Award Winning Abbeycroft Leisure Extends Partnership with Simply PR

Abbeycroft Leisure has renewed its contract with Haverhill-based PR Consultancy Simply PR after a hugely successful year which culminated in the leisure trust winning two business awards including Marketing Strategy of The Year.
 
The Leisure Trust runs Bury St Edmunds and Haverhill Leisure Centres, the newly opened The Gym in Ipswich, and delivers much of the Sports Development and outreach work in St Edmundsbury.

Simply PR provides on-going offline and online public relations support to Abbeycroft. Some of the many achievements in the last year included a very successful promotional campaign to publicise the St Edmundsbury Sports Awards, Abbeycroft’s 5th anniversary campaign, the press launch of The Gym in Ipswich, and the launch of Abbeycroft’s new customer e-newsletter.

The PR consultancy based in Haverhill, Suffolk, was founded by Sue Warren, a former journalist and news editor with a wealth of experience in promoting companies. Sue started her career on the Bury Free Press in Bury St Edmunds, before leaving to join the newsdesk of the Reading Evening Post. After leaving journalism Sue worked both within PR agencies and in-house for a number of high profile organisations including University of Cambridge International Examinations, national consumer watchdog Postwatch and the NHS.

Sue Warren said: “Abbeycroft Leisure is very passionate about engaging with the local community, getting their feedback and promoting not only the facilities and sports programmes they offer, but also the towns, sports people and clubs where they operate.

“It has been a very exciting first year and there’s a lot to look forward to with the St Edmundsbury Sports Awards this year, a new community sports programme in Ipswich and the Rwandan Pre-Games Training Camp at Bury St Edmunds Leisure Centre in 2012.”

Abbeycroft Leisure chose Simply PR because of the personal service given to clients, the partnership approach taken, and the journalism experience needed to gain widespread publicity for clients.

On Saturday (14 May) Abbeycroft won Marketing Strategy of the Year and Large Business of the Year at the Haverhill Chamber of Commerce Business Awards, public relations was a key part of Abbeycroft’s Marketing Strategy.

Alison Bowyer, Abbeycroft Leisure’s Business Development Manager, said: “Since we started working in partnership with Simply PR our profile has grown from strength to strength. Sue's creativity and personal service ensures that our stories are told in a very real and exciting way, which has generated a great deal of interest from our customers and partners alike and she feels like one of our team. Undoubtedly the work undertaken by Simply PR on our behalf contributed to us receiving the award for Marketing Strategy of the Year at the recent Haverhill Chamber of Commerce Business Awards.

“As we renew our annual contract with Simply PR, we hope to build on our successes of last year by continuing to raise awareness of how physical activity can have a positive impact on people's health and well being.”