interview


To make a difference, you have to be willing to try things, take a risk and act with a bit of conviction


Active Nation looks beyond its facilities, working with schools and the local community


to re-present ourselves in a way that was consistent with the vision,” says Oxley – to the simplicity of its focus.


“One of our goals is to keep things simple. Have a simple name, have a simple mission, and limit what we do to sport and exercise. We don’t take on local authorities’ cultural services, for example. We just do sport and exercise, which means we can’t get distracted from what matters to us and from the purpose of our charity.” But for all that Active Nation has


been very precise in its focus, it takes a wide-ranging approach to the delivery of this. “We don’t want to be restricted to facilities,” reiterates Oxley. “Indeed, we absolutely shouldn’t be. We’re currently engaged with a local NHS, preparing to deliver an exercise referral scheme – we discovered that 4,000 people walked into a GP surgery in that area every day and that 70 per cent of them were physically inactive. That’s a huge opportunity to get to people we might never have reached before. “We also deliver programmes in the


workplace, community and schools. We’re launching an event called the Kids’ Tryathlon, with the emphasis on ‘try’, working with schools to encourage nine- to 11-year-olds to try out new sports. We’ll test their fi tness and ask them about their attitudes towards sport, both before and after the Tryathlon, as well as supporting them over the course of three months


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to prepare for the event. That should give us some real data to prove we can have an impact, which hopefully can be used to inform decision-making at a national level. We’re prepared to apply for funding for this sort of thing, because it matters. “As part of our charity’s mission, we


also believe we have an important educational role to play – not necessarily even driving people to our facilities, but rather helping to raise public awareness of the value of exercise generally. “A lovely example recently was our


online ‘New Year’s Resolution’ initiative, whereby people could sign up and make their exercise pledge. We found we were getting pledges from all over the country, not just from areas where we have facilities. We had pledges from people in Dunfermline, for example, and we don’t have a facility within 100 miles of there. But people had come across us online and liked what we were saying. “It just proves that, if


you get a good message out there, you can reach an awful lot of people. We shouldn’t be bound by facilities, by traditional thinking or by the geographic areas in which we physically operate.”


Ensuring staff know what the company stands for and why it exists is vital, says Oxley


Read Health Club Management online at healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital


breaking down barriers Oxley has always been in the leisure industry. “I can remember my dad saying:


‘You’re a long time at work, so make sure you do something that you enjoy’,” he explains. Starting out as a lifeguard, Oxley moved through the ranks of Crossland Leisure and SLM before setting up his own consultancy and working on projects such as leadership change programmes for British Airways. He joined what was then still known as CLS in 2008, attracted by the opportunity to take the organisation in a fundamentally different direction. He is, however, clear in his views that


years of expertise do not necessarily equate to having all the answers. “I think people like me have done the industry a real disservice over the course of the last 25 years,” he says.


“We’ve been absolutely brilliant at developing programmes, marketing and pricing strategies that are attractive to between 10 and 15 per cent of the population and no more. “If we continue to peddle


the same stuff, we’ll never move the percentage forward. There are so many people out there who want to get active, but the last place they want to do it at the moment is in a leisure


centre. We have to wise up


to that. We’ll be successful in the future not because we understand why people exercise, but because we understand why they don’t.”


may 2011 © cybertrek 2011


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