MId Argyll Pool Board and staff build for the future

Working in partnership with the Council, winning a grant to appoint a Business Development Manager, attracting more directors with very relevant skills, harvesting political support, pursuing a variety of sponsorships, collaborating with PMR Leisure, consultants commissioned by the Council to consider the amenity needs of Argyll’s major towns… is it any wonder that the small hours duty rota is still on the go?

Yes. Ali Macleod, one of the Directors, still emails up to 3.00am. And yes, Stephen Whiston, Chair of the Board, still can’t sleep after 4.00am and takes over from Ali at that time.

This has been a 24/7 operation for what must seem a very long time. But very real strengths are emerging. You can’t but be aware how strong and focused a team this new Board is. Its core has come from the Mid Argyll Cycle and Tri Club – which simply stepped in and took over when they realised that the pool that mattered so much to their sport was rapidly going the way of all things.

Strengths

The transfer of a group of people who already knew each other well, worked well together and shared a common purpose is a stroke of luck money could not buy.

There is a real team here, mutually respectful and growing in skills and strength together. For instance we have seen Jenny Davies grow to become a potent advocate for the Pool in any circumstance. On 19th March, Jamie McGrigor brought his party leader Annabel Goldie and its candidate for the Argyll and Bute seat in the forthcoming General Election, Councillor Gary Mulvaney, to meet some of the Board and the staff at the Pool. Jenny, as shown in the photographs we took, lost no opportunity to bend ears.

The next big strength, born from the crisis when the previous pool administration collapsed, was the impact on the wider community of Lochgilphead of the realisation that they could lose their pool.

Not usually a particularly coherent community, the threat to the pool proved a galvanic in two ways.

People who’d always taken the pool for granted, looked at it newly and looked at what life in the area would be like without it – for all age groups and for a wide range of related sports for which the ability to swim is a prerequisite.

The community itself came together to help in whatever way it could. People with varieties of construction and maintenance skills gave their time. Businesses gave materials. People came forward to join the Board.

The staff of the pool kept the show on the road, never faltering in their commitment to the place, even though the last phase of the previous Board had seen the security of their own lives undermined by failures to pay wages.

Tough times identify your friends and the Mid Argyll Swimming Pool now feels the support of an entire community of owners – and of one particular local Councillor, Dougie Philand from Ardrishaig. He felt so strongly about the centrality of the pool to the health, safety and active opportunities available to the community that he resigned from the ruling alliance of Argyll and Bute Council over what he saw as an inadequate recognition of local need.

Then the fantastic Save Our Pool rally organised by Dave Payne in mid December last, was the first expression of this new mood, for the pool and in the town.

Developments

Since then, a meeting facilitated by Argyll’s MSP, Jim Mather, laid the foundation for the new Board and Argyll and Bute Council to start looking newly at each other. This is a growing relationship and an important one.

Jamie McGrigor, Argyll resident and Highlands and Islands MSP, has been a doughty friend to the Pool. As he said he would at the December Rally, he has put the Board in touch with potential sponsors, and whatever comes of it, this support has given these talented and committed people the belief that, somehow, they will make it. They will save the pool.

The Council has offered help by bringing forward another installment of a revenue grant and has ringfenced £10,000 for any emergencies which might occur in 2010. It has also given advice and made staff time available to help in the running of the pool.

But this is no more than a holding operation – thumb-in-dyke stuff. They’re a long way from being out of rough water.

Two pivotal events

There are two events in the pipeline which will change the map of the world in which the Mid Argyll pool operates, for better or worse and will determine whether it can be saved.

These are major developments at Council level.

• One is a Best Value Review the Council is conducting on the various leisure facilities available throughout Argyll and Bute.
• The other is the work currently under way by PMR Leisure – consultants working for the Council, tasked with exploring the amenity needs of Argyll’s major towns and presenting a report which prioritises the order in which these would best be met over the next 5-10 years.

From all we can discover, PMR Leisure seems to be a business that gives consultancy the good name it largely lacks. People who do this work are normally box-tickers, getting through what they have to do as quickly and easily as possible, working in a disengaged fashion, taking the money and getting out of town.

PMR have worked for the Council before – on a three month stint in Helensburgh, where they became embedded in the community, respected and accepted, to the point where the legendary Helensburgh Heroes, with Phil Worms, have sort of promised them a Star on their planned street of stars, a la Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

They work proactively – also unusual for consultants, bringing people and resources together as a by-product of the evaluative and consultative work they are commissioned to do. The Council are to be congratulated for first class talent spotting here.

The Mid Argyll Pool Board has learned a lot from the analysis and advice they have had from PMR. They’ve not met people like this before and they seem to us still to be blinking in the sunlight, happy at the constructive attention that has been paid to what they are working to do.

The facts of progress

• Four new directors have been welcomed to the Board during this month alone (March 2010). Each brings specific and necessary skills and experience.
• The pool is in profit – if only just.
• The widespread and voluntary contribution of skills and materials by individuals and businesses in the community means that the pool should be back to full operation in the next few weeks.
• Lochgilphead Round Table has been fund-raising on the pool’s behalf and additional donations have been coming in form individuals and groups.
• The Board has won an award of £16,000 from the LEADER programme, which it will match in order to appoint a Business Development Manager, initially on a one year contract.
• Bill Mann, Chair of Glasgow’s WM Mann Group, has offered £4,000, to be matched from pool funds, and to be used for specific projects in the pool, from equipment to staff and volunteer training.

The current Board and their individual responsibilities

• Denise MacDermott: NHS accountant. Appointed 20.03.2000
• Stephen Whiston (Chair): Head of Planning, Contracting and Performance, NHS Highland, Argyll & Bute CHP. Appointed 02.03.2009. Co-Lead for Business Planning / A&B Council Service Level Agreement.
• Jenny Davies: Environmental Protection Officer, SEPA. Appointed 01.04.2009. Co-Lead for Fund Raising.
• Bob McIlwrath: Biomass Development Officer, Alienergy. Appointed 06.03.2009. Co-Lead for Maintenance /Plant.
• Ali Macleod: Shipping Consultant. Appointed 01.04.2009. Co-Lead for Fund Raising.
• Ruth Knox: Former chartered accountant. Director SCVO. Director Kibble. Appointed March 2010. Lead for financial management. Also Co-Lead for Business Planning / A&B Council Service Level Agreement.
• Robert McGlynn: Director Ape Solutions. Appointed March 2010. Co-Lead for Maintenance /Plant.
• Kirsty Simpson: Coordinator Mid Argyll Public Health Network. Appointed March 2010. Lead for Customer feedback and service performance.
• Jilly Wilson: Self-employed independent retailer. Appointed March 2010. Lead for Human Resources / Personnel.

The way forwards

Whatever happens, the Board of the pool and the Council representatives will be working together for some time. These are two very different cultures. It is important that each moves towards the other’s culture in order for this crucial relationship to be as constructive as it can be. How we treat ‘otherness’ is a key litmus test for evolved humanity.

The photographs above are, from the top:

• Cameron (Life Guard), Alistair  (Senior Life Guard & Acting Operations Manager) and Patrick (Life Guard). Copyright For Argyll.
  
• (Strip of three – from left) Alistair and Jenny brief Annabel Goldie; Gary Mulvaney answers back; Jenny stressing the need for the pool to Annabel Goldie and Jamie McGrigor. Copyright For Argyll.
  
• The political line up at the Save Our Pool Rally: (from left) Councillor Gary Mulvaney; Jamie McGrigor MSP; Alan Reid MP. Copyright Rebecca Martin.
  
• Councillor Dougie Philand, addressing the Save Our Pool Rally. Copyright Rebecca Martin.
  
• The Save Our Pool Rally on 19th december 2009, wending its way from the pool to the town centre. Copyright Rebecca Martin.