1.Tell me about your company – what industry you are in and what does your business do?
Yarra Leisure is a business unit of the Yarra City Council. Within the community and our venues, the unit is commonly known as and referred to as Yarra Leisure.
Yarra Leisure manages the Richmond Recreation Centre, Collingwood Leisure Centre, Fitzroy Swimming Pool, Burnley Golf Course and Collingwood Estate Gym. Yarra Leisure was formed in 1995 as an integrated management unit across the three leisure centres, with Burnley Golf Course and the Collingwood Estate Gym coming on board in 2004.
Yarra Leisure’s purpose is to generally contribute to the Yarra City Council’s achievement of its strategic objectives. Typically, Yarra Leisure will deliver programs and/or services such as recreational swimming, swimming lessons, gymnasium, group exercise, personal training, social and competition golf, golf lessons and some sports equipment retail as well as providing services such as facility operations, memberships, customer service and administration that support its direct service delivery.
2. Can you please provide some top level information about your organisation, such as size, number of staff, office locations or similar?
Yarra Leisure receives over a millions visits per year and has a membership base of over 5000. Staff size is approximately 350 across five locations across the Yarra City Council Area.
3.Why did you go through certification?
Yarra Leisure has always prided itself on best practice. We show this through our adherence to certified quality accreditation including AS/NZS ISO 9001:2015 and OHS Management System AS/NZS 45001:2018. Yarra Leisure is also part of Life Saving Victoria’s (LSV) Platinum Pool program . Platinum Pool status is awarded to aquatic facilities providing outstanding levels of safety. To achieve the award the three leisure centre’s are required to undertake a rigorous series of assessments to ensure it met all of LSV’s criteria for the accreditation.
A gap in the health and fitness industry for gym and group exercise operations to be externally, transparently and independently benchmarked seemed to exist. AUSactive acknowledged and met this need which in turn gives our customers and the broader organisation confidence our service provision is meeting best practice standards.
4.How did you find the process with Global-Mark?
Global-Mark was outstanding in its communication throughout the process. The written component gave ample opportunity for the organisation to provide supporting documentation to our service delivery. The interview allowed for a real conversation about our services and how the supporting documentation made a practical difference to our customers and broader business. The report that is delivered at the end of the process gives a pathway forward for the business between now and the next audit.
5.What is your outcome e.g. are you happy with the outcome?
The valuable audit and final report now guides our growth over the next three years which is a great outcome for our business.
6.Are there any other business benefits you experienced as a result of becoming certified?
Certification has opened further doors in the industry for Yarra Leisure to be involved in pilot programs and training supported by AUSactive. This keeps us on the cutting edge of future industry development.
For more information on Yarra Leisure, click here.
