How Bay Tree VA is making an impact with Abbeycroft Leisure
Abbeycroft Leisure, based in Haverhill, works across communities in the West Suffolk and Babergh districts. Established as a Charitable Leisure Trust in 2005 and awarded social enterprise status in 2010, it is today an £11m turnover enterprise.
In early 2024, Warren Smyth, CEO, made the decision to enlist the support of a Bay Tree VA, the purpose being to release some capacity generally and more specifically to delegate some of the governance work and some key project research work. The hope was that Warren himself might get the better work/life balance Abbeycroft Leisure inspires others to seek.
“The team at Abbeycroft Leisure is amazing” explains Warren, “As well as managing your local gym or pool we tackle some of the biggest social challenges with community programmes and initiatives reaching marginalised communities and deprived areas of our region. There is so much to do, prioritising can be difficult.”
“Bay Tree VA, Katie is highly skilled and the more we work together the more she can apply her previous experience in business and add value. For example, we release a detailed Impact Report annually and Katie has taken responsibility for collating the information needed, working with my team, and coming up with the first draft. This has saved a great deal of time for everyone at Abbeycroft. Katie also called upon other expertise from Bay Tree to develop a workflow and automate several processes to improve efficiency. In a very short time, we are really finding our feet with the outsourced resource that Bay Tree VA offers.”
From the outset founder of Bay Tree VA, Jane Cattermole, has felt that the real success of her business would be measured in the ability to improve the lifestyle for both clients and her team of VAs. So, has Warren managed to reflect on his own work/life balance?
“We will continue to scale the Bay Tree resource up and down in line with the needs of the business, whether that is specific projects or to release my own time. Going forward, I believe Katie will be key to delivering our strategy. Have I managed a better work/life balance? Well, it’s definitely improving!”
