Hey Team,
Welcome to another Sunday (and our first weekend of great weather for FIVE (5) weeks…I mean, can you even believe that?). Before I start today I thought I would plug the survey ONE MORE TIME: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Round1MembersSurvey. So far we have 233 responses (awesome) and are nearly at the target I had of 250…we will leave it open for one more week.
For people on social media you have seen a couple of responses to questions coming through so far – specifically the issue raised about ‘not having a bench on bench day’. I don’t really want to spend the next 6 weeks answering survey questions in the blog – but I do want to cover off on this one (yep – again).
As I think everyone can imagine, we have been hit pretty hard by COVID. Obviously we were closed and equally obviously there were quite a few people who – for whatever reason – cancelled their memberships during the ‘big’ shutdown (they weren’t being charged membership fees so it wasn’t financial) and never came back. But the ‘new structure’ of the gym – whatever you think about it (and the survey indicates a pretty even spread between “love it – never change” to “couldn’t care” to “change it back…and I mean right now”) – simply needs a LOT more gear.
I totally get it when people say they wanted a 10kg barbell…but there wasn’t one. That sucks. But once upon a time, 8x 10kg barbells were enough for a class of > 50people – because only 1x group of 6 people would use a barbell at any given time. Forget a class of 50 though – now 8x 10kg barbells might not be enough for a class of 9x people. Likewise, when we built out the Strength gym we envisioned people working together (lifter and spotter) doing their bench press – the idea that we would need 20x benches (I mean, where will we even PUT 20x benches!) was simply crazy…but now in this post-COVID world it would seem that is the minimum expectation.
During the COVID shutdown – because of the changes to the gym and class structure – we we forced to make a massive investment in additional equipment JUST to support the boxing classes and it kind of looked like this:
| Item | Pre-COVID | Post-COVID |
| Bags | 18 | 41 |
| Shields | 8 | 8 (so no change) |
| Floor to Ceiling Balls | 12 | 21 |
| Speedballs | 12 | 29 |
| Skis | 5 | 18 |
| Bikes | 8 | 13 (5x was all we could get!) |
| Olympic Rings | 12 | 49 |
Was it stressful to be spending (for example $4000 on additional Olympic rings) – well…hell yes it was…particularly as we had no clue if and when we would be opening again. And whilst I understand that was all 12-months ago, all of that spending (plus all the spend on the actual refurbishment) has left a pretty long lasting mark.
We are working at the moment to do the following:
– Implement a ‘NEW’ and long-term solution to the ongoing issues we have with the slam balls/dead balls so there are ‘enough’ of them AND they don’t break all the time. This has been in-stream for a while and will hopefully reach resolution soon.
– Upgrade our ‘non-class’ cardio solution and move the treadmills and cross-trainer (together with a couple of new additions) to the ‘upstairs’ gym area. This will have the dual benefits of providing additional cardio alternatives to people who want them/need them AND opening up the front of the gym for using ropes, hill sprints etc.
– Create a dedicated stretching and recovery area upstairs.
– Relocate the Hammer Strength equipment to the back of the strength gym, provide the boxing crew with the ability to utilise this equipment AND re-institute the Hammer Time class (even if it is only once per week to start with).
– Add additional circuit barbells in the boxing area.
– Add some additional benches in the strength gym.
– Add additional boxes in the strength gym (well – I would have expected these to arrive before now but they’re paid for and hopefully we will see them in the gym ‘soon’!).
In addition to all of that, we are *nearly* finished re-furbishing all of the rowers in the boxing gym (there are 7 to do all up). Each rower is costing approximately $500 per unit to replace all of the ‘cosmetics’ (handle etc) AND all of the internals – and in 2x cases, a new console (which unfortunately for me significantly bumps the price up)…the 4x we have received back so far (2 are off-site right now) have come back MUCH improved and we are looking forward to completing this project. I understand that doing this doesn’t make the rowers LOOK any better – and a couple of them are looking a bit bashed around – but it makes them row a LOT better – which ultimately is what it’s all about.
Back to the ‘To-Do’ list above, When you consider for a second that a single bench press is $1500 and a single treadmill around 10x that number, these are not going to be insignificant spends…we are pretty committed to getting everything finished off – with the potential exception of the new benches in the strength gym – before the end of the 2021 calendar year. Exactly what order these tasks are completed in (and from the survey you can also add the creation of 2x changing cubicles in the girls showers – without the survey after 11 + ½ years I wouldn’t have know anyone cared about this!) is going to be dependent to a large degree on the survey outcomes…I want to get this right but I also want to prioritise the things you guys value the most.
I guess I’ll close this by again thanking everyone who has submitted a survey response – your comments really have been helpful in us establishing our priorities as the next ‘block’ of gym changes are implemented. Whilst I know things aren’t perfect right now – with particular reference to the circuit bars in boxing AND the benches in the funky gym which seemed to be drawing the most attention – rest assured there is a plan and we are working to resolve it.
I do hope you that everyone understands that when things aren’t perfect – well…it isn’t intentional and if I could wave a wand to fix them I 100% would. Adding equipment and remediating problems takes both time and $ though and we are trying to do the work as quickly as we are able!
See you in the gym,
Michael.
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