James Weston

• Assisted Directors and Department manager in conducting a number of internal audits aimed at benchmarking Hume City Council Leisure Team against the rest of the industry. This included using external providers to analyze participation, financial, and operational data.a, organisational structure and strategic documents.
• Developed the 2024-25 FY Budget for Leisure, which includes 3 large leisure centres and 9 stadium or indoor sport clubs with over 900 staff members.
• Successfully navigated department wide change relating to staffing legislation. Communicated effectively and collaborated with Hume Shared services, Lawyers and directors to develop a roll out plan to Unit Leader Staff (band 7) coordinators and Team Leaders.

• Assisted in the development of a number of strategic plans, including their 'Active Ageing' Strategy, Health and Wellbeing Plan, and Service and Infrastructure Plan.
• Delivered two large scale capital works projects that include an additional three courts at Craigieburn Sports Stadium and completion of the new state of the art Hume Indoor Cricket Centre.
• Mentored two highly skilled staff and delivered coaching to a team of over 100 staff members. This allowed one staff member the opportunity to act in my position for long periods of time when I had been elevated.
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• Awarded YMCA Hero of the year for delivering exceptional communication and team building during the Covid-19 Pandemic as well as for creating a strong community and connection with the team from my first day on the Job
• Collaborated with key YMCA people to deliver a 6-month and 2 year strategy including financial forecasts for Banyule Council to display the direction and success Macleod could achieve post the Covid-19 Pandemic. Consequently, YMCA received a 12-month lease extension because of this body of work
• Successfully managed a team of 96 people through the Covid-19 Pandemic including standing down the entire staff team multiple times as well as re-structuring the centre to closer align to the Macleod future state
• Returned Macleod Recreation and Fitness Centre back to operation from Covid-19 Pandemic with above budget Gymnastics membership numbers and re-forecasts to accurately reflect the impact on key business drivers through the fallout of the Covid-19 closures.

• Mentored Part-Time Team Leader at Coburg to deliver on 2 key focuses within his role. Successfully assisted in implementing the Adrenaline 8-week challenge with 30 participants registering for the challenge which came from reducing the focus and assisting on delivering only 1 or 2 things at a time

Oak Park:

• Collaborated with Key Organisational Health and Fitness Leaders to create a ‘personality profile’ for the health club team
• Recruited, Inducted, trained and mentored a team of 9 staff based of selection criteria we believed would create a high-level team
• Assisted Centre Manager and Area manager with the Oak Park health club fit out and worked with Precor, Active Moreland, YMCA and other key players to create a state of the art health club floor with functional flow of people traffic
• Co-Created & Delivered Health and Fitness strategy across ‘Active Moreland’ and collaborated with three other Health and Fitness managers to deliver innovative and consistent programming across the municipality
• Implemented Ladies Who Lift at Oak Park as well as introducing programming such as Kids Yoga, Running Group and the Adrenaline 8-week challenge, all firsts for the Oak Park Centre
• Partnered with numerous local moreland community venues to deliver of 60 experiences relating to health and fitness for free as part of the award winning 'Active Week'. Connections established still house local community groups and Zumba Gold is run at these locations

Fawkner:

• Mentored and Collaborated with key staff members across Fawkner to deliver 2 brand new ‘Active Moreland’ programs into the centre
• The programs ‘Adrenaline’ and ‘Ladies who lift’ come from other centres but since taking over the role of ‘Health and Fitness Specialist’ have been able to successfully implement these program's into Fawkner Leisure Centre and across the broader ‘Active Moreland’ municipality

Brunswick:

• Collaborated with the key health and fitness person at Brunswick to assist other centres to run a suite of their programs, which used to sit within Brunswick Baths exclusively
• The YMCA Adrenaline Challenge as well as Ladies who Lift and now MYND Urban Retreat are now run across all four Active Moreland Centres
• Brunswick staff have been key to deliver this, and the relationship and management style that I have taken to the centre has resulted in all 4 centres working together to create Moreland Wide Programs as well as deliver on key strategic outcomes across Active
• Moreland.

• Promoted through North Melbourne Leadership Role into the health and Fitness coordinator role where I was required to manage a team of 14 Personal Trainers to deliver up to date and effective training for all members
• Worked to develop a ‘metabolic accelerator’ program to increase profits to the Branch and increase membership retention.