Leisure Club Administrator
David Lloyd Fitness

Kate M

00:00:02 Hello, my name’s Kate M and I work as a Club Administrator at Cambridge for David Lloyd Leisure. A Club Administrator is basically looking after all the income that comes into the business. I do quite a lot of the HR, so I look after new starters, inductions, making sure they get paid right, and basically looking after the staff to make sure they’re happy. Being like a bit of a Mum in a Mum’s role for them, helping them to achieve what they need to achieve.

00:00:28 I was actually the Front of House Manager, and the Administrator left the business, and I decided that I could do that job. There was a vacancy. I was getting a little bit bored with the job that I was doing, so I was given the chance. The first couple of months, people were phoning me saying I’d missed deadlines, because I really didn’t know what I was doing. But that gave me the motivation and encouragement to actually learn and to be better.

00:00:54 I was always middle of the road student who was OK but never excelled, but wasn’t terrible. So I sometimes wish that I’d spent a little bit more time in Maths, definitely, instead of talking, to actually listen. So my only regret was that I didn’t have huge academic skills when I left school.

00:01:14 There’ve been teachers who – I probably was sat at school and thinking I don’t understand, or you know, not taking it in, and thought it’s better to be a class joker than to take something in. But I think it was probably six years later, when I had left school, that my Biology teacher – I was sat there and thought, yeah you actually did teach me a lot. So I think you can be in school and think you’re not learning anything, or take any thanks or praise to the teacher, but a couple of years down the line you can just sit there and have one of those moments when you think – I wish I could go back and say thank you.

00:01:47 When I left school I wanted to be a Beauty Therapist, so I went straight to college for three years to study to be a Beauty Therapist, deciding that I didn’t want to do A-Levels or take the University route, I wanted to do something that was a skill that I wanted to do. So I followed my dream. I was a Beauty Therapist for possibly I’d say ten, ten to eleven years. So I worked and progressed my way up to a Manager. And then I met the man of my dreams, and my life took a completely different path. So I had a baby with my husband, and then I decided that because I had a baby, I couldn’t give the time or the devotion I needed to to Beauty Therapy, which I believed Beauty Therapy should have. So I decided to become more of an operator, more office based.

00:02:31 This year – I’ve spent the last year studying to do my CIPD, which is the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development. So I decided that I wanted to start to retrain, because I hadn’t done anything academic at school, I went straight into being a Beauty Therapist. So in 5 to 10 years’ time I’d like to work in – in a training and development role, giving back what people have given to me to make me as successful.

00:02:57 This picture is one of my favourites. It’s my Mum and Dad’s wedding day, with my – both my sets of grandparents. The reason this is so important to me is because they are six people who have basically made me who I am today. These six people have influenced me, been there from when I’ve been naughty, when I’ve been good, and shared all of my highs and lows, and all of my achievements. And I think I can sit here today and say these six people are very very proud of men.

00:03:25 I like to think I’ve got a good work/life balance, absolutely. I absolutely love the time with my family, there’s nothing better than to walk into work and just to have to think about what I’m going to do and what I’m, you know what Kate wants to do, rather than what Mummy or somebody’s wife needs to do. So yeah I think I’m very lucky.

00:03:44 You can see so many people who are kind of like mid-forties or late thirties changing their career because they’ve suddenly got their get and go, and their motivation’s changing. And I think when you’re 16 and you’re leaving school, you are literally just starting out in life, and there’s so much to look forward to. And if you take one wrong turn, it’s very easy to turn it back around and go back on the right path.

00:04:05 ENDS