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Rathfriland Community Centre is planning to introduce virtual fitness classes as a backup option, as it can be quite difficult to secure the physical presence of fitness instructors in the ‘hilltop town’, due to its peripheral location in the ABC Borough.
Such provision already exists at South Lake Leisure Centre and Banbridge Leisure Centre, however the introduction of virtual classes in Rathfriland Community Centre will be a first for a ‘second-tier’ leisure facility in the borough.
The matter was discussed at Monday night’s (November 11) Leisure & Wellbeing Committee meeting of ABC Council.
The relevant agenda item explains: “Due to its rural location, it is challenging for management to provide ad-hoc cover for fitness classes to cover annual leaves or absenteeism of its current employees.
“The fitness classes vary between 30 – 60 minutes, and employees are having to travel a distance to take a class for a short duration.
“Rathfriland Community Centre plans to operates a digital class programme, as a backup to any classes that cannot be covered, and to provide additional classes when the hall is not in operation.”
The fitness classes are very well attended at Rathfriland Community Centre, according to the report, with 555 customers for pilates, 551 for indoor cycling, 550 for circuits/TRX/pump, and 102 for ‘legs, bum, tum’, totalling 1,758 customers.
The report continues: “Installation of the virtual class system will increase the amount of fitness classes by at least 10 a week, and increase the variety of classes available including yoga, Tai Chi and dance classes.
“Officers are expecting the system to be in place by January 2025.”
Alderman Glenn Barr (Banbridge DEA) expressed some concerns in relation to the plans: “I have no problem with innovation per se, but at what stage does virtual become the actual reality? At what stage do we become just virtual?
“And then in terms of our paying customers, do they then get a discount, because they’re not getting what they had signed up to. If I was going to a gym and I was going to do the boot camps or whatever in the morning times, I’d be expecting a fitness instructor there.”
Head of Health & Recreation, Darryn Causby stressed that having instructors physically present would always be the preferred option: “We are not moving away from in-person instructors.
“You will be aware that we have had a number of issues in Rathfriland, because it is rural and out on the far side of the borough.
“We have quite a difficult time trying to get class instructors to cover periods of sickness. It has been really difficult to get people to travel across, but we’ve also had difficulty recruiting class instructors as well across the borough.
“The issue with cancelling classes is not unfortunately unique to Rathfriland. The lack of class instructors and getting things covered has [been an issue] in Banbridge, in Orchard [Leisure Centre], and a few other sites as well.
“This is more about adding extra value to the programme that is there, because instructors that we do have going to Rathfriland are very popular with our customers.
“So we will just be putting this in place to offer alternatives during the day, when maybe class instructors are few. This is just a pilot. We will update you on how the pilot goes, whether it’s been positive or not.”
Alderman Gareth Wilson (Cusher DEA) raised health and safety concerns: “There is the issue of health and safety around virtual classes.
“If you have a physical instructor in the room, if somebody injures themselves or whatever, you’ve always somebody there who is trained in what to do. If you have just a room with people watching a screen, who has the responsibility to look after somebody?
“Another member of the public can go out and get another member of staff to assist them. I just have a wee concern around that.”
Mr Causby was keen to reassure the Cusher DEA representative: “As with all of our activities, they will come with a risk assessment. There will be staff on site who are all first-aid trained.
“Rathfriland is one of our smaller sites. It’s much easier to manage and pilot this type of activity. With proper training and risk assessment, we’re comfortable where we are.”
Committee chair, Cllr Keith Haughian (Lurgan DEA) remarked: “It is a pilot programme, so obviously as a committee we’ll be able to come back and look at some of the feedback.”
When asked by Alderman Barr how often updates would be provided on the pilot, the senior council representative told him: “Once we get going, give us a good three months to see how it goes. There will be ample time for an initial assessment [after] a full year.”
South Lake Leisure Centre general manager, Paul Coleman was keen to clarify what the pilot scheme was about: “There’s two things that we are looking to address. One is making sure that customers don’t turn up at the centre and we don’t have anything to offer them.
“We are fully staffed at the moment, so we’re not cancelling any classes at the moment. When the hall is empty, we will be running additional classes.
“We’ll let customers know if there’s not a human taking the class, and we’ll basically share that we have something to offer them, rather than nothing, which was sometimes the case a couple of months ago when we couldn’t get any cover.
“We’ll be able to run additional yoga, pilates, very specific boot camp classes, and they will all be run safely.
“We’ll be using CCTV to monitor the classes, there’ll be panic buttons, they’ll be risk-assessed. We do it already in South Lake and in Banbridge, so it’s not something that’s new, but it’s something that is new in a tier-2 centre.”
