INSIGHT & ANALYSIS
INSIGHT & ANALYSIS
Power and impact are hyper-local. If we work smarter at a local level, we will slowly turn the national policy tanker
Incidentally, active wellbeing is the term we need to get used to using. We can’t use ‘leisure’ – to a lot of people that’s 10-pin bowling and eating out – and ‘fitness’ can sometimes feel divisive. What we do is active wellbeing, using activity to positively impact the physical and mental health of individuals and communities. And here’s the crucial point: active wellbeing doesn’t need to be part of healthcare. We don’t have to change who we are and call ourselves ‘health’. We don’t have to become clinical exercise physiologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists. Our role is to be a partner: an essential, expert, specialist support service provider that offers an overwhelmed healthcare sector simple, easy, local solutions that help prevent so many people needing it in the first place. How do we make this a reality? One of the biggest challenges is public perception, and the fact that how and where people see and feel they can engage with our sector inevitably shapes their thinking. We need to better showcase all the opportunities for people to get active, and the diverse range of provision that’s available, so those who don’t feel they want to attend a leisure centre or gym can be introduced to activity they feel more comfortable with.
We also need to be more proactive, not simply waiting for the call to come to ask for our help; there are already some great examples around the UK, from GM Active to Abbeycroft Leisure and more. Probably more than any other sector, we have the insight and data that backs up our purpose, and with so many challenges in the health sector, there are huge opportunities for us to seize by showing more people the impact of the great work that’s happening. We also need to take a local approach, and this is the change I’ve begun to see in our sector. We are now place-based. Large national operators are tailoring their provision on a regional, county and town-by-town basis, delivering what that locality and community needs now and into the future. We still need central government to get it, but power and impact are hyper-local. If we work smarter at a local level, if we focus on the individual communities we’re responsible for helping, we’ll become greater than the sum of our parts and will slowly turn the national policy tanker. That’s where local partnerships and collaborations – such as those we’re seeing through Local Skills Accountability Boards – are so important. They’re making stronger connections between our sector, local authorities, health
Local authorities, trusts and management contractors are making active wellbeing their fundamental purpose, says Dillon
TARA DILLON
COVID forced the sector to mature, but there’s still work to do to fulfil our potential, starting with hyper-localised collaboration. The CEO of CIMSPA shares her thoughts.
New audiences will come if they see gyms as places of rehab and therapy
What are you seeing in the sector? Coming out of COVID, I observed a lot of soul-searching, not only in our sector but in many. In our case, I believe it’s created a sector that is responsibly revisiting its purpose and impact. For a long time, we’ve thought about and discussed what we want and need our sector to be, but we’ve sometimes struggled to translate that into scalable action. We were already discussing a pivot to health when I joined the sector in 1987, yet we’ve become stuck with certain demographics and communities failing to engage, and we’ve found it challenging to address that.
COVID forced us to think differently and take a more mature approach. We’ve recognised the need to not holler into our own echo chamber about what we should be doing, but to describe what we do more expertly and sagely, being much clearer in our identity and our purpose, not only to those within the sector but perhaps more importantly, to those beyond it. That is now happening. The local authorities, trusts and management contractors aren’t just talking about a pivot any more: they’re making active wellbeing their fundamental purpose. And on a local level, allied professionals and those managing and operating services outside of the sector are hearing it.
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STATE OF THE UK FITNESS INDUSTRY REPORT 2024
STATE OF THE UK FITNESS INDUSTRY REPORT 2024
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