Welcome to the latest issue of your BPL newsletter and the first one of 2025.
We’ve had a busy start to the year across our sites, following a fantastic festive period, where we enjoyed celebrating with many of our customers who came along to our events.
Thank you to everyone who joined us!
Read on to find out how we celebrated, as well as all the other feel good news from our staff and customers.
We enjoyed a great evening celebrating 25 years of BPL and the amazing people who make up the organisation.
Congratulations to all the Feel Good Awards’ winners , including Your Space Hoyland (Site of the Year), Rachel Rinkcavage (Leader of the Year) and Zin Zan Barden and George Hobson (Joint Employees of the Year).
Ready to make a splash?
We’re looking for a passionate Swim Teacher to join our team at Your Space Dearneside.
If you have the skills to help our community stay active, happy and confident in the water, or know someone who might fit the bill, more details and how to apply can be found here.
We’ve had lots of new starters join our team over the last couple of months.
A big welcome to Cody, Izzy, Ami, Louis, Daisy, Kerry, Eve, Maddison, Freya, Jack, Ashton, Karys,
Louie, Isobelle, Brodie, Millie, Emilie, Adam, Jasmine, Chris, Ethan and Kayla.
Our Wellbeing Champions recently held a Christmas get together, including a quiz chaired by Anne Nixon.
They also enjoyed the chance to discuss exciting plans and ideas for the coming months.
We enjoyed lots of Christmas parties and events across our sites throughout December, where it was great to see so many people getting involved and having fun.
Celebrations included Christmas fancy dress classes at Your Space Retford, the Kilton Memory Group Christmas party and a secret santa day at Kilton Forest.
Members at Dorothy Hyman Sports Centre can now enjoy a fully revamped fitness offering.
The new state-of-the-art gym features top of the range equipment from Technogym, including new studio cycling bikes, along with the introduction of a BOX 12 POD; creating a facility which the whole community can be proud of.
We’re already looking forward to February half-term and will be hosting some extra fun swim sessions at Your Space Royston.
These will be held on Monday 17th, Wednesday 19th and Friday 21st February from 1pm to 2pm.
We were thrilled to win the Best Membership Campaign Award at the 2024 National Fitness Awards at the end of November.
After winning this award in 2022, it was amazing to regain the title at the awards’ ceremony in Leicester, where some of our team had a great night celebrating with attendees from across the fitness industry.
A massive well done to the incredible team at Your Space Worksop whose quick thinking actions proved vital when member Bill suffered a heart attack during his regular lane swim session.
A few weeks later, Bill has been back in to see the team and thank them for their actions on the night and for the calls, visits and well wishes he’s received since from staff and friends from the centre.
Bill is a wonderful man who lights up every Thursday night with his kind words and care for everyone he meets.
We’re sending him our very best wishes and hope he’s back swimming with us again soon.
We must give a shoutout to our dedicated staff members who went above and beyond to keep us open during the recent snowy weather conditions.
Your hard work ensured everyone who wanted to visit us could do so safely.
Here’s to brighter and better weather in 2025!
A big thank you to everyone who contributed to the Christmas raffle at Your Space Bircotes. We raised a fantastic £233 for our chosen cause, Weston Park Cancer Charity.
Over 20 young carers from the Bassetlaw area attended a special Christmas party, arranged by BPL’s Angie Dainty.
A great day was had by all, including food, bingo, games and a special visit from Santa.
We were recently invited to the Barnsley Schools PE Conference where we spoke to schools about the importance of learning to swim and our school swimming programme.
The event also marked the launch of two exciting initiatives – Born to Move and Funetics – offering opportunities for local kids to be active and have fun.
Your Space Metrodome delivered a special delivery of selection boxes to be handed out to children visiting Barnsley Hospice with families over Christmas.
£215 was also donated to the hospice from a coffee morning and ‘guess the elf name’ competition.
Thank you to everyone who took part.
Your Space Hoyland raised an amazing £2,531 for Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice by taking on Thor’s Valhalla Rowing Challenge.
A big well done to everyone for their viking efforts and fantastic fundraising!
We were once again proud to support our local communities over Christmas by sponsoring a snowflake for Sheffield Children’s Hospital’s Snowflake Appeal and a star for Barnsley Hospital Charity Shine Bright for Barnsley initiative.
We’re proud to have piloted the first Born to Move class in Barnsley located within a primary school.
Thank you to Les Mills for helping with the resources and guiding us along the way.
Also a big thank you to Oakwell Rise Primary Academy and their reception class for giving us the opportunity.
We had a great day with the Be Well @ Work team, Community Shop on the Go and How’s Thi Ticker at Freshpak, bringing health and wellbeing to their staff canteen.
Together, we gave out fresh fruit and veg, shared nutrition and wellbeing advice and delivered health checks to the Freshpak team.
Thank you to their staff for such a warm welcome and for engaging with everything we had to offer – it was a fantastic day of feel good fun!
Diabetes UK is collaborating with South Yorkshire ICB to host events in Barnsley for people living with diabetes.
As part of this, our Community Health Team partnered with How’s Thi Ticker to share information on how we can support healthy lifestyles at Your Space.
Members and staff at Your Space Metrodome had a great time raising money for Children in Need.
They embraced the day by attending in their pyjamas, kept the spin bike going for an impressive 12 hours straight and members baked delicious cakes and goodies.
Thank you to everyone who joined in, donated and helped make the day such a success.
Due to your generosity, £299 was raised for the charity
