Behind the Scenes: June ‘23
Summer in the West! – there really isn’t anywhere like it is there?! The good weather brings out the best in our wee town and that’s exactly the same up at Atlantis where there’s a spring in our step. Read on to find out some of what happened during another busy month at your community health and leisure centre:
Our latest Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) National Pool Lifeguard Qualified staff members - trained and assessed by our own Scott Anstruther (far right).
Holiday Camps - ‘summer’s here!’
Sun’s out – school’s out – camp’s in! We’re gearing up to another bumper run as our summer holiday camp programme gets underway later in the month when the school’s break up. We previously told you about the success of our Easter edition and are excited to welcome another cohort of young people to enjoy the fun and action (and hopefully continued good weather!). Our camps provide a safe and supportive environment for our young people to try out new activities and make friends. The camps form part of our transition activities for primary pupils moving up to the high school after the holidays. They sit alongside events like Summer Sensations which is on the horizon – providing a fun way to help young people make the leap from small outlying primary schools to the often daunting secondary school. Bring on the adventure!
Centre Life - ‘know your building’
Our planned maintenance programme continued this month - this time with our eyes on the ground as we renewed the Squash Centre ground level flooring. We replaced the well-used safety flooring with new material which perks up this area of the Centre and, importantly, refreshes the anti-slip, hygienic covering.
Elsewhere in the Centre, we’ve been completing lots of behind the scenes work that you really wouldn’t notice without us telling you! One job has been finishing the wiring of our new Building Management System. We spoke about this in a previous issue and have since extended the scope of this nifty piece of kit. The BMS is an important part of our sustainability programme for safeguarding the building’s future. It offers accurate and real-time monitoring of what is happening in the building at any given moment. This is particularly important in helping us manage our energy usage as we continue our investigations into additional renewable solutions.
Healthy Options – ‘news from your local community health charity’
Life has been as busy as ever over at Healthy Options as the team continue to deliver lifechanging work helping our community improve the quality and health of day-to-day life. The team recently welcomed Rachael Lockhart to their number. A well-known local who grew up in the town, Rachael will make a fantastic addition to Healthy Option’s work, helping across the board as they continue to meet the high demand for their services locally. Welcome Rachael!
Staff News - ‘the team behind the action’
This last while has been a very busy period for the staff team with lots of action and work. We bid a cheerio-for-the-summer to Craig MacCorquodale as he heads back out to Camp America. We look forward to welcoming him back come September. As one staff member heads off, another joins us! Kay Logan has joined the team after completing her Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) training with us last year. Kay will be with us for the summer before heading back to school to finish up 6th year – welcome back Kay!
On the training front, the team have been clocking up achievements and endorsements like never before! Lucy and Abi are both in the middle of their Level 1 Gymnastics coaching qualifications. This will be a huge boost to the current team once they complete, allowing athletics at Atlantis to grow and develop in the midst of ever-increasing demand. On poolside, we’re running a National Pool Lifeguard Qualification course for 8 candidates as part of our accreditation as an RLSS approved trainer. Our own Scott will be running the course after he qualified as a Trainer Assessor earlier in the year. Meanwhile, Julie and Rebekah have both had their RLSS NPLQ qualifications re-endorsed which qualifies them for another 2 years – well done to both!
These in-house training opportunities are a brilliant and cost-effective way of growing our staff team and increasing resource into the future.