Further expansion for Right Directions as core team hits 24

Right Directions has welcomed two new members to its team. The industry’s quality management and health and safety expert core team, which delivers Sport England’s Quest quality scheme, ukactive’s Code of Practice and accreditation for the ASA’s Learn to Swim Pathway, has now hit 24.

Quality Manager, Deborah Jones, is an active leisure industry veteran with more than 20 years experience under her belt, having started her career as a receptionist, birthday party host, cafe team member and supervisor in a busy bowling and family entertainment centre in Stevenage in 1995.

Jones worked her way up through various sectors of the leisure industry, including health and fitness, to the role of General Manager where she won awards such as General Manager of the year out of 46 UK sites and a national award for ‘best key performance controls’, before being appointed Group Operations Manager in a new startup project, which developed into a chain of six sites, winning the Play Providers Association ‘best indoor play operator’ in the UK.

More recently she has worked as a freelance trouble shooter, helping new and struggling businesses and their teams to resolve sales, operations and personnel issues, managing new openings and refurbishment projects.

Jones has a passion for health and fitness and is an avid outdoors type, having recently completed her highest mountain climb of 8500ft helping the team of 20 climbers to raise more than £20,000 for a children’s charity.

She said: “I’ve worked in most areas of an industry that I absolutely love, but am always curious to learn more about the sector and add new strings to my bow! My time at Right Directions so far has been a busy whirlwind, and I’m enjoying meeting such great teams and learning all about the array of exciting projects they work on.”

Jimmy Pimblett has been appointed as Quality and Health and Safety Manager at Right Directions. Like Jones, he has more than 20 years experience within the leisure industry, where he started as a lifeguard.

“I was originally working in quality control for manufacturing,” he said. “Lifeguarding was supposed to be a stop gap move, but like so many others I ended up staying and built a career within the leisure industry that has taken me from Bolton in the north of England to Jersey in the south.”

In his roles as duty manager, operations manager and general manager at a number of local authority leisure centres over the years, Pimblett had experience of Right Directions from courses he had attended and audits the company had completed.

He said: “Right Directions’ reputation goes before them and so when I saw the role advertised I jumped at it straight away. My day to day job is very varied, from conducting safety audits at leisure centres, trampoline parks and warehouses to mystery visits for Quest and Right Directions. With environmental management system audits and Quest Assessments starting soon, there’s plenty to keep me busy!”

Meanwhile, to aid the continued growth of the company, Right Directions has extended its senior management team and promoted Carey James to Head of Operations, a role previously covered by Gill Twell, who is now Head of Development.

James, who joined Right Directions as a Quality and Health and Safety Manager in 2013 having been a Quest Assessor for 13 years, will now be responsible for ensuring the best customer service for clients in the delivery of all their products and services, while Twell’s position will see her further developing new initiatives and ideas to support existing clients and ensure the company continuously improves the range of services it offers.

Caroline Constantine, Operations Director at Right Directions said: “With 25 years leisure industry experience under his belt, Carey is the ideal person to look after the individual needs of all our customers and ensure we deliver the same high standard of products and services that we always have, whilst Gill makes sure that we never stand still, taking all our ideas and initiatives to both our team and our clients. Leading Right Directions to the next level is very exciting.”

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Editor’s notes:
Right Directions Management provides health and safety and quality management support to the leisure industry, specialising in local authority and trust-managed sites, as well as smaller independent operators. Right Directions, which delivers Quest on behalf of Sport England and ukactive’s Code of Practice, has more than 60 years experience within its field. www.rightdirections.co.uk

For further information contact:
Abigail Harris at Big Fish Public Relations
Tel: 07738 331019
Email: abigail@bigfishpublicrelations.co.uk