Birtley Community Pool Newsletter

Birtley Community Pool Newsletter – July 2024

Work at the pool is progressing to plan for a September reopening

Work started at the pool on 3rd June as Quora, a well-established local engineering business, commenced work on replacing the existing boilers, water heater, storage tanks and ancillary assets at the pool with new, more efficient and reliable equipment. By the end of June most of the new assets have been installed, the system is full of water and the upgrade to the building management system has also been done.

Last week, another local business called McClaughlin Groundworks resurfaced the middle section of the car park and applied new lines on the car park bays.

Further work is planned in July to install new signage, security doors and mesh grills on the windows, WiFi and Broadband. Work will also begin to replace the existing interior lighting with more energy efficient LED lighting. In August the water slide will be repaired and refurbished ready for us opening.

Fundraising update

During June we received a donation of £3,000 from the Barbour Foundation and £100 from a local Indian restaurant, Jewel in the Crown. Many thanks for these generous donations. We have also submitted funding applications to the National Community Lottery Fund, Moto and Arnold Clark.

We have deferred the launch of our Crowdfunding application as we wait to hear from Sport England on their contribution to our Campaign.

Recruitment progress

We have appointed our Senior Operations Manager who started with us on 8th July.

Our 2 Duty Managers have been appointed and will start with us at the beginning of August. Both come with experience in the leisure sector and will be an asset to the team.

Our Business Support Officer will be starting on 22nd July. They have an excellent background in IT and customer facing roles; they will be a significant help to us as we look to open the centre and ramp up our publicity.

Finally, we have appointed 7 leisure attendants whose start dates are to be confirmed and will be covering shifts on a part time and casual basis. We will be advertising again shortly for the full time leisure attendants roles within the centre.

Drop-in sessions during 2024 at Birtley Library

We continue to hold our monthly drop-in sessions at Birtley Library from 10.30am-12pm this is your opportunity to call in and speak with some of the trustees who will be available to answer questions and listen to any ideas you may have about the pool. You don’t need to stay for the full hour and a half, it’s fine to just drop in for a few minutes on any of the following Saturday mornings:

Saturday 13th July

Saturday 10th August

If you would like to contact us with your ideas or questions, please email us on: birtley.aquatic@gmail.com

On behalf of the Birtley Community Aquatic Centre CIO trustee board

Yvonne Probert: Chair Matthew Grant: Treasurer