So if you’ve been following our progress you’ll know that 2021 is set up to be a made or break year, but that doesn’t mean we’re sitting back waiting to see what happens.  Absolutely not, we have developed a fantastic strategy plan, which with some support will get us through the coming months.

The problem we face is that when tiered systems return and social distancing is in place, we are faced with higher costs and less income as we can only cater for less than half of our members.  To be able to keep social distancing in place in a COVID-19 secure manner we have to keep 15 minutes aside either side of classes which means that we have longer hire costs.  We are not able to offer pad work so our equipment sales have dramatically dropped and there is no grading allowed, not to mention that when our team start taking on more hours the Furlough support is reduced, and by the end of March it could be gone altogether!

The way forward

The way forward for us to survive during social distanced tiered systems is to be able to increase our number of classes to be able to let more numbers in.  This does come at a cost not just from the overall logistical costs, but also through the management and facilitating of the classes, quite often people don’t really how many office hours go in to the set up and running of classes.

So in response to the need to be able to able to offer more classes, and focus on other areas online to bring in more revenue we will in fact be increasing the size of our team with the support of the government Kickstart Scheme, to bring in 6 new positions to allow us to focus on our online work and presence, manage more locations, and potentially look at premises that will mean that we don’t need to worry about the cost of running more classes because we will have a flat rate fee to pay regardless of class numbers or sizes.  For many it may sound ironic that we are trying to grow the team during a crisis, but it is in fact the only way to survive, as by cutting the team size would result in the need to close classes, a move that would mean we’d lose our members.   And now is not a time to be removing sporting activity from peoples lives.

Your support matters

If you have not already see our Go Fund Me campaign, then now is your chance to support, and if you’re not able to help financially it doesn’t cost a penny just to share and raise awareness.

https://gofund.me/0be8a70a

We promise to give back more than we’ve ever received in help, and are feeling extremely optimistic about the future.  We are fighters and will fight until the end to keep serving our community.