Merry Christmas from all of us at Inverness Ice Centre. We hope you have a very happy Holidays and we wish you all the best for the New Year.

Ice Activities

There is something quite magical about winter scenes with skaters all wrapped up having fun on the ice. It’s all part of the Christmas spirit. The great news is, we have a full public skating programme running right through the holidays, closing only for the public holidays.

Our synchronised skaters enjoyed their trip to the Alexandria Palace in London back in November. Their Skating coach Amanda Clinton commented that “both groups skated beautifully, and we are extremely proud of their performances”. Both Skating teams, “Pups and Aurora” aim to improve their scores for the British Championships in January. Our adult team, the Highlanders will also compete and showcase their new program.

Come along and join our Highland Synchronized skating teams on Saturday 28th December at 7pm for a night of entertainment. Watch local skaters as they take to the ice to perform a variety of solos, duets and group numbers. At the end of the evening, we will invite the audience to vote for their favourite acts to choose our 2019 Ice Factor winners.

We are currently trialling a partnership with “webuyanycar” through British Skating to work with them to promote our skating activities. “webuyanycar” of course sponsor “Dancing on Ice” which will be back on our screens in the new year.

We are actively looking at new and creative ways to increase our “on ice” activities with the Board looking for ideas from our Curling, Ice Hockey and Skating teams. We’d welcome any thoughts to develop our “on ice” activities and we’d invite anyone to engage with the process. Please drop me an email with your ideas (email address noted below), I’d love to hear from you!

The Curling Development group presented to the board earlier this month and we identified that we need to recruit Curling Coaches. There is a level one course on the 25th of January 2020, and I’d encourage anyone interested to let me know.

The Ice Hockey and Skating teams are to present their ideas in February and March respectively.

The curling season is fully underway now of course, and it’s great to be busy with competition. Hearing the clunk of the stones and cackle of the voices willing stones into position, creates a daily buzz and hubbub around the rink.

The Wheelchair Curling triples was a success again this year, with great feedback from all involved. The Skins returned after a period of absence and lived up to the billing. Local team Ardclach skipped by Ali Fraser won the Skins, with Euan MacDonald’s team as runners up.

The round of club Bonspiels is also now in full swing with the “sare heid” next up on the 4th of January. It’s terrific to see the flurry of activity on the ice.

The Ice Hockey is also in full swing too with a busy Junior programme. The seniors play their league matches most weekends and are doing well this season.

The Highland Capitals have got off to a positive undefeated start and preparations are progressing nicely for their Scottish Plate Tournament next April in Dumfries. Promotion is a real possibility.

The Inverness Hurricanes have had an inconsistent start with injuries and missing key players. Improvement has been seen in their last two games with players returning from injury. Long term injury worry Capitan David Wylie is looking to return in the new year. Things are all moving in the right direction for the Scottish Quaich Tournament also in Dumfries in April.

The Inverness Highlanders Junior teams are competing in tournament and League Hockey for the first time. They have had a positive start, with improving results for the U14s and great results for the U10s at the Cross-Ice Tournaments in Dundee and Kirkcaldy. There is a real buzz of excitement for next year with many new players coming through the ranks at the Club.

The Highlanders Junior Club have “New Starts” sessions most Sundays between 4.45-5.45pm, welcoming new players to give the fastest team sport in the world a go!

Membership

It’s that time of year when clubs are now paying their membership fees. Keith is busy collecting the fees and reconciling numbers with the clubs.
I am of course new to the Centre, and being the new chap, I asked Keith what I thought was a straightforward question but was rather surprised by the response. I simply asked, “who are our members”? and the response is “we don’t fully know”? My question seemed obvious because much has been said about potentially doing something around membership benefits.

With this dilemma very much in mind, on receiving membership fees, Keith will contact club secretaries to request basic information to help us build a record of our members and contact details. The request will include the Centre’s GDPR statement.

Off Ice Activities

We are busy behind the scenes looking at what can be done to make the Ice Centre viable and sustainable for the long haul. We have visited many Centres across the country now and are engaging with the different sports, fact-finding, to uncover best practices. We are engaging with experts in many fields to understand what’s possible, what’s “best in class” and what can serve us best for the long term.

To give one example, it will come as no surprise that one of our largest expenditures is the costs of running our ice plant. You will be aware from our last post, that we are reviewing our energy efficiency and green credentials. The information Director, Stuart Lewis gathered, has been passed to experts to evaluate and to prepare reports with their recommendations and financials.

We are very much at the information gathering stage and the next stage will be to bring things together and to formulate a clear strategy and plan. We will be working hard to have plans to share at our AGM on March 25th.

Plans for Strictly 2020 are already underway. Jane Fraser has been working closely with the Hospice to select the dancers, matching up the couples, booking the venues for rehearsals that will start in the new year, organising costumes and all the other many things that often go unnoticed in making an event of this size work.

We are of course, all delighted that “King of the Ballroom”, dance star professional, Anton Du Beke will return as guest judge for the final in May.

Back to the more mundane, we’ve changed over our ePOS to integrate with our accounting systems, as well as having the capability to provide real-time management information at our fingertips. The flexibility provided with the handsfree devices will also help improve customer experience.

Our Wi-Fi has been upgraded too, providing a consistent stronger signal throughout the Centre.

Board Director Opportunities

It’s an exciting time to be involved with the Ice Centre as we make plans to shape our future. For anyone interested in being involved with the decision making and planning, we currently have vacancies for directors to join the Board. Should you have any queries or wish to express an interest please drop me a line?

Thank you for your continued support to the Ice Centre. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I wish all our staff, members, visitors, tenants, partners, friends and families a very Happy Christmas and prosperous New Year.

Gordon Y Barron, Chief Executive – Inverness Ice Centre

gbarronceo@inverness-ice-centre.co.uk