In Your Shoes - Kirsty Hunter

Healthy, Active and Creative planning

I like to get ready for the week ahead with a morning walk to recharge the batteries and start the day energised. I also need to stay fit to be able to enjoy an extremely strenuous route from the 2018 Angus Glens Walking Festival since colleagues from Countryside Adventure and Marketing are already in the planning phase for the event.

I’ve been working with the team as we prepare to send out ‘save the dates’ for Thursday 31 May – Sunday 3 June – note to self, I must order new boots to enable enough time to break them in!

A priority activity for today has been to review the contract with Legend our new management system partner. I work from home to mark-up the version on SharePoint with changes and questions to be updated or clarified before sign-off. Legend will provide an enhanced customer experience and better quality data to manage our business so the project team are enthusiastic about getting started on the implementation.

As I speak to Iain, Senior Manager for Business Management and Development, about the contract I’m delighted to see the e-postie has delivered me an invite to Kirsty Lorenz’s talk on Sat 7 October, 2-4pm - at ANGUSalive’s Meffan Museum & Art Gallery. I’m delighted to meet this new Scottish artist debuting at two of our gallery spaces – The Meffan and then showing at Montrose in November.

Hitting the capital.

I’m up early to catch the train to Edinburgh for the General Meeting of the national association of leisure and cultural trusts, Sporta UK. The event provides an excellent opportunity to network with Chief Executives from across the country to share ideas on best practice. A thought provoking speaker considers the repositioning of culture, leisure and sport over the next 10 years with a focus on the contribution we can make to the physical activity, health and wellbeing agenda.

On conclusion of the day there is a special meeting of the Sporta Scotland Executive Group, which I joined this year, to review some immediate challenges.  We agree our approach to address these challenges which will now be shared with the wider membership.

In preparation for the Board Development Day later this week I take the chance to finalise arrangements with the facilitator in person whilst I'm in the capital so it’s a late journey back north.

Travelling on the train has been a fantastic way to catch up on emails as there are no other distractions apart from the glorious autumn views. I guess the team know when I’m in transit!

Coaching sustainable partnerships.

After a lot of hard work by Kathleen, Saltire Sports Centre Manager, we’re about to enter into a new partnership agreement with a UK charity for the delivery of one of their programmes in Angus. The documents have been sent for electronic signature so I sit down to review the final details to confirm everything is as expected before our Chairperson approves the project.

I then took a call over lunch from our facility manager Derek at Carnoustie Sports Centre, who wanted to start a campaign to attract coaches to ANGUSalive in support of both our adult and junior timetables and coached activities. I gave my thoughts on how best to link in with our Marketing Officer, Suzanne including reaching out to our bACTVE members and mentioned that we should not be restricted by our current programme as we can introduce newer fitness classes such as the newly launched group weightlifting sessions for women and men.

The rest of the afternoon is spent with our Shared Services provider understanding the impact of their change programme on our organisation. Remember just in time to book into my regular spin class at Forfar Community Campus next Wednesday – well our vision is to inspire healthy, active and creative lifestyles!

#WeRock

At our fortnightly Senior Management Team catch up, we review the recent ANGUSRocks launch/ Brechin Community Campus free open day which saw over 400 attendees enjoy everything from climbing wall sessions to bouncy castle, gymnastics to swimming. We also analyse year to date performance of our bActive sport & leisure membership then looked ahead to our Christmas and January promotions. We wrap up with a note that our new activity timetables are live across Libraries, Sport & Leisure and Countryside Adventure.

I relocate from Head Office to work from the café area at our newest facility at Forfar Community Campus over lunch as I like to pop in ad-hoc to see the team and observe what’s happening on the front-line.  Quickly approve the Beauty & The Beast VIP invite, provide approval for some invoices and check the status of our What’s On guide for Oct – Mar which goes live tomorrow.

Next up this afternoon is the Board Development Session in the conference room of the Campus.  This provides an opportunity for our Trustees to get together and look at their long term strategy for ANGUSalive.  They are committed to a path of transformational change and the direction they set will help to inform the business plan for the next three years.

Getting the hike on!

This morning I started with a call to the Chief Executive of Keep Scotland Beautiful about Climate Change Reporting and a new partnership with a number of Trusts in Sporta Scotland.

I then have a meeting with our Marketing Officer, Suzanne and Sports Development Officer, Lisa who updated me on the communications plan for the ANGUSalive Sports Awards, which take place in March. They tell me nominations open 29 November and a new roadshow initiative is planned around some of our sports centres and Forbes of Kingennie, sponsors of the Coach of the Year award.

When I get home I plan to look at my diary and get tickets booked for Joe Lycett’s new stand up tour, coming to The Webster Memorial Theatre next September. This is the first of this type of event brought to our theatre by Doug, our new Arts & Events Programme Manager, as part of a wider ANGUSalive programme coming to you to enjoy throughout 2018.