An Aspirational Community

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Mike Stanley
CEO, AUT Millennium & President, New Zealand Olympic Committee

In 2002 Sir Graeme Avery and Sir Stephen Tindall gave AUT Millennium, then Millennium Institute of Sport and Health, a significant challenge: “to help New Zealanders live longer and healthier lives and to enjoy and excel in sport”.

This challenge would be impossible without the wide-range of partners, medical services, organisations, sports clubs and national sporting organisations who call AUT Millennium home.

Our Foundation Clubs are home to over 2500 members and are some of the most successful clubs in New Zealand. These clubs provide opportunities to people of all ages to participate in sport and physical activity and demonstrate a tremendous togetherness and community spirit.

At the heart of AUT Millennium are nine community service units, tasked with the crucial role of achieving the most important part of that challenge: ensuring New Zealanders live longer and healthier lives.

When AUT Millennium first opened its doors in 2002 the organisation’s community service units included a health and fitness gym, swim school, conference, accommodation and schools and holiday programme.

MISH shoot 6.8.13In 2007 Athlete Development began operating and in 2012 the Sports Performance Clinics and Human Potential Clinic were opened in association with our partnership with AUT University.

In 2015 our aquatics programmes expanded with the addition of the Sir Owen G. Glenn National Aquatic Centre and we are now able to accommodate major events, public swimming and a vast array of other aquatic programmes and activities.

All of these nine community service units are operated by a team of 155 staff, who have all made a commitment to support our aspirational community of members to be the best they can be.

Some people visit the facility for an x-ray, whilst others are there to meet friends for lunch, book a conference or go for a swim.

DSC_1430-2Day in and day out, our facility’s concourse and main entrance are a hive of activity. School children file through for swimming or water safety lessons, groups of people are enjoying coffee after their Zumba class and sitting next to them is two-time Olympic gold medallist Lisa Carrington discussing training regimes with high performance coaches.

This diverse community is what sets AUT Millennium apart from anywhere else. Sports clubs, university students, sport scientists, members, school children, Silver Ferns, All Blacks and Olympic champions, all in one place under one roof.

In 2002, autographs were a regular occurrence, but have now been replaced by ‘selfie’s’.

Our AUT Millennium community service units have grown from a few hundred loyal ‘original’ members to 10,000 across Swim School, Gym, Athlete Development, Foundation Clubs and more.

Eliza & JeremyAlong the way there have been some significant changes and redevelopments to the organisation which have allowed us to grow our programmes and services to the community.

An amazing 1.2 million workouts have been completed, over 100,000 children have learnt to swim and we welcome in excess of 800,000 user visits annually.

We are an organisation which is continually pushing boundaries in order to improve New Zealanders lives and enhance our already outstanding high performance sport programme.

Our hope and plan for the future is to continue to grow and develop our programmes so that our community receive the best possible outcomes in health, fitness and sport.

AUT Millennium has developed a world-renowned reputation and we have established ourselves as an important part of the New Zealand sport, health, wellness and research and education landscape.

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of 15 years of success.

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