healthy Options and Atlantis Leisure! Together, Healthy Options and Atlantis Leisure have invested in workforce, facilities, and service development to deliver a partnership programme enabling long term access to physical activity, health, and wellbeing sessions. The new partnership programme is called ‘Elevate & Stay Active’ and provides an open-ended health & wellbeing community for people who have minimal support needs.
You can find out more and discover links for self-referral by visiting either Healthy Options or our own website. For more information please visit lornhealthyoptions.co.uk or atlantisleisure.co.uk.
We’ll keep you updated as the project continues!