Every day is a new day and every day brings new challenges along with new experiences. Evolution is a massive contributing factor in dictating what some of those challenges may be. Leisure centres have most certainly evolved over the years. Take Chilwell Olympia Sports Centre for example, who can remember when the reception used to be a small cupboard in the school entrance? And yet now we have a purpose built reception.
Originally, the centre had no gym
But now there is an extension around the building hosting a state of the art 35 station gym. And let’s not forget the bar, the social hub for so many people over the years; and yet the need for such a facility in a sports centre diminished until it became no longer financially viable. So now we have the exercise studio as we know it today.
These changes and many other changes have been made. They will inevitably continue to be made as the forever changing environment that we live in continues to evolve. Whilst some people embrace those changes, others struggle to accept them. Some people say if “it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, whilst others say “by changing nothing, nothing changes and we need change to improve”.
My Time at Chilwell
As for me, well I have worked at Chilwell Olympia Sports Centre for over 12 years now and have seen many of these changes implicated. For the last 2 years however, I have also been in charge of the maintenance at the centre which has been a very new challenge for me and a learning curve. I have been involved with things such as the development of our new 7 a side 3G Rubber Crumb football pitch, improving the floodlights on the existing football pitches and improving the general look around the centre by modernising our approach to in-house marketing. The decorating of our main sports hall that only took place last week. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying I love all my duties (who can honestly say they love fixing broken toilets or unblocking drains).
This week is the start of one of those projects, as I am overseeing the transformation of squash court 1 into a new exercise studio. Over the next few months there will be a variety of contractor’s onsite who will be putting in a new floor, air conditioning, ventilation, electrics and much more. Once completed, this new facility will enable us to improve, increase and develop our exercise class programme. In addition, the existing studio will then become a dedicated spinning studio and a children’s birthday party/meeting room. The will enable us to improve on our current spinning class programme.
So there you have it, the Evolution of Chilwell Olympia Sports Centre continues. I can honestly say that there are exciting times ahead. It does however entice the question; I wonder what will be next?
