Our strategic business partners are recruited for the value they bring to GM Active and our member organisations, as well as their commitment to helping us achieve our vision – to help people across Greater Manchester live healthy, happy, and longer lives.
Each business partner has its own niche role in our collective vision and mission, and we are always grateful for their valuable input!
This year we welcome five new strategic business partners, who are joining our three existing partners:
Innerva provides power-assisted technology for the leisure industry, a wellbeing solution for older adults, people with long term health conditions and harder to reach communities.
Leisure centres attract hundreds of new members by providing a safe and effective leisure/active wellbeing opportunity for underserved communities and a non-threatening entry point for reluctant exercisers which complements existing health, fitness & leisure activities.
The Innerva solution offers a socially vibrant environment where users can pursue their health objectives, supporting older populations to become and stay more active and helping users retain their independence as they age.
Innerva’s extensive range of power-assisted machines are ideal for:
Innerva have recently launched a ‘brand in a box’ solution for operators supporting them to install the complete older adult wellbeing solution. The Innerva solution provides measurable contributions to local authority health and wellbeing strategies. This is important for council-run centres and provides a competitive edge for leisure trusts bidding to run local authority centres.
Gladstone Software provides cloud-based leisure management software to leisure centres, universities and health clubs across the UK and Ireland, with everything they need to attract, retain and manage members. More than 500 health and leisure operators enjoy the benefits of Gladstone’s leisure management software, with over 40,000 users and 8m members relying on the software 24/7 for joining, booking and payments. The reporting solution also facilitates advanced reporting and analytics for operators to dive deeper into their data.
Gladstone’s products include:
Berkeley Insurance Group are part of the Brown & Brown team, who are one of the world’s largest insurance and risk advisers. Being part of Brown & Brown gives us access to enhanced insurance products, strong insurer relationships, risk management resources and the expertise of over 1,500 insurance professionals in the UK and more than 14,000 worldwide.
We can advise on all aspects of insurance cover that will protect your assets, liabilities, trustees, volunteers, supporters, participants and activities against the risks your Trust will face on a daily basis. We can provide cover for single leisure centres or multiple locations, from 5 staff to a workforce of 500 employees and more, revenues from £50,000 to £250m.
We provide our service and specialist sector knowledge to Leisure Trusts of all sizes. If you offer zip wiring, have gorge walkers navigating a rocky stream, or perhaps it’s more regular activities like badminton or swimming, these all carry a risk of potential claims and it’s important for you to have the right level of protection in place if something goes wrong.
We also understand that from time to time things change and you may want to add new activities, our policies are flexible and can adapt to almost any change you advise us of. We work with a wide range of and the products we offer are adapted to your Trust’s individual requirements. We can also support with tailored risk management and claims defensibility workshops that are informative, punchy and engaging, but with important messages delivered.Of course, we appreciate that you buy insurance to help when things go wrong and that is why, as well as providing specialist advice and experience placing insurance, we make our claims service one of our priorities to ensure we deliver assistance when you need it most. We allocate an experienced Claims Handler to manage your claim from the moment of reporting, with regular updates provided, right through to settlement. Your Account Manager will also provide you with reliable claims data during the year on how your loss experience is looking to target risk management where it might be needed and to help ensure there are no surprises at renewal.
By giving you access to people who can make decisions, we are able to respond quickly to our clients’ changing insurance needs and make the most of opportunities. We (do you need ‘can’) focus on the longer term, improving our service and making our relationships stronger. Over the years, we have invested in our people and focussed on attracting quality individuals and retaining talent in our business.
All of this ensures we provide you with the right insurance at the right price – backed up with a great service.
Find out more about our Strategic Business Partners
Future Fit for Business
Future Fit for Business is the UK’s most trusted name in the provision of learning and development services.
They currently work with a number of employer partners in both the public and private sector, helping them to develop and empower their workforces.
Their aim is to empower workforces to deliver positive impacts to their wider communities through the provision of bespoke world-class learning and development solutions.
Cornerstone Design & Marketing
Cornerstone Design and Marketing is a full service agency with extensive leisure, health and pharmaceutical industry experience.
We have been a trusted and reputable marketing agency partner to the leisure industry for many years.
We work alongside a growing number of leisure trusts and fitness providers, developing strong, results-driven marketing strategies which allow our clients to compete with national competitors at a local or regional level.
We focus on meaningful engagement with audiences which is devised not only to increase membership but also aimed at that all-important member retention and long-term loyalty.
Leisure is a sector we’ve matured with as an agency and, essentially, it’s one that we truly value for the hugely significant role it plays in our communities and society as a whole.
Commercially conscious, we’re equally connected to communities and health outcomes, carefully balancing the two to help with the delivery of healthier, more active and fulfilling audience lifestyles while simultaneously achieving healthier business outcomes and stability for clients.
We’re an ethical, highly reputable, agency with a multi-discipline team – growing at around 30% YOY – offering expertise and creativity within the fileds of:
- Marketing strategy
- Graphic design
- Digital
- PR
- Web development
- Print production.
These services are key to implementing a comprehensive and well-considered marketing and communications strategy or campaign and we synchronise all or a selection of those disciplines depending on the brief.
Our achievements aren’t just honed from experience and insight. Cornerstone is built around outstanding results, recommendations and much-valued good relationships – achievements we’re very, very proud of.
We specialise in results-driven B2B and B2C campaigns and marketing support for clients and we have an excellent track record in providing transformational strategic marketing and creative campaign expertise to our portfolio of regional and national organisations.
Technogym
Founded in 1983, Technogym is a world leader brand in fitness, wellness, sport and health. Technogym provides a complete Ecosystem made of connected smart fitness equipment, digital services and training contents for both professional and home use. Thanks to the open Mywellness CRM Platform people can connect to their personal training experience anywhere, both on Technogym equipment and mobile devices. Operators can engage and interact with users anywhere, improving the customer journey, business efficiency and results by gaining a holistic understanding of individual needs, interests, habits and human performance.
With over 2,500 employees Technogym is present in over 100 countries. More than 85,000 Wellness centers and 400,000 private homes in the world are equipped with Technogym. Technogym has been appointed Official Supplier to the Paris 2024 Olympics for the ninth time, after Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, Turin 2006, Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016, Pyeongchang 2018 and Tokyo 2020.
Technogym’s end-to-end wellness solution includes consultation, training and certification, marketing support, interior design, installation and maintenance, technical support, warranty and service contracts, and financial solutions.
Shocking impact of cost-of-living crisis on foodbank users revealed
Demand for non-perishable products by people using foodbanks is on the increase as they switch off their fridges and freezers due to the cost-of-living crisis and spiralling energy prices.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham made the remark at a graduation ceremony for graduates of our Transformational Leaders Programme, designed to help them transition from being ‘fitness and facilities’ managers to the vanguard of public health and wellbeing.
Mr Burnham told our two cohorts of graduates they had a key part to play in reaching out to communities where the crisis was so bad foodbank users were only seeking store cupboard foods such as dried pasta and tinned foods.
Mr Burnham said: “This is a huge community challenge for areas of Greater Manchester. Helping people to be active and supporting their wellbeing will be key to helping families and individuals to cope throughout this crisis.”
We want to inspire the region’s community leisure workforce to offer new ways of helping people across Greater Manchester live healthy, happy and fulfilled lives. Our programme has been created to empower our member-organisations’ staff to play a greater role in developing new wellness services and innovative, cross-sectoral responses to current and emerging population health needs.
Our programme will cover key topics that will help staff understand their role within the wider ecosystem and look at wellness, NHS and social care systems with a view to identifying more collaborative ways of working with other professionals and community groups.
He called for closer links with GPs to generate exercise on prescription and social interventions, which would only ‘be taking money away from pharmaceutical companies, nobody else’ – his comments chiming with our ‘We Move as One’ strategy that seeks to encourage active lives, reduce health inequalities, and support those who need our help the most.
He also warned the impacts of the crisis threatened a ‘mental health pandemic’: “We must do more to promote physical activity linked to mental health, helping to lift the mood of individuals and communities,” he added.
We held the graduation ceremony at the Double Tree by Hilton in Manchester, where Mr Burnham also spoke about our award-winning Prehab4Cancer (P4C) programme, which recently won the Best Not for Profit Working in Partnership with the NHS award from the Health Service Journal, held in high esteem within the NHS for its focus on healthcare excellence.
P4C facilitates cancer patients to engage in exercise, nutrition, and wellbeing assessments and interventions before, during and after treatment. Since its inception in 2019, P4C has supported 3,500 patients in Greater Manchester in preparing for the physiological challenges of cancer treatments.
Mr Burnham referred to P4C as ‘mission critical’ with an opportunity to evolve the programme to support other long term health conditions and life-threatening disease.
Indeed, our strategy now is to extend the prehabilitation principle to more cancers, with a 10-year ambition to be treating up to 10,000 patients a year, and a workforce of approximately 80 exercise professionals with specialist knowledge to support them.
P4C Programme Manager, Kirsty Rowlinson-Groves told the said: “We want to be able to offer a prehab service to anyone in Greater Manchester who is diagnosed with cancer. We want to be embedded within all cancer pathways and ensure all patients have access to the programme. This will come with the use of the data we are collecting to build an evidence base and a case for further long term, sustainable funding.”
Our Transformational Leaders Programme is committed to the promotion of co-working between physical activity and clinical healthcare providers.
It is supported by GreaterSport and made possible with investment from the National Lottery, through the local pilot in Greater Manchester with Sport England. The programme has been designed and delivered in partnership with the training provider Future Fit Training, a learning and development organisation with more than 30 years of experience.
Our Chair, Andy King, said: “It is vital that staff across the community leisure sector understand much more about the wider community we serve and how we can better play our part in improving health and wellbeing services for everyone across Greater Manchester.”
The programme covers the principles of leadership, creating culture, understanding today’s leisure and wellness sector including key agendas, services, and organisations; whole system thinking, health inequalities, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and leading for renewal.
Elaine Briggs, Chief Education and Partnership Officer at Future Fit Training, said: “We believe this training is vital to ensure that we are creating leaders of the future who understand how they can influence change in their own communities and create a joined-up approach to health and wellness, while motivating their teams through dynamic and passionate leadership.”
Find out more about our Transformational Leadership Programme
International recognition for Prehab4Cancer
Demand for non-perishable products by people using foodbanks is on the increase as they switch off their fridges and freezers due to the cost-of-living crisis and spiralling energy prices.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham made the remark at a graduation ceremony for graduates of our Transformational Leaders Programme, designed to help them transition from being ‘fitness and facilities’ managers to the vanguard of public health and wellbeing.
Mr Burnham told our two cohorts of graduates they had a key part to play in reaching out to communities where the crisis was so bad foodbank users were only seeking store cupboard foods such as dried pasta and tinned foods.
Mr Burnham said: “This is a huge community challenge for areas of Greater Manchester. Helping people to be active and supporting their wellbeing will be key to helping families and individuals to cope throughout this crisis.”
We want to inspire the region’s community leisure workforce to offer new ways of helping people across Greater Manchester live healthy, happy and fulfilled lives. Our programme has been created to empower our member-organisations’ staff to play a greater role in developing new wellness services and innovative, cross-sectoral responses to current and emerging population health needs.
Our programme will cover key topics that will help staff understand their role within the wider ecosystem and look at wellness, NHS and social care systems with a view to identifying more collaborative ways of working with other professionals and community groups.
Dr Moore, who is based at the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, also revealed P4C is the largest prehab programme in the world and added: “I can assure you it’s only going to get bigger. The more patients we have the more evidence we gather. To me, the one main outcome (of P4C) is quality of life, how our patients return to normal life. It’s simple but it’s science based.”
Our AHP Clinical Lead, Dr Zoe Merchant, added: “Ultimately, what we are trying to do is support people to be themselves, not be cancer patients. You come along to the local gym and you see Joan from down the road and you’re a normal person in the gym. Yes, you’re having cancer treatment but then you can come out of it and go back to the gym. That’s another reason doing it [P4C] in the community is very important.
“It’s not just about the scientific approach, it’s about what we must do from an exercise perspective, it’s about normalisation and encouraging people that once they’ve finished [treatment] they can get back to their lives.
“From a mental health perspective, even though there’s a lot more we can do in terms of providing psychological and mental health support, we often get told how well supported people feel coming off the programme in comparison to people who, unfortunately, haven’t had that opportunity. That’s just as important as the exercise side of the programme.”
Quantitative and qualitative evaluation results
The P4C programme is offered to patients with lung, colorectal (bowel) and oesophago-gastric (often referred to as upper GI) cancers.
We were delighted when independent research led to recurrent funding for our Greater Manchester scheme. It found that P4C hospital patients were able to be discharged home sooner and enjoyed a better recovery.
Headline results for colorectal patients included:
- Prehab patients on average spent 36 hours less time in hospital
- Prehab patients on average spent 10 hours less in hospital critical care
- The shorter hospital stays ‘released’ 550 ward beds days and 146 critical care bed days, resulting in increased capacity and patient flow.
- Bed days ‘released’ from 1,000 colorectal prehab patients enables 179 additional patients to access timely surgery.
- Bed days ‘released’ per prehab patient cover the costs involved in setting up and delivering P4C for a year.
- Patients experienced fewer post-operative complications and enjoyed a better recovery when assessed against four efficacy benchmarks: the commonly used six-minute walk test to measure aerobic capacity and endurance; the World Health Organisation Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS); the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) and the descriptive system for health-related quality of life, known as EQ5D.
‘We need to reach more cancer pathways’
The strategy now is to extend the prehabilitation principle to more cancers, with a 10-year ambition to be treating up to 10,000 patients a year. This could grow the workforce up to 40 Level 3 exercise instructors and 40 Level 4 exercise specialists
P4C Programme Manager, Kirsty Rowlinson-Groves told the celebration: “We want to be able to offer a prehab service to anyone in Greater Manchester who is diagnosed with cancer. We want to be embedded within all cancer pathways and ensure all patients have access to the programme. This will come with the use of the data we are collecting to build an evidence base and a case for further long term, sustainable funding.”
Kirsty’s comments echo those of Greater Manchester city-region Mayor Andy Burnham. Speaking at a graduation ceremony for our Transformational Leadership Programme, he described P4C as ‘mission critical’ and called for us to extend the programme to more illnesses.
And our former chair, Pete Burt, added his voice to the aspiration to reach more cancer patients. Speaking at the HSJ award celebration, he said: “P4C is a great example of what can be achieved, and it carries on growing and growing. It doesn’t stop here; we’ll reach other conditions and illnesses that patients have.
“There’s so many people talking about how important physical activity is for everybody’s health and wellbeing. What you can actually see when you put into practice and put into practice well, is that it works, and it works at scale. Trying to do things at scale is very important – this is change in a big way.
“I’d like to see every single person become an evangelist for physical activity, evangelists for the work we do as a leisure sector because I’ve been to many conferences and physical activity is a magic pill, it’s a wonder drug and it’s this and it’s that and the other, but proving it, getting the wider population to buy into that is enormously difficult.”
Deputy Programme Manager, Jack Murphy, shared an anecdote with the gathering that put P4C’s impact into perspective. He said: “I was with some patients when one of them said, ‘I’m 72 and I’ve never been in a bloody gym in my life, but I love it and I’m never going to stop!’
“That’s what this programme is doing – it’s changing people’s lives forever.”
Co-designed and recurrently funded
Our P4C programme is a co-designed transformation programme between GM Active and GM Cancer Alliance. What began as a test project in 2019 has now secured its future following the independent evaluation report.
Our Chair, Andy King, says: “This programme is designed to empower patients to take an active role in their cancer care. It prepares patients for the treatments and surgeries and aims to provide positive outcomes for patients during recovery and beyond.”
P4C team celebration – Dr John Moore is pictured third left, while Kirsty Rowlinson-Groves is pictured sixth right holding the HSJ award next to Dr Zoe Merchant (fifth right). Jack Murphy is pictured centre in the white shirt.
Our new ‘We Move As One’ Strategy
Encouraging active lives, reducing health inequalities and supporting those who need our help the most underpin our new ‘We Move As One’ strategy
Encouraging active lives, reducing health inequalities and supporting those who need our help the most are central to our new strategy entitled ‘We Move As One’.
As a collective of 12 leisure and community organisations across Greater Manchester, we are all part of the same movement – to inspire and encourage more people to become physically active and to improve the health and wellbeing of our communities across Greater Manchester.
Andy King, Chair of GM Active, says: “Our shared approach gives us real opportunity to bring about change. We are a unique combination of organisations and people – pioneers in the leisure sector. By collaborating, we have a greater ‘real life’ impact for the people of Greater Manchester.
“Working in response to the GM Moving in Action strategy, we have created a new ‘We Move As One’ strategy, which will underpin our current success with greater strategic direction and commercial sustainability.”
Our purpose is to help people across Greater Manchester live healthy, happy, and longer lives and our strategy details four main aims:
- Encourage active lives for all and help to reduce health inequalities
- Support and drive effective system wide collaboration with key partners across Greater Manchester.
- Strengthen our resilience to ensure long-term sustainability.
- Embed environmental sustainability and support the region’s ambition to be carbon-neutral by 2038.
Andy adds: “A whole system approach working together across Greater Manchester had successfully reduced inactivity at two and a half times the national rate. We were proud of what the people of Manchester had achieved but then, devastatingly, the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
“The latest Active Lives data for adults, from May 2020 to May 2021, shows that the proportion of adults moving for at least 30 minutes a week in Greater Manchester has decreased by 2.4%. That means there are 48,300 more people across the region who are inactive compared to the previous 12 months.
“The pandemic has caused untold damage in Greater Manchester’s communities, exacerbating already-entrenched health inequalities. The importance of, and emphasis on, population-wide health and wellbeing has never been more pertinent, and our community-level leisure facilities, supporting those who need our help the most, are integral to the region’s recovery.
“COVID-19 has given us time to rethink the opportunities available to help our different communities live more active lives and to truly value the importance of mental health. Although the pandemic has knocked us, it’s our chance to work differently and come back even stronger.”
Our Strategy Video
Chris Turner, our Head of Business Operations, says: “Our strategy offers clear direction and innovative, sustainable solutions to local, regional and national agendas. We can provide solutions, leadership and partnership for multiple programmes and stakeholders – for NHS funders, grant providers, larger organisations with funding for localised schemes, local authorities, GP practices and health leaders.
“We are actively seeking new partners, opportunities for collaboration and innovative ways of working. We can’t do this alone. If our plans, purpose and intent chime with you, please do connect with us and be part of our transformational movement.”
Our ambition to encourage active lives and to help reduce health inequalities across the Greater Manchester city-region are regularly documented on this website and you will find full details of the ‘We Move As One’ strategy here.
We think you’ll be interested in…
Our impact on GM communities
News | 28/03/2022
Highlighting the scope, scale & sometimes unique responses GM Active member organisations have made towards the pandemic…
Read morePrehab4Cancer Scheme Expands
News | 09/02/2022
Delighted to announce Prehab4Cancer cancer prehabilitation and recovery programme receives a royal visit and expands into Mid and East Cheshire.
Read more
Our Strategic Business Partners 2022
News | 24/01/2022
We are delighted to announce our 12 new GM Active Strategic Business Partners aligned to our new strategy!
Read more
Our impact on GM communities
Highlighting the scope, scale and sometimes unique responses GM Active member organisations have made towards the Covid-19 pandemic
Any notions of putting the pandemic behind us were stopped in their tracks when the Omicron variant reared its ugly head.
The uncertainty that first emerged was reminiscent of the early signals that led to the lockdowns that brought everyday life to a standstill. Thankfully, that worst case scenario did not become reality, but rest assured if it had, our collective of 12 leisure and community organisations across Greater Manchester would have been prepared.
Members of our collective all share the same vision – to inspire and support more people to become physically active to improve their health and wellbeing – whether circumstances allow for normal activity, or whether we have to go the extra mile to reach, support and encourage every pocket of the communities we serve to maintain our vision.
Here, we look at how the GM Active collective responded in those unprecedented times…
Helping, supporting, encouraging…
While no means exhaustive, here is a glimpse of what GM Active’s member organisations have achieved during the pandemic. Collectively, we have:
- Supported local and national Covid-19 responses by repurposing our facilities for community testing, vaccinations and booster roll-out, as well as redeploying staff to help and support their communities, forging new partnerships along the way.
- Supported and encouraged people to stay physically active by adapting their offers, providing online and outdoor sessions, physical activity packs, donating equipment and supporting people with long-term conditions.
- Supported and encouraged mental health and wellbeing initiatives.
- Provided community support by getting involved in food distribution and tackling holiday hunger, providing holiday clubs and supporting groups most in need.
Helping both ends of the age scale
Our member organisations deliver in all sorts of different ways and we wanted to share some of their achievements to illustrate their scope, scale and in the case of one programme in Wigan, the unique nature of the work our collective carries out.
Be Well Wigan, as part of Wigan Council, is committed to ensuring a person-centred approach, providing residents and communities with the opportunity and support to lead healthy lives, through an extensive and accessible health and wellbeing offer.
Its Care to Move programme launched virtual bike rides in to 52 care homes, using portable pedals and immersive footage of local bike rides.
Over the last year, pedals, powered using hands or feet, has seen residents cycling along to immersive video footage of familiar Wigan borough settings. Staff headed out on their bikes to film popular bike routes around the borough and target places familiar to those in the care homes. As the residents’ pedal, they recognise and discuss their surroundings, often recalling memories from particular locations.
Over 100 pedals have gone out to care homes and 300 thave gone to people living in the community via the council’s existing programmes where activities were put on hold due to centre closures, Reablement, Supported Living Services and people identified by community hubs.
Falls cost the borough £10million per year so by reducing the risk of falls in homes through increasing physical activity it stands to improve quality of life and contribute a significant reduction in cost to the wider health and social care system thanks to the residents’ improved strength and fitness.
At the other end of the age scale, Salford Community Leisure’s Music and Performing Arts Service (MAPAS) delivered online classroom music lessons to more than 740 primary school children so they could continue their musical education even when they weren’t in school. It also set up one-to-one instrument lessons for more than 200 young people.
52
Care Homes had virtual bike rides with ‘Pedals’300
‘Pedals’ machines handed out to the communities740
Children provided with online music sessions200
Young people given one-to-one online music lessons
A Merry (Virtual) Christmas
At Christmas 2020, 61 members of the MAPAS Arts Centre submitted performance videos to create its first ever virtual festive celebration.
Your Trust (formally Link4Life) in Rochdale also took steps to provide seasonal entertainment while Middleton Arena’s auditorium was closed by Covid restrictions. With the much-loved annual pantomime not able to be staged in person, the events team, in conjunction with Shone Productions, put together an all-singing, all-dancing digital recording of a Christmas Spectacular for ticket buyers to enjoy in their own homes.
In Manchester, GLL, operating on behalf of MCRactive, which manages the city council’s world-class National and Regional Sports Centres of Excellence and community leisure facilities, worked to deliver activity at Christmas 2020 and Easter 2021 while national lockdowns were in place.
The activity was targeted at young people who were eligible for free school meals. Fun, engaging activities as well as a meal were provided and this provision has continued and grown throughout the subsequent holidays as part of the Holiday Activity Fund. Active Tameside, meanwhile, provided holiday camps for 7,200 children of key workers, while its coaches delivered covid-secure PE and holiday sessions to numerous local schools.
In response to the issue of ‘holiday hunger’ experienced by many families in receipt of free school meals, Your Trust in Rochdale worked closely with early help services, schools and local voluntary groups to deliver the ‘Fit and Fed’ programme throughout the borough.
In Wigan, 32,275 food parcels and/or meals have been provided by the council, community groups and food banks.
Oldham Community Leisure (OCL) initially donated all the food from its vending machines to the local foodbank. But as the pandemic ramped up it was decided to transform Oldham Leisure Centre into a distribution centre for Oldham Foodbank, with supplies piled up in its sports hall.
It also provided hot meals to the homeless and vulnerable in partnership with Oldham Street Angels. Members of OCL collected raw food ingredients, whilst Oldham Leisure Centre cooks prepared wholesome and filling meals for the Street Angels to distribute.
And in Wythenshawe, the Forum’s hall was used for a short term to allow people to provide food parcels for vulnerable groups within the community.
Mental Health and Wellbeing
In Rochdale, #Thrive was set up for children and young people aged up to 19 years experiencing emotional health and wellbeing issues such as feeling stressed, worried or not enjoying things.
In partnership with Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust and Youth In Mind, during the pandemic the team worked with an additional 1,859 young people alongside those already in the service. Support included initial consultations, and face-to-face wellbeing calls, as well as providing advice and support to parents, carers and anyone that works with a child or young person.
Meanwhile, MCRactive has been promoting daily messages of support, inspiration and guidance alongside Covid-19 updates across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, with an initial focus on supporting Be Active at Home. This resulted in a 20 per cent (and still rising) increase in engagement that helped to grow its platforms exponentially.
And Salford’s libraries continued to adapt to circumstances and changing regulations, ensuring that services that could be offered safely were available to those that needed them. Services included computer courses, collection of lateral flow test kits and enabling the Citizen’s Advice Bureau and TSB bank to offer guidance from its sites.
Wellbeing Leisure, part of OCL, took its Friday Club online to help combat loneliness for its most vulnerable customers. It was originally set up to reduce levels of isolation within the community through physical activity and turned to Zoom to keep members interacting, keeping to its 10am slot every Friday morning. Members also took part in quizzes and other entertainment.
As well as community support, all of GM Active’s Member organsations also focused on their own staff.
For example, in Manchester, GLL supported its staff through interactive group calls which included quizzes and challenges throughout lockdown. Videos were created by senior team members to send a message of solidarity and support to staff, while ‘Mental Health First Aider’ training supported staff and customers.
With the majority of people working from home during the pandemic, a Your Trust healthy workforce programme, delivered in partnership with Rochdale Borough Council, continued to engage employees in healthy initiatives including online weekly health MOTs, online fitness classes, book club, gardening club, monthly film club, weight management and healthy eating sessions, yoga, mindfulness and virtual cafes.
@YourTrustRdale set up #Thrive for people aged up to 19 years experiencing emotional health & wellbeing issues such as feeling stressed, worried or not enjoying things.
View our full 'Impact on the community' infographic here: https://t.co/1KTufkQlPd pic.twitter.com/6hgfRWMYb3
— GM Active CIC (@GM_Active) February 21, 2022
Health, Fitness and Going Outdoors
A Covid recovery scheme which gave vital support to Stockport residents during the pandemic reached the finals of a national award.
The Stockport Moving Together physical activity scheme was set up by Life Leisure, Stockport Council, the NHS and Stockport Homes to aid the town’s residents during the pandemic.
Delivered by Life Leisure, which manages 12 sports and leisure facilities in and around Stockport and runs a number of neighbourhood activity programmes, the scheme was shortlisted for a special award at the ukactive Awards to recognise those in the leisure industry that developed and supported communities.
One hundred physical activity packs were delivered to 11 care homes across Stockport, and Life Leisure worked with ICU consultants and respiratory physiotherapists to deliver an additional 40 recovery packs for people who were shielding or recovering from the virus.
The programme was designed to help care home residents and individuals rebuild their strength and stamina as they gradually returned to health. It also supported those who had become deconditioned or experienced declining physical or mental health due to the negative consequences associated with shielding.
On a similar theme, Salford Community Leisure’s Active Lifestyles team developed online classes for chair-based individuals so that they could remain active at home.
In another example of helping people at home, OCL’s exercise referral team organised online classes, delivered equipment to people’s homes and provided telephone exercise classes to support people living with sight loss and visual impairments. Sports equipment was also delivered to pupils at home during school lockdowns.
When restrictions eased, gentle exercise classes started outdoors in local parks and Your Trust hosted regular socially distanced walks at a variety of locations throughout the borough. Leisure Centres re-opened, but with tier restrictions in place, indoor group exercise classes were not able to return straight away, so they were taken outdoors.
In Tameside, five Active Streets sessions were delivered per week to isolated and vulnerable adults, while 900 Live Active members could access online classes, or have printed exercise workout booklets posted out to them if they didn’t have digital access.
OCL launched a timetable of socially distanced, outdoor activities at its centres in Oldham, Chadderton and Saddleworth that included spinning, zumba and bootcamp sessions.
Wythenshawe Forum continued to open during lockdown for its stakeholders Wythenshawe Pharmacy and Wythenshawe Health to run as normal throughout the pandemic. It also continued to open (when leisure centres were closed and schools were open) to allow schools within Manchester to continue with their swimming lessons.
As well as a foodbank, Oldham Leisure Centre was also turned into a research centre for a number of vaccine trials, which saw almost 500 volunteers taking part.
The full extent of what our GM Active collective achieved is way too expansive to list everything here, so we’re going to leave the final word to Chris Rushton, Chief Executive of Active Tameside and Director at GM Active.
Whilst he was talking specifically about his own organisation, we think he speaks for all GM Active members when he says: “We’ve learned many things during the course of the pandemic, but more than anything else, we’ve learned that we can help people to live their best possible life in increasingly diverse ways in our centres, our streets, our parks and online.”
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Prehab4Cancer Scheme Expands
Encouraging active lives, reducing health inequalities and supporting those who need our help the most underpin our new ‘We Move As One’ strategy
Encouraging active lives, reducing health inequalities and supporting those who need our help the most are central to our new strategy entitled ‘We Move As One’.
As a collective of 12 leisure and community organisations across Greater Manchester, we are all part of the same movement – to inspire and encourage more people to become physically active and to improve the health and wellbeing of our communities across Greater Manchester.
Andy King, Chair of GM Active, says: “Our shared approach gives us real opportunity to bring about change. We are a unique combination of organisations and people – pioneers in the leisure sector. By collaborating, we have a greater ‘real life’ impact for the people of Greater Manchester.
“Working in response to the GM Moving in Action strategy, we have created a new ‘We Move As One’ strategy, which will underpin our current success with greater strategic direction and commercial sustainability.”
The Princess Royal, who visited as Patron of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists, was shown several demonstrations of typical prehabilitation assessments and interventions and heard first-hand the impact this programme is having on patients’ physical and mental wellbeing in the lead up to, and after cancer treatment. She also heard how the programme adapted to a virtual delivery model during the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure patients awaiting cancer treatment continued to receive this support.
Since its inception in 2019, Prehab4Cancer has supported 2,500 patients in Greater Manchester and is now aiming to provide for approximately 400 patients living in the east and mid Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) areas – which stretch from Wilmslow in the north to Crewe in the south.
The programme is offered to patients with lung, colorectal (bowel) and oesophago-gastric (often referred to as upper GI) cancers.
Kirsty Rowlinson-Groves, Prehab4Cancer programme manager, says: “Patients are referred to us from the clinical teams at the hospitals where they are being treated. We assign them an exercise specialist, who then undertakes a baseline assessment that creates the prehabilitation process.
“That’s all about optimising the patient’s cardiovascular fitness and working on their muscular strength. We do a lot of strength training to build and optimise muscle as we know that good muscular strength will support function and independence following surgery and treatment. We push them physically to get them in the best condition we can so they are optimised for treatment.
“Once prehab is finished, they are reassessed and that allows us to see what improvement has been gained. They will then go for surgery and we aim to invite them back for a post op assessment around four to six weeks after surgery.”
Co-designed and recurrently funded
Prehab4Cancer is a co-designed transformation programme between GM Active and GM Cancer. What began as a test project in 2019 has now secured recurrent funding to safeguard its future following an independent evaluation report.
Andy King, Chair of GM Active, says: “This programme is designed to empower patients to take an active role in their cancer care. It prepares patients for the treatments and surgeries and aims to provide positive outcomes for patients during recovery and beyond.
“Prehab4Cancer demonstrates just what can be achieved with structured and imaginative co-design and collaborative working between clinical and physical activity providers across Greater Manchester. We hope this approach can be applied to other health conditions and services too so that physical activity can be embedded throughout every relevant care pathway of the NHS.
“It puts our gyms and leisure facilities on the frontline of cancer care and the preventative health agenda and speaks directly to our stated aim of getting more people physically active so they can live healthy, happy and longer lives.”
A pilot scheme running until October 2022, the Cheshire programme is being funded through the Cheshire and Merseyside Cancer Alliance. We have set up a delivery partnership with Everybody Sport and Leisure and Brio Leisure Trusts to allow for the Prehab4Cancer team to deliver the scheme through their sites.
Chris Turner, our Head of Business Operations, says: “Our strategy offers clear direction and innovative, sustainable solutions to local, regional and national agendas. We can provide solutions, leadership and partnership for multiple programmes and stakeholders – for NHS funders, grant providers, larger organisations with funding for localised schemes, local authorities, GP practices and health leaders.
“We are actively seeking new partners, opportunities for collaboration and innovative ways of working. We can’t do this alone. If our plans, purpose and intent chime with you, please do connect with us and be part of our transformational movement.”
Our ambition to encourage active lives and to help reduce health inequalities across the Greater Manchester city-region are regularly documented on this website and you will find full details of the ‘We Move As One’ strategy here.
From prehab, to rehab, to healthier lifestyle choices
Patients are usually contacted about starting rehabilitation about a month after having surgery, or ending their treatment.
If they agree, they are assessed and then embark on a three-month rehab period, designed to build them up physically. Once that period is over, patients are discharged into community programmes, often at the leisure centres where they did their prehab. They are also directed to community and volunteer organisations, such as allotment societies or walking groups, who can help to keep them fit and active.
Kirsty says: “This time after surgery or treatment is sometimes called a ‘teachable moment’. If you’ve come through cancer treatment, or cancer surgery, your health is more important to you afterwards so healthier options and healthier lifestyles are what you are drawn to.
“In our 12-week rehab period, the role of our team is to educate and build that behaviour change, and increase the patient’s confidence in making healthier, more active choices and give them confidence to access the services that will help them.”
Testimonials…
“Dear Prehab4Cancer, I just want to say how wonderful this service is.
“Exercise was, to be honest, the last thing on my mind when I was diagnosed!
“However, Sarah from PrehabCancer explained the importance of exercise and fitness both before and after the operation.
“This proved lifesaving for me both mentally and physically. It gave me something to focus on before and then when I was discharged from hospital it became a tool to regain my strength and start my new journey.
“Unfortunately, I had CDiff when I was in hospital and couldn’t even keep food down etc. I ended up so weak I had to have the rehabilitation team in to provide me with aids etc to assist my basic daily living.
“My wound took along time to heal so I had district nurses for over two months visiting me at home.
“Sarah has kept in contact throughout. She has sent me exercises and a band which I use regularly and talked me through how to gradually build up my strength and mobility.
“I am now, thanks to her constant and enthusiastic contact, back up to a level of fitness I was before. I now go for walks in the park and next month will return to the gym.
“Before I didn’t really enjoy exercise but Sarah’s approach has altered my perception so much I actually want to exercise because I enjoy it and I am feeling the benefits.
“Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. A cancer diagnosis is certainly life changing but it is also an opportunity to make life changes too.”
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Our Strategic Business Partners 2022
We are delighted to announce GM Active’s new Strategic Business Partners!
Our partners have been selected based on the value they can bring to GM Active and our 12 member organisations aligned to our new strategy which will be launched soon!
We look forward to working with them over the next 12 months as they support us in delivering a lasting positive social impact across Greater Manchester and helping residents live healthy, happy and longer lives.
Fitronics
Fitronics offer effective, user-friendly software for the sport, health, and fitness industry with two main brands TRP (The Retention People) and CAP2 (CoursePro).
CoursePro’s focus is on sports management saving a diverse range of businesses, from small swim schools to national fitness operators, time spent on course admin.
TRP works with health and fitness clubs, leisure centres, and gyms across the globe to increase member retention via a suite of exceptional member experience software.
Fitronics products and services are designed to help and assist leisure trusts improve activity and participation through teaching and coaching standards, making booking and paying for an activity easier, encouraging customers to become more active, and identifying triggers to interact face to face or digitally in order to maximise activity.
As well as providing software Fitronics is committed to research for the sector enabling greater understanding of customer beliefs and behaviours which helps to grow the sector and have a greater impact.
A wide range of training solutions are also available to help operators continually improve their service.
National Governing Bodies work with Fitronics to digitise their syllabus and assist in teaching children and adults across the world.
Dedicated to improving Customer engagement and the end user experience, the MEAs – Member Experience Awards are held to benchmark sites against the industry.
Fitronics is delighted to be partnering with GM Active through 2022 and beyond.
Raspberry Beret Group
Raspberry Beret are a telecom, data, cloud security and IT provider based in the Northwest of England. Our client base ranges from small SME’s to large UK FTSE listed companies.
What sets us apart from the rest is that we are morally guided throughout our interactions with clients, and we stay true to our catchphrase ‘Simply, Honest Advice’. There are many telecom’s & IT companies out there who promise the world and simply do not deliver.
We are different, genuinely. It has always seemed illogical to me that companies spend so much time and effort in gaining new customers, to just provide poor service and move on to their ‘next meal’, the likelihood being that the customers will leave at their earliest opportunity.
Raspberry was born on the philosophy of having its key focus on the post sales customer experience. This has been proven to be a success as we very rarely lose customers, our retention rate (excluding companies who go into liquidation) is 98%. We currently provide Trafford Leisure all their Telecom’s (mobile & landline & call/contact centre) as well as the MPLS data network linking all the sites as well as their corporate Wi-Fi.
Technogym
Founded in 1983, Technogym is the world’s leading manufacturer of state-of-the-art fitness equipment and digital solutions, renowned for innovative design and next-generation, future-proof technology. Technogym provides a complete range of cardio, strength and functional equipment alongside a digital cloud-based platform allowing consumers to connect with their personal wellness experience anywhere, both on equipment and via mobile when outdoors.
With more than 35 years’ experience and a presence in over 100 countries, Technogym provides fitness equipment and solutions for fitness clubs, homes, hotels, spas, rehabilitation centres, corporate gyms, universities, professional sports facilities and more. Not only does Technogym help 35 million people boost their physical and mental health with exercise every day, but it also supplies champion athletes and teams including AC Milan and McLaren, and has been the official supplier for the last seven editions of the Olympic Games and now Tokyo 2021.
Technogym continues to drive innovation in the industry: with the recent launch of SKILL LINE – a growing range of equipment developed in collaboration with Olympic athletes and academic research institutes, bringing athletic performance training to the gym floor.
Cornerstone Design & Marketing
Cornerstone Design and Marketing is a full service agency with extensive leisure, health and pharmaceutical industry experience.
We have been a trusted and reputable marketing agency partner to the leisure industry for many years.
We work alongside a growing number of leisure trusts and fitness providers, developing strong, results-driven marketing strategies which allow our clients to compete with national competitors at a local or regional level.
We focus on meaningful engagement with audiences which is devised not only to increase membership but also aimed at that all-important member retention and long-term loyalty.
Leisure is a sector we’ve matured with as an agency and, essentially, it’s one that we truly value for the hugely significant role it plays in our communities and society as a whole.
Commercially conscious, we’re equally connected to communities and health outcomes, carefully balancing the two to help with the delivery of healthier, more active and fulfilling audience lifestyles while simultaneously achieving healthier business outcomes and stability for clients.
We’re an ethical, highly reputable, agency with a multi-discipline team – growing at around 30% YOY – offering expertise and creativity within the fileds of:
- Marketing strategy
- Graphic design
- Digital
- PR
- Web development
- Print production.
These services are key to implementing a comprehensive and well-considered marketing and communications strategy or campaign and we synchronise all or a selection of those disciplines depending on the brief.
Our achievements aren’t just honed from experience and insight. Cornerstone is built around outstanding results, recommendations and much-valued good relationships – achievements we’re very, very proud of.
We specialise in results-driven B2B and B2C campaigns and marketing support for clients and we have an excellent track record in providing transformational strategic marketing and creative campaign expertise to our portfolio of regional and national organisations.
Future Fit for Business
Future Fit for Business is the UK’s most trusted name in the provision of learning and development services.
They currently work with a number of employer partners in both the public and private sector, helping them to develop and empower their workforces.
Their aim is to empower workforces to deliver positive impacts to their wider communities through the provision of bespoke world-class learning and development solutions.
QuikSwitch
QuikSwitch was founded in 2016 as an out-sourced procurement consultant offering free of cost or obligation market comparisons for fixed costs such as utilities, telephony, connectivity and many more.
They pride themselves on offering a consultative approach to procuring these lines and work with some of the best professionals in their fields.
Our Strategic Business Partner Programme
Demand for non-perishable products by people using foodbanks is on the increase as they switch off their fridges and freezers due to the cost-of-living crisis and spiralling energy prices.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham made the remark at a graduation ceremony for graduates of our Transformational Leaders Programme, designed to help them transition from being ‘fitness and facilities’ managers to the vanguard of public health and wellbeing.
Mr Burnham told our two cohorts of graduates they had a key part to play in reaching out to communities where the crisis was so bad foodbank users were only seeking store cupboard foods such as dried pasta and tinned foods.
Mr Burnham said: “This is a huge community challenge for areas of Greater Manchester. Helping people to be active and supporting their wellbeing will be key to helping families and individuals to cope throughout this crisis.”
We want to inspire the region’s community leisure workforce to offer new ways of helping people across Greater Manchester live healthy, happy and fulfilled lives. Our programme has been created to empower our member-organisations’ staff to play a greater role in developing new wellness services and innovative, cross-sectoral responses to current and emerging population health needs.
Our programme will cover key topics that will help staff understand their role within the wider ecosystem and look at wellness, NHS and social care systems with a view to identifying more collaborative ways of working with other professionals and community groups.
Who are GM Active?
GM Active is a Community Interest Company limited by guarantee and a collaboration of 12 leisure and community organisations from across Greater Manchester.
We are all part of the same movement, to get more people physically active and improve the health & wellbeing of our communities, as part of the City-Region’s GM Moving in Action strategy.
Together the members manage the majority of the publicly owned leisure and physical activity assets and services on behalf of the 10 local authorities across Greater Manchester.
Why partner with us?
We see our partnerships as mutually beneficial relationships. By working with us to help people across Greater Manchester live healthy, happy, and longer lives your business or organisation will support us to deliver a lasting positive social impact, while we will help you to unlock benefits for your business or organisation.
We can assure you that no other partner will conflict in your business products or services provision. We will select our partnerships with care and offer category exclusivity, which means you will not share a platform with a company in the same sector. This approach will enable our partners to collaborate not only with us; but with each other.
Our Vision
Our vision is to help people across Greater Manchester live healthy, happy, and longer lives.
Now we are offering the opportunity for key organisations and businesses across the UK leisure, wellness and physical activity sector to share in our vision by becoming a GM Active Strategic Business Partner.
You will be partnering with a collective that is responsible for 99 leisure and sports facilities across Greater Manchester with a combined reach of over 20 million visits every year.
We deliver over 10,000 activity session a week, support over 15,000 people with long-term conditions into an active lifestyle each year, have over 225,000 people committed to regular exercise through our health and fitness memberships, and we support over 60,000 people to learn how to swim every year.
We provide safe places for children and young people to have fun and be active, support older adults and people with long-term conditions through social prescribing and physical activity interventions and improve community cohesion by engaging people of all ages and abilities in healthy and meaningful activities every day.
Our purpose
Helping people across Greater Manchester live healthy, happy, and longer lives.
Our vision
A network of innovative, resilient and high performing Greater Manchester leisure and community organisations that deliver transformational health and wellbeing outcomes through collaboration across our local communities.
What is a Strategic Business Partner?
We are looking to work with partners who can add value to GM Active and our member organisations, as well as ensuring they are committed to helping us achieve our vision.
A 12-month Strategic Business Partner package would cost £2,500, excluding VAT.
The Benefits To You
- Virtual and face-to-face engagement with the 12 GM Active member organisations and Board Directors.
- The opportunity to present to the GM Active Board and educate Directors on what you do and how you could help them.
- The opportunity to give a presentation or workshop based on your expertise and skills that could be useful to GM Active organisations and staff.
- Share the latest updates, insights, trends and case studies with GM Active and get feedback.
- Increased brand exposure, reputation and awareness through the GM Active social media channels, as well as being listed on our strategic business partners page on the GM Active website.
- Receive key sector insight and understanding from GM Active to help grow and develop your offering and align it with market requirements to broaden your competitive edge.
- Use of the GM Active business partner logo to show your dedication to the sector.
What’s next?
Our partnerships will start in January 2022, and we’d like interested organisations to share with us how they can add value to GM Active and our member organisations by the 10th December 2021.]
To find out more about this programme and apply to become a Strategic Business Partner, please contact.
Chris Turner, Head of Business Operations & Company Secretary at chris.turner@gmactive.co.uk
We think you’ll be interested in…
Our Strategic Business Partner Programme
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We have launched a search for Strategic Business Partners who are committed to helping us achieve our vision – which is to help people across Greater Manchester live healthy, happy, and longer lives. The Partners we select…
Read moreOur Transformational Leadership Programme
News | 02/08/2021
Key staff in Greater Manchester’s community leisure & physical activity sector are being selected to take part in our new Transformational Leadership programme which aims to steer the transition from being ‘fitness and facilities’ managers…
Read moreOur Bespoke Workforce Training Academy
News | 19/01/2021
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Read morePartnering with GM Cancer in a new programme to help cancer patients using local leisure centres
News | 14/09/2020
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Our Transformational Leadership Programme
Demand for non-perishable products by people using foodbanks is on the increase as they switch off their fridges and freezers due to the cost-of-living crisis and spiralling energy prices.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham made the remark at a graduation ceremony for graduates of our Transformational Leaders Programme, designed to help them transition from being ‘fitness and facilities’ managers to the vanguard of public health and wellbeing.
Mr Burnham told our two cohorts of graduates they had a key part to play in reaching out to communities where the crisis was so bad foodbank users were only seeking store cupboard foods such as dried pasta and tinned foods.
Mr Burnham said: “This is a huge community challenge for areas of Greater Manchester. Helping people to be active and supporting their wellbeing will be key to helping families and individuals to cope throughout this crisis.”
We want to inspire the region’s community leisure workforce to offer new ways of helping people across Greater Manchester live healthy, happy and fulfilled lives. Our programme has been created to empower our member-organisations’ staff to play a greater role in developing new wellness services and innovative, cross-sectoral responses to current and emerging population health needs.
Our programme will cover key topics that will help staff understand their role within the wider ecosystem and look at wellness, NHS and social care systems with a view to identifying more collaborative ways of working with other professionals and community groups.
Introductory Webinar:
A new cohort of leisure sector leaders will have the latest insight and skills to help the sector more effectively address the huge health and physical activity inequalities that exist across the region’s diverse communities.
The leadership programme is supported by GreaterSport and made possible with investment from the National Lottery, through the Local Pilot in Greater Manchester with Sport England. The Transformational Leadership programme has been designed and delivered in partnership with the training provider Future Fit Training and we would like to thank them for their continued support.
Andy King, Chair of GM Active, which is now a community interest company (CIC), said: “It is vital that staff across the community leisure sector understand much more about the wider community we serve and how we can better play our part in improving health and wellbeing services for everyone across Greater Manchester.
“We need transformational leaders to help us achieve a shift in our workforce’s mindset. It is clear that leaders already exist across GM Active – we don’t need to build this group but we want to enable them to grow, do more and be better connect to the eco-system that they are part of.
“Our leadership programme will bolster the knowledge and understanding of our staff to meet the demands of their roles and the changing needs of our communities. They will have the skills and knowledge to ensure their facilities and services are part of the whole system approach and contributing to the sector’s pivot from leisure to wellness.”
The GM Active Leadership programme has five parts.
1.
Principles of Leadership2.
Creating Culture3.
Understanding Today’s Leisure4.
The Wellness Sector5.
Services & Organisations
It covers the principles of leadership, creating culture, understanding today’s leisure and wellness sector including key agendas, services and organisations; whole system thinking, health inequalities, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and leading for renewal.
A distinctive feature of our organisation is our promotion of co-working between physical activity and clinical healthcare providers. Our new training programmes reflect this and act as a ‘skills passport’ for continuous professional development in the leisure industry.
Elaine Briggs, Director of Education at Future Fit Training, said: “Following many months of collaboration with some of the sector’s most respected leaders, we are thrilled to launch the Transformational Leadership programme to the GM Active workforce. This course is the first of its kind, created in partnership with and delivered by experts in their field, the training aims to equip individuals with the skills to reimagine the sector landscape, connect with their communities and wider organisations and deliver on both their local outcomes and those of the Sport England ‘Uniting the Movement’ strategy.
“We believe this training is vital to ensure that we are creating leaders of the future who understand how they can influence change in their own communities and create a joined-up approach to health and wellness, while motivating their teams through dynamic and passionate leadership.”
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World Cancer Day Zoom Workout with Prehab4Cancer
News | 02/02/2021
Greater Manchester residents, NHS, care and cancer support organisations, charities and businesses are all invited to join a day of free online fitness sessions for people of all abilities on World Cancer Day, Thursday, February 4 2021.
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