Story by: Australian Leisure Management

Geoff Lord, Chairman and Chief Executive of the Belgravia Group, has been recognised with Beyond Activ’s Lifetime Achievement Award – presented yesterday evening at Beyond Activ Oceania in Melbourne – being held from 2nd to 3rd December at the Crown Conference Centre.

Recognising Lord’s multi decade achievements through the Belgravia Group in areas including children’s activity, exercise, facility management, fitness, outdoor education and tourism, the award was presented by Beyond Activ Chief Executive and founder Ross Campbell.

The presentation also saw the presentation of the Beyond Activ Industry Appreciation Award to Barrie Elvish, the former Chief Executive at AUSactive.

Interviewed by Campbell, after the receipt of his award, Lord expressed his gratitude over receiving the award, acknowledging his pride in the high quality and motivation of staff in the Belgravia Group.

He explained “the quality of the people and the motivation of the people is something that drives me.

“I work very long hours – and so do my people – and they do everything that I would ask them to do and I do what they expect of me.

“And together with the motivation that they show I can walk into a facility of ours anywhere in Australia and the staff smile and the people that are working out there smile.”

Always looking forward, Lord spoke of Belgravia’s expansion, advising “we’re now entering very vigorously areas like outdoor education, dance and cheer and today I’m very pleased to say that 14 clubs have joined our Recreational Gymnastics Australia and I think that’s a groundswell where we will change something in that industry.”

He noted “we’re building programs … opening GymbaROOs at the rate of three per month and we’ve got 150,000 kids in Learn To Swim.

“And then when they finish Learn To Swim, hopefully we can get them back into gymnastics and then get them to dance and then get them to do other things like outdoor education.”

Lord also spoke of his desire to access more funds for facility development and his intended lobbying of the Federal Government for tax deductability for children’s activities.

He added by advising that Elvish will be joining Belgravia as of January next year.

This latest award follows Lord being honoured with the Chair’s Award at the 2024 AUSactive Award Gala held in Sydney.