MonLife celebrates it’s 2nd year promoting a healthier and more inspiring Monmouthshire
This month, Monmouthshire County Council is celebrating MonLife’s second year of promoting healthier lives and inspirational experiences, promoting the vibrancy of Monmouthshire as a wonderful place to be.
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For more information on the amazing achievements of MonLife please click on our 2nd Birthday Infographic above
As part of its celebrations, MonLife, which delivers leisure, youth and outdoor education, green infrastructure, countryside access, arts, museums, attractions and destination management services across the county, has reflected on many of its key achievements in what’s been a challenging period.
Launching in January 2020 and at a time of uncertainty, MonLife has continued to provide services during restrictions and has adapted to make sure it was fit for purpose to ensure residents were still able to access services to help with their health and wellbeing.
The aims of MonLife are to enrich people’s lives through participation and activity, build strong communities in Monmouthshire and develop leadership skills for future generations. In the last two years, it’s been able to achieve these aims by attracting 863,000 visits to the four Monmouthshire leisure centres for physical activity, including over 2,000 children in the learn to swim programme. This has also included the provision of pre-recorded fitness videos from MonLife instructors, including Tai Chi, Yoga, HiiT and sports challenges to keep people active during the lockdowns.
Over 2498 children had the opportunity to take part in The Monmouthshire Games (TMG) in just 73 days of activity, The Games have also reached over 9,300 attendances over 73 days. TMG will once again be returning for February Half Term and future school holidays across the four leisure centres.
MonLife has delivered a wide and varied holiday provision for children and young people over the 2-year period. This has included TMG, School Holiday Enrichment Programme and Open Access Play Sessions to name just a few. During this period, we have supported 1153 vulnerable children providing a safe and enjoyable space over the school holidays.
MonLife Active, which operates the four leisure centres in Monmouthshire located in Abergavenny, Caldicot, Chepstow and Monmouth, has also continued to develop its sites and invested 2.5 million in services to ensure residents have access to a range of modern equipment and facilities. Abergavenny Leisure Centre was part of this investment and opened on the 4th January 2022, creating a wellness hub over the first floor to create modern leisure facilities for the local community helping to increase participation in regular physical activity.
MonLife Connecthas worked incredibly hard over the last two years, connecting the community together throughout the pandemic. The closing of youth centres meant youth workers stayed in touch with local young people through outreach and digital programmes, which included making time for chats and helping to run outdoor activities. Young people could also stay connected via social media channels like Facebook and Instagram, as well as youth workers providing digital 1 to 1 support. Friendly Friday sessions were introduced, which included a wide range of topics that mattered to young people, including autism and voting. 86% of young people who were engaged in these projects perceived an improvement in two or more areas of their mental health/emotional well-being, which reflects on the importance of this service. Our Sports Development team created online physical activity opportunities to support physical and mental health throughout the pandemic.
MonLife Heritage have also reached successful milestones in the last two years, with over 53,000 visitors, and over 200 hours of volunteering across Monmouthshire museums, and a combination of over 300,000 visitors across heritage sites in Monmouthshire. Whilst keeping communities up to date with key facts and information on Museum collections and heritage sites on social media there was also access to live online historical lectures during the pandemic.
MonLife Outdoors milestones included £2,912,000 worth of funding which was secured to deliver Biodiversity, Green Infrastructure and Active Travel projects for 2021. 658 young people from across Monmouthshire were involved in an expedition as part of their DofE award and 330 new young people were recruited from Monmouthshire’s comprehensive schools.
MonLife Creative engaged in activities with 700 older people and people living with dementia who have benefitted from using MonLife’s Reminiscence boxes which can be hired from Monmouth Museum. The team also worked with 1564 children and young people.
This also marks the 2-year anniversary of MonLife taking a leading role in Active Travel for Monmouthshire County Council. During this period, we have been successful in securing in excess of 4 million in grant funding and worked on 49 projects to help create an environment to increase walking and cycling levels.
Praising MonLife for its excellent contributions, Councillor Lisa Dymock, with responsibility for MonLife said: “The team have worked tirelessly over the first two years to deliver services to our communities. It has been a testing time, but we have a tremendous sense of pride in what has been achieved through all our teams’ endeavours and hard work. We are planning for 2022 to be an even better year, considering how we can enhance our services by consultations and listening to residents’ ideas.”
Ian Saunders, Chief Operating Officer “I would just like to thank our customers and teams who contribute each day to being part of MonLife services and programmes, we are all so very proud of the outcomes they deliver”
If you would like the chance to win some fantastic MonLife prizes please click HERE
For more information about the work MonLife is doing in Monmouthshire, please visit: Home – Monlife