Wigan Leisure & Culture Trust

Download PDF

Wigan Leisure & Culture Trust (WLCT) is a charitable trust working on behalf of Wigan Council to manage and support leisure and cultural facilities and events, serving more than 300,000 local residents. Through its vision 'Getting Wigan Active' the Trust works hard to encourage people of all ages and fitness levels to access local leisure facilities. In addition to the borough's showcase JJB Stadium, home to Wigan Athletic F.C. and Wigan Warriors Rugby League, WLCT operates eight leisure and sports sites offering impressive facilities, including an indoor athletics arena, all-weather pitches, tennis and gymnastics centres and a range of multi-purpose halls catering for martial arts, dance, fitness & workout sessions. Six swimming pools - including the flagship 50 metre international pool - two pay and play golf courses and numerous bar and conference venues available for hire, make up WLCT's diverse range of leisure facilities.

Historically, WLCT relied upon a paper-based bookings system and outdated till points that offered limited back office reporting and no membership information. Margaret Pennington, WLCT's ICT Manager says: "The entire system needed bringing into the 21st century. Our legacy till system was over 15 years old, whilst our paperbased bookings were time-consuming and inflexible. Wigan already had state of the art leisure facilities - we needed an IT-based management system to match!" Tendering began in April 2005 with an 'expression of interest' invitation. From this several potential suppliers were shortlisted. Full on-site demonstrations followed, with visits to other reference sites and clarification meetings to discuss WLCT's detailed requirements. Margaret explains: "Our dual leisure and culture remit makes us a complex organisation and our requirements were different from many public sector leisure providers." "We needed a modern, comprehensive Leisure Management system to provide us with ticketing, computerised bookings and membership management across ten sites. Alongside this, we required a hospitality package for our private hire venues. "Following on-site demos and detailed meetings, we realised that Xn Leisure could offer us the best of both worlds - TLMS offered everything we required from a leisure management system and in Xn Checkout we had a modern hospitality solution," continues Margaret.

"During the detailed discussion process, various stakeholders' opinions were sought. As the project was Council-funded and all ICT systems ultimately sit on its network, the Xn Leisure system needed to be 100% compatible and robust." "Equally we wanted to ensure that our leisure centre staff, who would use the system front-end on a daily basis, were aware of the changes and felt they had ownership of the new technology. Leisure representatives became members of the 'IT build team' and their insight into what the system needed to deliver to satisfy customer requirements was invaluable." Staff training was also an important aspect of the planned deployment. As leisure centre personnel were familiar with paper-based systems and some had limited IT knowledge, Margaret and her team were keen to make the crossover as pain-free as possible.

Margaret adds: "As with any culture change, there is a tendency for people to be nervous - particularly when it involves anything 'hi-tech'. Together with the trainers from Xn Leisure, we offered our leisure staff group and one-to-one training sessions to ensure they were happy with the new system." April 1st 2006 saw TLMS deployed across all 8 WLCT leisure sites. The Trust's new 'Lifestyle' membership system was simultaneously rolled out across both the leisure centre operation and WLCT's golf courses. Margaret admits: "Some might say April 1st is an inauspicious day to switch to a completely new ICT system and membership scheme but we felt it was better to launch both together than drip feed the roll-out. Thankfully everything went to plan and April 1st came and went without making us look foolish!" The benefits of TLMS quickly became apparent. Staff were able to manage bookings in just a few quick keystrokes and faster customer throughput led to shorter queues and less waiting time at the tills. The integrated membership system allows data capture across all sites, including details of all participants.

It's particularly useful at the Trust's golf courses, allowing one customer to book a four-ball game, whilst still recording details of all four players. Looking to the future, WLCT is utilizing TLMS technology to launch a loyalty programme. This is being trialled through its golf courses with plans to extend it across all leisure sites later this year.

The Trust is also working closely with Xn Leisure to implement the new Horizons .Net internet bookings system. Due to roll-out across all sites shortly, the on-line service will enable users to view their current and past bookings, check availability and reserve/pay for sessions in advance. "TLMS has already had a tremendous impact," says Margaret. "We've achieved our objective of providing our leisure centres with a leading edge, 21st century bookings solution. We are now exploring ways of linking this technology with our culture operation. A feasibility study is underway to link TLMS leisure membership with WLCT's TALIS library system with a view to integrating our databases. Our intention is to integrate all aspects of leisure, from booking a squash court to reading a book."