Penistone Leisure Centre

Led by the community - For the community

love your community

Don’t Forget That Love Thy Penistone Is There For You if You Need Us!

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If you are vulnerable, shielding or isolating, please don’t forget that you can access help from community volunteers via Love Thy Penistone.

Love Thy Penistone was set up in the first lockdown to allow our community to support each other at this difficult time! We still have plenty of volunteers lined up to assist if they are needed. Some of our volunteers from the Leisure Centre were involved in the set up of this project, and many more have volunteered their

So if you need some shopping, or a prescription fetching, or pairing up with someone friendly for a chat, then please do get in touch to ask for help via the website or on 01226 337400.

Or alternatively, if you would like to volunteer to help someone in our community, then please sign up here.

Can You Help us Get our Happily Ever After?

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We’ve had a fantastic weekend at Penistone Lord Mayors Parade and Gala, talking to hundreds of people about all that we have going on down at the Leisure Centre.

Here are some of our Volunteers practising for our ‘Big Build’. Lets hope our renovation/extension is just as easy to build, but less likely to fall down!!

The Mayor’s Parade and Gala weekend are a wonderful example of Penistone’s brilliant community coming together to benefit the local area. It is pulled together by Round Table and Ladies Circle who fund raise tirelessly to benefit local charities and causes (us included!) We are so lucky to live in a place with such a thriving community.

Do you have skills to share that could benefit your community? Could you spare a couple of hours a week to volunteer here at Penistone Leisure Centre, to give something back? We’d love to hear from you!

Contact Nikki on nikki@penistoneleisurecentre.org.uk or 07305 090006.

This Week is Volunteers Week!

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And so we’d just like to take a moment to appreciate our volunteers and all they do for our community.

Without volunteers, Penistone Leisure Centre wouldn’t exist. It was closed due to council cut backs in 2011, and reopened (despite setbacks like all the copper pipes being stolen whilst it was closed!) in 2012 thanks to a very special team of people.

The centre has grown and changed from initially just operating classes in the main hall, to a vibrant and busy centre with a full program of classes and a community gym open daily! This is ALL thanks to volunteers.

Volunteers staff our reception, do gym inductions (qualified volunteers!), maintain the building, apply for funding and run sessions.

Rachel and Amanda doing paperwork!

Being a volunteer comes with lots of benefits! We’re a friendly bunch, and will make you very welcome. We have volunteers from aged 5 to 75+ and from a real variety of backgrounds. If you love where you live and would like to make it better, why not give a little of your time?

We also like to thank our volunteers with tangible benefits earned after 2hrs volunteering a week such as a free weeks gym pass, or earning credit towards a childrens party or a free skating session for your kids.

If you think you may be able to help, please contact Nikki on 07305 090006 or nikki@penistoneleisurecentre.org.uk

Some Great News!

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After months of hard work, we are delighted to announce that we have three bits of great news!

Firstly, we have been granted a 30 year lease of our building from BMBC! This gives us the security to progress the plans for Penistone Leisure Centre. Until this recent approval, we had been operating with a ‘tenancy at will’, which always meant we weren’t able to make longer term plans. Thankfully this new security allows us to progress our big refurbishment project!

Secondly, we have been granted planning permission to make the changes we have planned to the Leisure Centre! Fantastic news, which means the dream can really be a reality.

And thirdly, we’ve been awarded £60k of funding from Section 106!! Which is a nice big chunk of the money we need to get part 1 of our refurbishment plan underway! For those who don’t know how it works, the Section 106 Fund is money which has been sought from housing developers who have built new homes in the area. The money is then allocated in order to maintain or improve community amenities which may experience increased pressure by the addition of the homes.

We have also now submitted our application for £166,000 of funding from EPIP (East Peak Innovation Partnership) which, if successful, will mean we have all the funding required to complete the layout and structural work of phase 1 of our development plan.

The funds are made up as follows;

  • £25k Blackstone Edge Community Wind Farm for energy efficiency improvements (secured)
  • £60k from Section 106 Fund from BMBC (secured)
  • £3k of our own funds (drawn from Leisure Centre Income and Fundraising)
  • £166K from EPIP (if successful)

We recently put the proposed works out to tender, with quotes coming back more expensive than we had anticipated. As such, we have had to remove certain aspects of the plan from this part of the project. We will now have to fund raise separately in a later project for; insulation, decoration, flooring, new toilets etc

SO we are STILL desperately fundraising, and ever in need of your support! Can you help? Could your business invest in the local community? Could you do a sponsored ‘something’ for us? Could you help us complete funding applications? Let us know…

You can donate to our ‘wonderful’ page HERE, or by contacting the centre directly.

Please SHARE, SHARE, SHARE, and help us spread the good news!

We are Looking for Support from Local Businesses!

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In the coming weeks/months we are going to be approaching local businesses to ask for support in various ways! We know there are so many fantastic businesses locally and hope that there are some who can support us as a community asset.

We are hoping to raise £50k via various fundraising activities over the next year, towards our ‘Big Build Fund’. The ‘Big Build Fund’ will be invested into Penistone Leisure Centre (alongside various grants that we are applying for) to secure the centre and improve facilities for future generations. Following the renovations, the Leisure Centre will be able to serve a much greater proportion of the community.

Are you a local business owner? Could you help us with a one off donation or even a regular monthly amount? Does your business have a ‘charity of the month’ or support a charity a year? We’d love your support and any amounts will be gladly received. Businesses who help us will of course, be publicly acknowledged in our press releases/newsletter/website/social media.

We are aware that times have been hard recently, so understand that not everyone will be able to help us. However it may be worth consulting with your accountant, because charity donations are often tax deductible, so helping us wouldn’t necessarily cost you anything!

If you aren’t able to support us with a financial donation, you can still help- Could you have a charity donation box on your counter for customers to chuck spare change in? Or could you have a non-uniform day at work? Or do any sporty staff members fancy doing a sponsored ‘something’ for us?
We would love to hear from you.

There are loads of ways to help- even down to ‘SHARING’ our appeals or displaying our posters.

We always try to invest the money that we spend on Penistone Leisure back into the local community, by using local contractors and businesses. By supporting us, everyone wins!

Penistone Leisure Centre is led by the community, for the community.

You can donate to us via our ‘Wonderful’ page (doesn’t cost us or you anything extra!) HERE, or contact us on info@penistoneleisurecentre.org.uk to donate directly.