The managing director of leisure and culture company Your Trust has thought about how the charity has adapted to the pandemic.
Your Trust, the new name for Link4Life, offers leisure and fitness facilities such as swimming, fitness and sports halls and outdoor facilities, as well as the management of cultural and cultural sites such as the Touchstones Museum.
Chief Executive Andy King said he was “impressed” with the way the charity has adapted to the changes caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
This week the charity released its 2020-21 Impact Report, which highlighted the way it engaged with and helped residents in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.
At the start of the pandemic, the charity delivered 3,000 emergency food packages, took more than 1,300 shopping trips and drug collections, and delivered 6,000 family art packages
Some Your Trust leisure centers like Littleborough Sports Center and Heywood Sports Village have been converted into Covid testing or vaccination sites.
Andy said Your Trust learned a lot by helping people on the front lines of the pandemic.
“It was a time like no other,” he said.
“We thought we were pretty close to our communities before Covid, but you can tell when you help them with all sorts of problems in real life – literally about life and death in some cases, there’s a lot to learn about what we can do as a charity to support people. ”in a variety of ways.
“It has influenced the way we think about adapting and adapting our services and focusing on who needs our support more than others.”
YOur Trust helped residents stay online during the lockdown, the Light’Arted project, and one of the 6,000 creative family packages.
Your Trust launched the Link4Life at Home portal to help people stay creative and active during the lockdown, and also worked with HMR Circle and the Council to help people get online so they could be in Could stay connected while we all stayed at home.
Your Trust offered online health and wellness classes, socially distant outdoor activities, and a creative Light’Arted project for residents to display in their home window display.
Andy added that focusing on mental and physical health was another lesson Your Trust learned over the past year.
He said, “We’re doing a thing called #thrive that works with children and teenagers on their mental health, which is unfortunately booming. The demand is huge.
“This link with health is something we’ve been pretty preoccupied with, but we want to do more. It is imperative that we understand what we can do with not only physical activity but also cultural offerings that can help people’s mental health.
“As a society we have to value our health and well-being more than ever and we must not lose this when we return to normal.”
Your Trust offered online courses in health and wellbeing and socially distant outdoor activities in local parks.
The charity was also involved in a number of wider cultural events throughout the year, including Dippy the Dinosaur in the district, the annual pantomime, and the Ice Queen and The Dragon project.
Andy was full of praise for his staff, who enjoyed a variety of activities throughout the year.
He said, “The staff provided food and helped people with a variety of real life problems – they did life and death things in the community.
“The flexibility of the staff in so many ways to support the real world problems everyone has faced in the district makes me without a doubt most proud.
“It just showed us how much we learned. I see how many things we are involved in and it amazes me. “
Your trust has also secured funding to continue its work in the district for the next year.
It raised £ 555,000 from the Leisure Recovery Fund to help reopen leisure centers and £ 666,457 as part of the government’s £ 1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund, which ensured the future of cultural sites and community programs.
“The impact will be we will attract more people from areas and demographics that don’t use us as much as we’d like,” Andy said.
“So tell us what we can do better to encourage people to engage with us – we’re very honest and listen.
“We really have a world-class cultural and leisure service in little old Rochdale. We just keep going. Rochdale should be very proud. “
