Intervalos de confianza

At the October 2005 finance sub group meeting the outcomes from the first SA were discussed along with plans to address some of the recommendations Preparation for the strategy day in November was also discussed. The first SA was to be used to focus the strategy day by starting with the positive outcomes of SA and then leading into group discussions to decide the priority for research over the next 12-18 months. The plan for the day included an update on SAs for anyone new to JSP (source: minutes of October 2005 finance meeting).

During October 2005 the strategy day, which JSP runs on a biannual basis, was held. The following section examines the strategy day where the first half was used to decide the scope of the next set of SA and which stakeholders should be consulted. The second half of the day was used to look at specific issues and develop long term plans. The purpose of the strategy days in the past have been to stand back from the day to day organisational issues and decide on what JSP would like to achieve in the longer term. The strategy days were facilitated by a Trustee and the outcomes included in the management process via Trustee meetings. The plans and outcomes from previous strategy days were not always followed up or completed.

The Trustee interviewed saw the second set of accounts as useful for the purpose of supporting the strategy day held in October 2005:

“it was partly to do with the SAs…we might have had a strategy day if we weren’t doing SAs, I don’t know, we might not, but in a sense it’s the outcome of the strategy day which I thought was pretty important in moving forward” (T).

The day was attended by more than 20 staff, Trustees, volunteers and members. The day was facilitated by a member of JSP and started with an introduction to JSP’s SAs. A discussion followed that focussed on what the pool represented to everyone and where / how the group saw the future of JSP. The discussion ranged from ‘what is special about JSP?’ to ‘the central geographic location within the community’ and ‘how do we know the answer to any of these questions?’. Other issues raised were problems of capturing some of the informal interactions between the JSP and customers. The informal dialogue between the staff and customers is a central part of the way the pool is run. After the discussion session the group then moved into smaller groups.

The small groups discussed their ideas of projects that could be included within the next set of SAs. The ideas from each group were listed on a flipchart and consisted of 19 different planned projects (see Table 6.3). In order to rank the projects, each person in the room was given 10 stickers (votes) and asked to put them against the project that they wanted addressed before others. They could put more than one sticker against those they felt strongly about. The group decided the important issues by ranking them according the amount of stickers (votes) against each project. The greatest amount of votes was given to doing more for the volunteers and communicating better with them (see Table 6.3). The ranked list was then given either a high, medium or low priority (see Table 6.3) relating to the ideal timescale for starting the project. High priority projects were to be completed within 6 months, medium - 12 months and low 12-18 months or longer.

Activity (in ranked order from highest to lowest votes) Priority H/M/L Volunteers – Wet – Dry

Do more for them / Communicating better with them (email list)

H

Social Events

Increase these and not just for fundraising purposes

H/M

Documenting indirect feedback (through casual conversations or comments) What do you like about the Pool? What do you dislike about the Pool? Using things like: Post Its / Pictures / Star systems

Comments being visible (e.g. whiteboard)

H

Links with Schools, for example engaging with: West Jesmond School / Heaton Manor School

H

13 – 17 Age Group

Priority ‘Club’

M

Knowledge of / About Us

History of Pool / DVD – screen

M

Activities Occurring Outside / Away from Building

Skateboarding / Running / Walking

H

Focus Groups (run by someone external to JSP) Feedback from children / Feedback from Schools

M

Non-users

Who are they? Why are they not using the Pool? Dead periods – encouraging users, both wet and dry

H

Outreach

Special websites / Primary Care Trusts

M

Most value to community

Upstairs space

M

Masters Survey (sharing information)

Repeat this type of survey with other groups Comments book

M

Older people who never swim

Swim phobias / GP referrals

M

Effects on direct neighbours

Noise, parking

Response? Providing feedback

M

Holistic Models of Health

Not just physical (emotional, social) Boundaries

M

Meetings as feedback

Trustee Meetings (invite public) Sub groups (invite staff)

M

Report who is using Pool

Within the social account – who has learnt to swim etc Providing figures over the years

H

Kids Groups

Parents pressures / National test

M

Make up of each user group

Within each group – who? And why are they not using the Pool? Non user info

M

Table 6.3 Strategy day outcomes: what do we want the focus of our next social account to be?

The overall outcomes from the day were a prioritised project list with agreement as to who was responsible for each one. The list was used to communicate within the organisation what the outcomes agreed at the strategy day were, as some had not been able to attend due to working at the pool.

A project concerning better communication with volunteers was given the highest ranking and priority (Table 6.3). As part of this project a survey was carried out by the volunteer coordinator (full results of the survey are included within Appendix F) and a comment from one volunteer interviewed was:

“it’s quite a good thing to be doing to be aware of why the volunteers volunteer. The reasons I volunteer now are not the reasons I volunteered when I was 16…it gave you experience if you wanted to apply for jobs elsewhere, not only did you have a qualification but you had experience, you had your free swims. Now free swimming isn’t as important as it was to us when I was 15/16 and I had no money and I don’t need the experience anymore so you volunteer now for different reasons and I think it’s quite good to see why we have quite a wide range of people, because the volunteers aren’t just young people” (V1)

Also it is of interest to other volunteers as to why Trustees volunteer:

“I think it’s interesting to see from the 2005 accounts what the Trustees have said about why they are still involved with the organisation54

Other reasons for volunteering were the social side:

. Given that a lot of them have been involved from the very start, and the reasons have probably changed because the nature of the business has changed quite a lot, and yet we’ve still got the same people there” (V1).

“we enjoyed volunteering because our friends were there, we went out, it was a very sociable organisation to be involved in and something you want to build on”

The positive comments also included volunteers views of:

“friendly staff and I think it’s nice to know your strengths as well as your weaknesses…not losing volunteers is important or losing the friendly atmosphere and by being aware of what you’re good at and what people

appreciate in the pool, you know what you really need to keep as well as what you can improve” (V1).

Other outcomes from the strategy day were a focus on how to deal with pressure on the limited space during peak times when capacity was reached in the gym, pool and activity room. Alternative activities outside the building were started to address this constraint. The Trustee interviewed had a positive view of this development through the strategy day and the SAs noting:

“it doesn’t matter whether someone makes a direct link between the strategy day and the SAs, but I think the fact that we had that discussion and we identified the fact that you couldn’t keep cramming things into the building – but we had a tremendous resource (i.e. people) which we could use in slightly different ways. I think that was a very useful conclusion…those sorts of ideas don’t always happen naturally unless you take a little bit of a step back” (T).

The strategy day provided the focus for the next section that documents the sequence of gathering data during the year.