Forfar Indoor Sports applied for our Business Improvement Grant, which was funded by  the Scottish Government via the Discretionary Fund which supported businesses during Covid.

About the business

Mike and Sandra Ferguson own and manage the sporting centre, having acquired the business in September 2009. Both keen curlers, Mike and Sandra have continued to build on the facility’s previous success, driving the centre forward with new concepts and ideas.

“We were encouraged to apply for the Business Improvement Grant to assist the company’s development following COVID, through enhanced technology by way of improved booking systems, modern EPOS systems and CCTV streaming.

We were seeking to upgrade our technology to enhance our customers overall experience when using any of our services.  COVID had a major impact on both customer footfall and individual spend so to attract our customers back, and increase their overall enjoyment and participation, we believed it was important to enhance our customer offering.

We successfully upgraded our CCTV systems for FIS & Frosty’s, to both enhance security and enable live streaming of our activities direct into members and visitors living rooms. For example, when holding national curling competitions we can live stream games to enable Mums, Dads, Grannies, Grandads and supporters from all around the world to watch their favourites games. This not only promotes our facility, it is also a terrific advert for Scottish sports.”

– Mike & Sandra Ferguson, Forfar Indoor Sports

Outcomes from the BIG Fund

Forfar Indoor Sports have moved their entire EPOS systems for Forfar Indoor Sports and Frosty’s over to the Square payment system, registers and handheld collections. This has been a tremendous success with many benefits already, including:

• Improved ease of use for staff
• Faster transactions and receipt of payment from the collector
• Clearer instructions for customer paying
• Faster move to cashless payments
• Greater integration of online payments
• Reduced administration time accounting payments
• Improved reporting

The grant has enabled to business to employ two new staff members with more to follow, get their membership card facility up and running and reduce payment handling costs by around 36%.

Since these new measures have been introduced, 40 new curling members have joined FCCC and 20 new bowlers have joined FIBC. There have been new faces on the ice for ice skating sessions on a weekly basis, with ice skating numbers up 10% in the first few weeks of the season.

Recent group visits from Canadian & Swiss curlers have been on the back of the online presence, which not only benefits Forfar Indoor Sports but also benefits the wider local economy via local hotels, restaurants and golf courses.

Very positive feedback has been received from members, visitors and further afield on the CCTV streaming.