Behind the Scenes: February ‘24
For the shortest month of the year February packs quite a punch here at Atlantis. With a full programme of activities and events peppered with standalone community events, it’s been a whirlwind 29 days. Read on to find out what’s been happening at your community-run leisure centre as we shake off Winter and eye up Spring:
Community News – ‘making a difference beyond the Centre’
This month Atlantis launched a new paediatric first aid series. This was made possible by funding secured through Atlantis’ membership of Oban’s Connecting Communities Collective. The free to attend sessions have a specific focus on life-saving practices for babies experiencing a variety of emergency situations. Some of these include infant life support with CPR, infant choking and infant drowning. We’ve wanted to run these courses for a while so it’s fantastic to be able to offer them. Just one of the many ways the Connecting Communities Collective are impacting Oban for good.
Primary School Shinty – ‘raising the next generation’
Earlier in February Atlantis hosted an all-day shinty tournament featuring local primary schools. With teams competing across two age categories from Taynuilt, Bunessan, Tobermory, Kilmartin, Rockfield, Park and St Columba’s, the Sports Hall was a throng of players and supporters alike. The event is a feeder event, with victors progressing through to national final fixtures. Congratulations to Rockfield who won both categories and went on to compete at the national finals the following week. It’s so good to have events like this at Atlantis, it’s a great chance for us to partner with local clubs like Oban Camanachd and Oban Celtic who both provided referees for the event. Shinty is a rich part of our cultural heritage, we’re delighted to play a part in building its future.
Staff News – ‘the team behind the action’
As ever, our staff have been busy this past while! Atlantis supports the staff team throughout the year with continuous professional development and personal training programmes - February has been no different!
Rory Dowd began his Lawn Tennis Association Instructor Level 2 course. This is a very demanding course and is an immediate step up from the Level 1 course which Rory aced just last year.
Atlantis held an Early Years Swimming Course this month which was attended by Emma, Mandy, Kevin, Kirsty, Claire, Nikki, and Andrew. As part of our commitment to working with other similar facilities elsewhere in the country, the course was also attended by two coaches from Inverness, one of which was ex-member of staff Chris Campbell. This course focused on how to best prepare and deliver lessons to swimmers in our programme who are aged 5 years and younger.
The first group of staff took part in Fire Safety training, which included practising how to best use our fire extinguishers to put out a fire that was set up in our parking area. This is part of our continuous training for all our staff to make sure the centre is as safe as possible for our customers.
Winter Warmer – ‘making everyone welcome at Atlantis this winter’
This year’s Winter Warmer has seen a busy few months of activity as it sought to support those in greatest need in our local community during the coldest months. The project draws to a close in line with the terms of its funding after offering a range of activities, social sessions and events to provide community support, encouragement and resource. This year that included Healing Through Dance, cold water swimming introductory sessions, clothing repair workshops, health and nutrition talks, yoga, Artscapade, drop-in socials sessions and a whole bunch more. The project was made possible by funding from Community Led Local Development (CLLD) administered by Argyll and Bute Council. Without grant funding so much of the activity where we see lives transformed at Atlantis just wouldn’t be possible. It’s one of the reasons we have a dedicated Funding Subgroup who report to our volunteer Board of Trustees. The funding team has a programme of applications they pursue throughout the year. This work helps to deliver core activities as well as projects like the Winter Warmer.
Hannah Shaw | Out & About Project Coordinator
Out and About Project – ‘working with Adventure Oban to build local capacity’
Hannah Shaw started her new role as the Out and About Community Development Coordinator in the last month. Hannah has previously delivered our past two Winter Warmer projects with her new role seeing her take the reins of a new 3 year project in partnership with outdoor development charity Adventure Oban. The two charities are jointly employing Hannah who is Adventure Oban’s first full time worker, a really exciting time in the life of any charity! The 'Out and About' project will serve as a catalyst for increasing Atlantis and Adventure Oban's presence within the community, providing a programme of opportunities for individuals to get involved and participate. Hannah has had a busy month catching up with the many clubs, informal groups, schools and partners that both charities work with – listening and asking what help is required. We’ll keep you updated as the project develops.