UK Sports Centres
When they made the Britas Emipre, I bleive the writers must have been to a fair few British sports centers. Despite the series being early 90's, many sports centre managers and staff are just as clueless and apathetic today.
Yesterday (Saturday) at 4:30 pm we decided we would take our 18 month old son swimming. Drove to three sports centres, the first close swimming at 5pm, the second at 5pm and then finally Cardiff's (capital city) biggest one which stop letting people in after 5 as they close at 6pm.
What gives, its almost as if they don't wan't families keeping themselves fit at the weekend. When people are off you would think pools would me more inclined to stay open.
We did go today in the end, but even though we arrived way before closing, the staff were turning the slides, rapids, jaccuzi and all other fun stuff off more than an hour before closing.
This whole starting to pack up early, is purely a British thing, in other countries when something closes is when every thing ceases, rather than staff trying to cut in on the customers time and dwindle the experience so they can go home early.
Yesterday (Saturday) at 4:30 pm we decided we would take our 18 month old son swimming. Drove to three sports centres, the first close swimming at 5pm, the second at 5pm and then finally Cardiff's (capital city) biggest one which stop letting people in after 5 as they close at 6pm.
What gives, its almost as if they don't wan't families keeping themselves fit at the weekend. When people are off you would think pools would me more inclined to stay open.
We did go today in the end, but even though we arrived way before closing, the staff were turning the slides, rapids, jaccuzi and all other fun stuff off more than an hour before closing.
This whole starting to pack up early, is purely a British thing, in other countries when something closes is when every thing ceases, rather than staff trying to cut in on the customers time and dwindle the experience so they can go home early.
Post edited by Scottie_uk on
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Comments
if you get there earlier, it's not a problem is it?
you do a monday / friday 9-5pm ? some of us don't... maybe if you had to work not exactly "social" hours, you'd get a bit miffed with last-minute.com folk :p , who you think SHOULDN'T have free time and they are they are there to serve you , yes they are getting paid, but I'm sure like more they want to do job / finish.. but it's like someone giving you a stack of work just as your trying to go home...
you didn't look up the opening times on the web *BEFORE* leaving ? and your calling them clueless, thats just funny ;)
(maybe I work in a sports centre .. probably not :lol:)
If the state want us to get healthy then make these places charges less :S.
If they really did care about people's health then successive governments wouldn't have been flogging school playing fields off for years....
What annoys me is why every single pool that stays open late decides that Thursday is going to be swimming-club-members-only-night. You'd think a few pools would vary this to let the public in to at least one?
I've got a feeling that the reason behind this is that none of these would be a viable business without at least some council funding; and once you've got that, the temptation is there to stop caring entirely about maximising profit and just cruise along.
The worst farce was what some Labour committee did with the idea of introducing free swimming for everyone. Instead of introducing it for everyone like they said, they introduced it specifically for the age group that have no interest in exercise and just want to go into a pool and p!ss-about, exactly timed to co-incide with school summer holidays, making it as unpleasant an experience as possible for everyone else. They couldn't scrap that particular implementation fast enough.
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Yeah we should have checked, but when we decided to go we were out. We keep the swimming stuff in the back of the car. I just could not believe that they all shut so early. Especially as we were one of several that tried to go in within a 5 minute period. Imagine how many that would have been over an hour. That's a lot of lost revenue.
Sorry, we are closed. Seems to be a British business mentality. In the week days the shops shut just in time for when people finish work and have time to shop. If shops operated two shift patterns and were open till 8-or 9 at night, not only would this create mass employment, people could shop after work leaving their weekends for all the really fun things.
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That really 'stands out' to me when I go over visiting, I'm so used to the 24/7 way of doing business that it is here. It's like a ghost town after 8pm there. Though I suppose it's the same here in small towns.
I remember a couple of visits back me and a mate going into the Center of Manchester at 11pm (midweek) thinking there would be a bunch of clubs open...there wasn't and most of the pubs were shut too!
5pm-6pm for the sports center is silly though, I know they are not all like that because I used to go to one that was open till 9pm when I lived there.
Weekdays most probably, but its weekends when they fall short on the hours. Also even in the week days most nights there is some reason or other why public swimming is prohibited. Well on Monday nights we have the Aqua Fit, and then the advanced circuits. On Tuesdays its ladies only night , then its synchronised swimming, followed by fat fighters, its swimming club on Wednesdays so its busy all night, on Thursdays its beginners swimming followed by the 'Adult' (wink) session' then Kayak training, then the divers. On Friday night 5-7 is booked for parties, 7-8 is the water polo, and 8-9 the improver swimming class. Ok so when can I swim of a week night, well there is between 6 to 6:45 on Thursdays, we would go to 7 giving you an hour only we have a lot of apparatus to set up for the advanced water bondage sessions.
Funny, do they weigh people? "Sorry mate, your not fat enough, go eat more pie or try another night" and as you walk away you hear "ah Mr Boozefreak, go on in!"
you'll find them are private health clubs, that are open that late. the ones scottie went to sound like council run ones (I guess that due to the opening hours).. and far cheaper to use PER visit.. a lot of work places have deals with such private places, which might help.. but still not exactly cheap.
of course your paying a premium price for the private ones, so you expect them to be open.. the council run ones simply can't cover the wages bill / insurance and cover the liablility to be open such hours.
scottie, you can't compare it to private run business (even rival PRIVATE health clubs) as your paying a far higher premium to use em.
a friends g/f years ago used to spend a fortune on gym membership to go swim the odd time (maybe 1 time a month) , it worked out she was paying 6 times the cost of her local council run pool. I think gyms rely on people not going.. it's money for nothing :)
Enjoy a relaxing day or evening at our sparkling, resort-style swimming pool. The pool area is available to our residents through out the day and most of the evening time. You will also find a sunning deck and plenty of lounge chairs for you to relax.
Great for evening swimming and ogling young lovelies.
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that's not unreasonable though , regarding the times that people work, if they want to go thats plenty of time. they were open from maybe 9-10am ? (so a full day almost) .. I just find a lot of 9-5 people are a lot of the time demand / moan things be open, yet if they were asked to do the same.. they wouldn't if the boot was on their foot.
councils are funny, they differ so much .. if you live between 2 places.. e.g. London street lights, out of london where I stay sometimes they go out after 12 at night
my local swimming pool was shut for 2 or so years when the storms hit in 87 as it was all glass. that's the sports centre are the one featured in the Ali G film (before it was demolished) , and it's no where near staines hehe.
I think in times of financial hardship people would be glad for the work (or is it a case of the lazy brits again?). I used to work 4 on 2 off 12 hour day and night shifts once. It wasn't perfect, but I was glad for the work.
when I'm going work very early, I see road sweepers etc out at 6am.. dunno what time they get up. So that makes me think compared , thats a lie in.
I'm sure your old enough to remember when the UK was basically shut on a sunday and "bullseye" and "hart to hart" was in vogue , we could always go back to that ;) hehe
I just find it funny that on one hand your moaning they aren't staying open , but it's hours to suit you .. and I'm assuming it was council run places you went :) . I doubt the amount of people swimming at that time can justify the staff bill (assuming they are on double time) . as apposed to private clubs that are always open till 10-11pm.
There is half the problem.
When I worked 3rd shift here (10pm-6am) I think the shift differential was about 35 cents an hour.
Yes it hours to suit me, of course that's how it should work, be open when your customers want you to be (within common sense reason). When growing up, I remember our local pool was open will 9pm, except on a Sunday when they shut at 5:30. So I used to go swimming from 7 till 8:30 Saturday nights every week from the age of 12-16, it was never empty as people had come to realise the pool was open later.
One thing I miss from sport centres of old, is the one or two arcade machines they would have. At its height ours had 3 arcade machines and 1 Kiss pinball table.
look at what we had when we grew up, compared to now.. far less to get our attention like kids now... it's probably not economically viable for them to open so late on sunday so long, if big numbers of people aren't coming in the door it's a waste of money. simply because by that time folk are going home and getting ready for work on monday or down the pub or just relaxing with sunday evening tv.
compared to the private places where you pay a premium :)
Yeah I grew up in a village in Oxfordshire, and now the capital of Wales (well very close), so you would expect things to be bigger and better, well largely they are, except for shutting too early. I had a computer and with it video games as a kid, I have a computer now, and get the same enjoyment out of my modern machine as I did from my 48k. The only real major change is the internet and more TV channels with poorer quality programming than we had. Kids these days have an iPhone, android, tablet. Well we had the game boy. The differences are not as big as you may think.
Stop this comparison with Private places, its a broken record. If they can turn a profit at night, then I'm dam sure a council sponsored sports centre can at least break even.
You could argue, that kids don't go swimming enough and your described decline in custom, is a result of poor lack luster sports centres. However, I see plenty of people wanting to swim at those hours and being turned away as I have said.
councils have a budget , quite inflexible at a guess .. compared to private business.. and as long as it "ticks over" less pressure. it's the same with a lot of things, thats why so much of council stuff is tendered out. Maybe the pool is run by a 3rd party? with a set amount of money.
I think you should write a formal letter of complaint if your so miffed about it. It's like my neighbour who worries about litter, yet there is FAR worse going on that is of far bigger concern like crimes etc.
remember it's not a new thing.. half day on Wednesday existed at one point. well if ya weren't faffing about on puters you'd have got there on time... set ya alarm next time on ya smart phone ;)
The fact so many private expensive places exist, demonstrate the need. The expensive places only exist due to a general dissatisfaction with the public ones.
nah it's business , plain and simple and the market was there, one of the dragons made a mint from it. your paying a premium for the upgraded facilities , much like ya do when you buy an upgraded plane ticket. Besides a pool there is a lot more at a private gym, machine wise etc.
A local place can't compete with such facilities OR the stuff is in high end places used for athletics training. Then their is the budget, you notice such things when you sell things and councils are trying to get rid of their excess budget, in feb and March.. to justify getting the same amount the next year
but like a friends ex, who paid ?30 a month and used a private gym to swim once a month.. vs.. ?5 down the public place..
the whole private vs public thing in many area's is vastly different in how they deal with money etc. whether it be sports centre, hospital and x amount of other things.
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funny you mention cinema specifically, we had one council funded around here.. or it was leased.. and it got closed 2 years ago, simply because of the cost of upgrading equipment a lot. also cinema's open normally later ? the one council run here opened from 5pm onward.
http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/cinemas/belle-vue-cinema-info-9189.html
I don't think they are comparable, in the sense of the training / risk assessment of both places. I'm sure you need far more training at the pool.
you know yourself the teenagers looking after a pool wouldn't happen.. due to litigation , CRB checks, life guard training , first aid training and more training etc.. without it any liability / employee insurance etc is invalidated
it's like the local park used to run big festivals and have a big sound stage, easily could be used for maybe 2,000 people perhaps and thats in dis-repair and probably won't ever be used, because funding priorities changed.. it's a waste really.
how councils spend their money varies differently and also how it's been / not been spent from when we were younger.
if scottie sets his alarm earlier , then it's not a problem ;-)
I don't think the places he went were unreasonable for shutting at that time *IF* there isn't the demand for customers and the place was open 6-7 hours already in that day.
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yes , but more than likely they are working there full time OR they are training athletes (helps fund their training ?) , or doing sports management at college / uni etc..
the amount of paperwork / money on training having to be spent wouldn't justify it , unless they were doing it full time or long term.
you have to jump thru hoops with certain jobs these days , as opposed to when we were younger.
you might find some insurers have a lower age limit for employee's of 18 perhaps. thats why you see so many on Yahoo answers that want to work in certain places and can't due to health / safety and the liability insurance. If you work lates a lot, getting an early means more.
you might find the life guards, although look young maybe 18+ and if not, doing some sort of apprenticeship perhaps.
I can't comment on sports centres overly , as due to the councils they are different everywhere pretty much, down to the councils.. perhaps ask the management why they aren't open so late.. I'm sure they'd give you more exact reasons.
money being the main one no doubt (and that includes training more staff).
the simple answer is to turn up earlier.. = solved , if it's that important to attend.. the make time for it.. they are open a LOT of the time. I have more issue with banks not being open later ;)
much like I'm rather miffed my library wasn't open 11pm on a sunday night for me to return a book .. WHY O WHY ? lol
sport centres are open till 10pm in the week, not like the staff deserve to go home early at the weekend or anything, maybe 11pm+ when they get in the door.