Nat and Ni were on fire )And those firemen are coming in for a free 1-day trial. Yaaaaaaaaay!!

Over Wednesday, Thursday and Friday all three departments (including HOD’s) have been competing against each other trying to come up with the most unexpected and original place to put up a Fitness First banner.

To share the fun, we made sure we involved our Members and we managed to get some quality leads in the process as well!

Even involving our CMT!

More to follow later when we start getting the members involved in carving up the pumpkins.

Denise & Team

Brentwood Fitrness First part 4

Marvin the Monkey has spent the last 3 hours in Stevenage town centre and has come across 3 Tigers!!!!!

Marvin also made friends with 40 new people, they all went away with a guest pass and a hug from Marvin!

Have a wonderful fun factor day!!

Good afternoon Team Outer London,

So we just couldn’t help ourselves with some Monkey business around Stevenage. The northern monkey enjoyed some Zumba and working out with the members!!!!!

I think I encountered around 20 members with my monkey business!!!!

All week we have been holding fun filled Halloween themed events for our members to take part in including;

Apple Bobbing
Trick or Treat
Freaky Fruity Friday
Guess the weight of the pumpkin

and there is still loads more to come next week…..

take a look at the pictures!!!

Good Afternoon Team Outer London.

With the success of Marvin the Monkey yesterday we have now ventured into Face Painting!!!

Members are loving our efforts and think that I look much better as a clown!!

Team are now on Outreach around Stevenage Town, dressed as a puppy, pirate and clown!!

Hope your clowning around.

We went out and invited local businesses to come and join in some Zumba Fun with a couple of our regular members. They absolutely loved the lunchtime class run by SEM Debbie, and best of all, they’d all like to come back and do it again!! Result!

What do you get when you get 20 members together supported by our Sales team leader Chris Murphy and MSM Bex fellows pushed on by myself and our G.M………..1 good game of tug of war with our new freestyle equipment:-)

Brentwood Fun Factor part 3

We had our spin in the studio for a change, in the dark apart from fire exit lighting!! Even the instructor liked the novelty value!

In the meanwhile… the spin room had a floor wash, so 2 birds,1 stone!!

Good afternoon Team Outer London,

We are up to our Monkey Business again!! Team on outreach with Marvin!!!

More from the Brentwood Fun Factor

More fun at work in Boggers, i grabbed a member off the gym floor and get her to do some circuits with me in the studio………to be honest i just don’t like training on my own. benefits, we both had a giggle and a bloody good work out, im happy, member is even happier.

Jaroslav took the piccys, he just wouldn’t join in!

Thursdays fun factor was sculpting pumpkins with the members, we dressed up and the members really enjoyed it, here are some photos.

We had a great day today with our ‘Fun Factor. We had a mini work in the gym, then hit the town/high street hard…there was no stopping us…running after people, chatting to people as well as making kids smile.

The team have been doing MBWA’s in our new Halloween get up which has got some very strange looks from some members. Ryan has also been wearing the costume on reception to link in with our reception promo. This is a taster for actual Halloween on the day we are running a spooky spinathon for Asthma UK and already have lots of people signed up. We have goody bags with trick or treats. Jules is running a trick or treat sun bed promotion. We are doing ducking apples and are adding more events by the day. The costumes are great and are only £6 in Asda! We have face paints but are saving them for the 31st.

Recognise the man in the picture?? You got it Jarolslav, playing on the WII with a prospective member….having fun lol!

And Jaro said he never has fun at work (that the life of an auditor….ha ha), by the way, that person joined whoop whoop!

Hope everyone else is having fun x

After a busy day yesterday Harry is back fighting today!!

Harry and his friends plan to talk to 100 people today and offer free Tea & Coffee to everyone in Godalming.

Here at Fitness First Bognor we’ve recruited a new member of staff, his name is Freddo and attached is an example of his day…

Hey Outer London,

Please see my members taking part in a bit of Zombie Action!!

The professionals from ALO Sports Injury Clinic based on London’s prestigious Harley Street were in club providing FREE consultations and physiotherapy advice to our members.

A sports injury can really hinder your performance and exercise goals…so we want to make sure that this isn’t the case for our members!

Missed this event? Check the Events Board in club for future dates…

Carnival comes to Covent Garden!! Summer is well and truly over but the carnival continues in our group exercise studio with our very own Cleo Oliveira spicing up the ever popular ZUMBA!!

The studio was decorated and the Zumba Crew were asked to wear red or blue…everyone had a blast dancing to special carnival tunes!! Take a look at the photos and let us know your thoughts by posting a comment below…

After the recent launch of Freestyle Training in our club we noticed that the Suspension Training Frame was a little underused – so in order to educate our members on how to make the most of this fantastic new way of training, we organised a special day with back-to-back classes running throughout the peak times.

Edwardo, our Health & Fitness Manager is pictured in the photos running one of the seven classes that day. We received excellent feedback from the 40+ members that took part and we plan to continue the success with a Gym Floor Class each week. Why not come along??

On occasions I am asked “What am I trying to prove with all this fitness stuff?” My answer is
always the same, I am not trying to impress anyone only trying to stay reasonably fit. I just don’t want to go into hospital anymore.

I have great admiration for some of the members in wheelchairs, men and ladies who always
have a smile on their faces, now that’s what I call guts!

I miss seeing my two very dear friends Ben & Elsie, a lovely couple who finally decided to call it a day. Ben 90 years old and Elsie in her late 80s.

Thank you Fitness First staff, all of you, too many to name who have always made me feel
welcome.

I hope this will continue for many years to come!

Jim Fellowes

Fitness First Bognor Regis Member

To celebrate 10 years of fitness first Bognor Regis, we organised a black tie formal sit down dinner & awards evening. I am proud to say have been at the club since the day it opened and wanted to mark the occasion with a special event. So, we got in touch with our local contacts and booked the venue, securing the entertainment, DJ and venue for FREE, it was all to be held at a small barn with a marquee attached, so we set to work with the planning. We advertised for the members to bring in testimonials so they could be nominated for an achievement award. We picked 3 winners to present the awards to on the evening, we sold 95 tickets and the event was a hit. We had a sit down 3 course dinner, during which we had a magician doing close up magic at the tables. We then presented the awards and read out the personal testimonials, we even had a few tears.

Then we had live entertainment from our very own MSM Kris Moyse, who did an amazing acoustic set for us, then on to the disco, dancing and drinking into the early hours. Feed back has been amazing, it really did mark the occasion 10 years of Fitness First Bognor.

TESTIMONIAL FOR PAV SAVVA, LEVEL 3 ADVANCED PERSONAL TRAINER AT FITNESS FIRST, WEDNESBURY
I can confirm that I have known Pav Savva for a year and a half as my personal trainer at Fitness First in Wednesbury. I joined Fitness First in March 2010, and after reading Pav’s personal training profile decided to employ him as my Personal Trainer. Pav specialises in the following as part of his personal training – Weight loss and general fitness, increasing muscle tone and size, improving overall fitness and posture, increasing self-confidence, as well as many other benefits.
As part of our PT and client relationship we both worked very hard in designing a health and fitness programme, after identifying certain personal goals that I wanted to achieve in terms of losing weight, improving my fitness and feeling good about myself. This involved a set, nutritional plan which balanced all the main food groups and controlled portion sizes, as well as weekly personal training sessions which incorporated all the major exercise types of core, resistance and cardiovascular. Some of the techniques that we used as part of Pav’s personal training were kettlebells, ropes, resistance machines, free weights, pure core exercises, etc.
During the time that I have known Pav as my personal trainer, I have found him to be a very kind, generous, optimistic and hard working individual with a highly professional attitude towards his role as a PT. He often goes beyond the scope of training given during the sessions that were booked as part of my fitness programme. He has a very conscientious attitude towards the training he delivers and is extremely passionate about helping his clients. He is also very flexible as he is willing to change his work patterns to fit in sessions, when needed. I personally have been very pleased with Pav’s personal training programme, as he has helped me to lose a total of 10 stone in weight and reduce my total body fat levels in the space of a year – I went from weighing 26 stone (size 56 inch waist) just before I joined Fitness First and am now 16 stone in weight (a size 38 inch waist). This has been one of my proudest achievements and with Pav’s help, it has inspired me to help and encourage others who are struggling with their weight. It has even earned me a feature and photograph in the Local ‘Express and Star’ newspaper, so thanks to Pav’s help I am also a local celebrity.
In conclusion I have known Pav beyond our professional vocation and as well as my personal trainer, I consider him a very good friend. He is an extremely trust worthy and honest person who will achieve very highly in all that he wishes to pursue both professionally and personally, and I have no problem or hesitation in highly recommending him to other clients. If there is anything else you need, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me.
Yours sincerely

Mr Jignesh R Patel BSc (Hons)
Biomedical Scientist, Haematology and Blood Bank, QEHB NHSFT

A group of ladies saw the end of a gym floor class at Waterlooville as they were coming in and they wanted to partake, as the abs class was ending we arranged for Ryan our fitness consultant to do a boxercise class for the ladies.
He set up a circuit boxercise class for the 4 ladies and they loved it.
We are going to make it a regular apperance on the timetable.

We have launched a challenge in Waterlooville. The challenge is named the “crucafix challenge” and is a true example of mind over matter.

You have to hold two bags, one in each arm weighing in at 3kg each at arms length. The person that can hold the position for the longest wins.

The prize is one of the maximuscle tubs hidden in the bag.

In one night we had 30+ participants, and within that there is a wide variety of men, women, big and small.
The challenge is growing everyday and most people completing want to try again.

Our Pumpkin Challenge is still going stronge with over 80 members names on our leader board sheet.

This is Mark one of our Maintainance guys…. always busy! so we asked him to have a break and try our challenge… he had a very serious face throughout even thou we were trying to make him laugh..
And this is Aiden one of our Work Experience guys having ago.

Weve decided to keep it running all the way through to the end of halloween!

Such a simple challenge but people stand and watch and then have ago themselves!

The longest so far has been just over 3 minutes but it was a slight cheat as the members arms were dropping slightly below shoulder line…

Our event for the day…

Leading up to Halloween ….

Challenging the members to hold a pumkin out in each hand in a crucifix position for the longest!!

…….How long till one is dropped on the floor after a 2 minute hold and its pumpkin pie all over the floor….?

The last event we held for the month of September was a 2 hour Zumbathon -
Members brought their friends with them and 40+ people partied the evening away in the studio with 2 hours of high energy Zumba all in aid of Asthma UK and we raised £40 too!
Everyone was very vocal and whislting and screaming during the 2 hours and the energy was going right the way to the end….
Everyone had such a fun time they want us to do another one very soon

The focus of the event was to show the general public Fitness Firsts group exercise programmes are more then just a workout they are an experience that can make big changes to peoples lives!!

Managed to convince Emma, Receptionist & Zumba extraordinaire to do the class for me and it was set! Managed to get about 8 people to start and then ended the class with about 15 people. Got 4 joiners out of the evening and great fun had by all for no cost whatsoever!

Feedback from the company was that they couldnt believe a health club would come and do an EXCLUSIVE class for them! My answer to that was “Well this is Fitness First, the WORLDS # 1 Health club!”

Members first prom take two!!
See how our members can wiggle, hoola and shake, party rock n roll!

To help advertise the members firsts benefits we had a hoola luau day, fruit, cocktails, hawiian shirts, grass skirts, coconuts, pineapples, a special dance class all hoola related, hoola hoop classes in the studio and in the freestyle area. It raised so much interest and excited our members that I think we will do this again !!!

Our early bird member Steve is 59 today. He had everyone in RPM this morning sing him happy birthday, 13 people to be exact, he had to wear a birthday badge, had balloons on his bike balloons and banners on the wall and a hard work out to boot!!!!

We held a tug of war competition as one of our months events.

It was a busy evening and we did a tanoy announcment letting people know that we were about to hold a tug of war game outside.
We had a great response and lots of members stopped what they were doing to come and join the staff outside.
We had a massive rope and we split in to two teams!

There was lots of heev’ing and lots of ‘hoe’ing

Good time had by all……
Great laff and all the guys wanted to show their strength, including Matt Sutton our regional Health and Fitness Manager who got very competitive! As always!!

Team Jersey did a Spinathon with our members to raise money for one of our PT’s, Jenny, to run the London Marathon next year, to raise money for Asthma UK. We raised more than £300 and had a lot of fun doing it. Thanks to everyone who got involved or gave us money!

Group Exercise Day, All the teams got involved in promoting group exercise, with taster sessions throughout the day and the SEM available all day to answer any questions.

We had all the fitness team walking round the gym floor shaking fundraising buckets grabbing money off members to support some of the male members of staff getting parts of their body waxed all in aid of ASTHMA UK

Krish, one of our sales team was first up, making a few high pitched squeels as we tried to wax one of his legs, hes quite hairy but it came up as smooth as a babies bum…

Next up was Matt Sutton our Regional HFM, opting out of the chest wax as no one could persuade him we waxed his leg instead and was in quite alot of pain throughout the process…..all for a good cause though eh Matt!!

Next up was Thom our receptionist…. Being the brave lad he is he started taking his shirt off and got cheers from the members on the gym floor!! A chest wax is was then for our Thom!

All thoughout the event we were tanoying it out on to the gym floor so members could come and watch some of our blokes getting hurt by the females!!

After afew goes of Thom’s chest he got brave and challenged that if we got £20.00 straight in to our fundraising buscket he would get both his nipples waxed!!! So of course we tanoyed this challenge out over the entire gym … and let me tell you…. there are many members who wanted to see Thom get this done and so within a matter of minutes with our £20.00 challenged completed we set to work on Thom’s nips…… check out the photos for the results!!

Just within the first hour we raised £35.00!!!!!

All we can say is

OOOUUCCCHHHHH!!!

Through-out the summer holidays we had children aged 4-14, took part in 6 week boot camp workout/sessions. We had a good turn-out with often 30 pupils. This also increased the amount of members using the gym during the hoildays, as they were able to bring the children in.

Due to the high demand of Kids Club we will continue this class on a Saturday afternoon at 2.30pm.

Many Thanks to all the children and there hard work (including those who were unable to be photographed). Keep it up….

Well all the kids went back to school and so we thought we would join them!!

All the staff dressed up in school uniform for the day and did all our normal duties and classes dressed as if we were in a class room!

Much fun and many funny comments from the members!

Most wednesdays we have our ‘Orange Wednesday’ day where the staff walk round the gym floor and go into classes handing out segments of orange whilst people are working out.
Its so simple and yet its shows that we like to go that extra mile for our members.
We also had a basket of full oranges that we were offering members as they left incase they wanted to have it later on in the day, some cheeky ones even took two! haha.

Pmazing numbers of our members and staff participated in our Zumba Fitness tasters on group X day, we had over 20 people attend!!!

FUN FUN FUN!!!! Two hour long Zumba taken by fabulous instructors Seaneen, Paula and Carol. Very Enjoyable Afternoon with the Zumba Crew.

As part of the MSM Evolution we organised a week of booking to train with myself, our MSM.

It was very successful over the 5 days it was run as I trained with 3 different members, 2 of which twice!

Great for their fitness, great for mine! haha and of course awesome for retention!

MAGIC!

Celebrating the grand opening of our new in-club Beauty Salon we had staff dressed up in tuxedos and Necy organised to have an extra 10 people on hand to talk to members and hand out leaflets.

There was also a raffle organised and complimentary tasters treatments to show the members and non-members of course what they are missing!

Any excuse for a party!!

With summer not being quite what we had hoped for, we decided to take matters into our own hands…

We offered “mocktails” to all of our members (cherry and umbrella NOT optional), dressed up and dressed the club up, and set up a few beach themed challenges…

Stirchley Fitness First now has the largest Freestyle Area in the Company, and we wanted to shout about how amazing it is!!

We invited members/non-members and members of the local community to come and get involved with *Champagne reception
* BBQ with the club Ambassador
* Gatecrasher DJ-ing upstairs
* Masterclasses on TRX, Powerplates, Climbing wall, Kettlebells, ViPR

The members and the staff had a ball… and I quote:

“This was my best day at work, ever!”

More of the same to follow!!

Group Personal Training with kettles bells.

Three times a week during summer, the Jersey club are having a Kids Club where 4-13 year olds do, yoga, boxing and a dance, whilst the parents can train.

Hi My name is John Groves, I am 70 years old. I came to Fitness First in Reading because my Doctor told me to lose weight. I had a look around and liked what I saw, the staff were all very helpful and friendly and introduced me to James who is now my personal trainer. Since seeing James I have lost over a stone and a half and I can now work most of the equipment. I enjoy being trained by James because he makes me work and not slack. So all I can say is ‘if you want to lose weight come to Fitness First’.
John Groves

Get legal advice with Fitness First.

Brown & Co Solicitors in association with Fitness First was offering a complimentary legal advice to all our members and guests. One of Brown & Co Solicitor was attending on Monday 22nd August to provide initial free advice on an employment related problem.

TRY YOUR LUCK

Peel back you card and claim your card. Each card is a winner. You can win anything from water bottle to 2×45 min session with PT.

Free lottery for everyone! And everyone wins! Our fantastic PT Trent decided to organise this great event. Members could win the health check, sunbed session, free towel, 30 min session, 45 min goal setting session, 15 min core class. Perfect opportunity to interact with your members and improve your service.

We held a Gym Floor 2 Hour Fundraiser Spinathon from 17.30-19.30 and we have a full sheet of members booking in for the event each paying £2.00 per person per hour all in aid of ASTHMA UK.
The stereo was blasting out over the balcony and anyone who wasnt involved was stood watching!
This was a crazy sweaty event that we have done before and has been requested by members we do again very soon!
We managed to raise about £90.00 just in that 2 hour period as Kim our SEM was walking round the gym shaking the money tub shouting at people to give give give !! And we are still collecting!! Cracking event!

Saturday 20th August 2011 We had a fantastic Zumba party with over 50 members / non members taking part.

Our location is not in a town centre, so we decided to showcase our club by doing a zumbathon in the carpark with the instructors teaching on our roof canopy!
WOW! we created so much attention, even the police and fire brigade were beeping their horns as they were passing.

There must have been over 3000 cars that went past between 12.30 and 2pm. We definitely put ourselves on the map.

To top it off we had a lovely summer BBQ!!

We had brilliant feedback from all that took part and the local businesses.

Thanks for all that made this such a fantastic event.

Too all gym monkeys, we felt it was important that you should all be represented within the fitness industry, as we have felt for far to too long your hard work, grunting and posing in the mirrors for the receptionist has been ignored.

So here at Charing Cross we decided this can not happen anymore, we believe its time for a change and that you should be represented, hence we found a symbol, a rather buff monkey, however as we wanted him/her to represent you and that we live in a democracy we wanted you the gym monkeys to name him, after many focus groups and an internal poll of members we came up with the name CHIMPETTO, as I think you all will agree encompasses all those fine qualities in a gym monkey.

As a reward we at Charing Cross gave the gym monkey who named our hero 2 kilos of bananas, a free buffing session form a super gym monkey “PT” and the photo with autograph from Chimpetto. We are also holding a party this Friday in honour of him and fellow gym monkeys; this has brought the whole club that much closer.

Finally they have a voice. Three cheers for the gym monkey AND MONKEYS.

Carol of Isis Dance was asked to do holiday cover for Dance lessons at Preston Fitness First and did free taster sessions for gym members – these lessons proved very popular. Carol will now be hiring the dance studio to run belly dance lessons on Wednesdays 8 to 9 pm from September 7th. Cost £5. She is really looking forward to making Fitness First a ‘home’ for her belly dance classes. Any age size or shape of lady can enjoy this form of dance. Belly dance is a low impact form of exercise that tones up all the muscles. No experience in any kiind of dancing is necessary.  I do provide jingly hip scarves for students to borrow for the classes. Shimmy Shimmy .

Ahoy there me hearties!!! We decided to hold a Holiday themed week at Mere Green for all those members with post holiday blues. Monday was Pirate day. The staff all dressed up and put on their best pirate accents. We had a plank for the members to walk and a pin the patch on the pirate game. Winners of these challenges won a free PT session and there was lots of fun to be had, and there is lots more to come….We have an Ibiza day, A carribean day and an oriental day still to come. Look out for the pictures.

Our SEM Kim held a Burlesque chair dance Masterclass this week and it went down really well.
With a full class of ladies and then a sexy warm up, Kim taught them a sexy pussy cats dolls style routine fit for showing their other halfs when they got home as a special treat!
We had some men stood at the door trying to watch too!

Sunday 14th we attended a fun run in aid of George Thomas Hospice Care. The fun run was 3K as it was mainly for children with their parents to raise money for charity as well as show the children that exercise is fun!

Our class instructor Rachel took the warm up and everyone got involved warming up to the music from the live DJ.

We waited at the finish line and presented every participant with a goody bag and medal.

There was a bouncy castle, face painting, a pottery wheel and more for after the race for the children to enjoy whilst we chatted to the parents about our club.

The weather was poor but that didnt stop everyone staying in high spirits, having fun and donating to charity!

On Saturday 19th February we had a 6 hour spinathon, all proceeds were going to Brenda who was travelling to Haiti on 23rd February to do voluntary Physio in a clinic near au prince, treating adults and children who were injured in the earthquake and also helping out in a local orphanage.

Our instructors took hourly classes and all for free and members participated and we had collection buckets for donations. In total Brenda raised £1642.50.

Ian, our General Manager, decided to go back in time and have a rave spin, we gave a prize of a free months membership to the best dressed on the night.

Members had so much fun and everyone seemed go into the spirit of things.

David Law personal trainer decided to take members out of the club and do an outdoor circuits class because of the rare fine weather we were having.

A change of scenary from the studio is much appreciated and also allowed more members to participate as there was more room to add variety to the class.

In order to raise awareness for our Cash for Kids Challenge (all NI FFs are cycling the circumference of the earth, coving the 5 continents- Coleraine have been allocated South America) we had a fun-packed day on Tues 19th July. The day started off with a Zumba class ( with even our GM and cash for kids event manager participating), Downtown Radio came down to cover the event and we even managed to get one of the DJs – Owen Larkin in the studio for the Zumba class. After Zumba we had a coffee morning in our lounge both staff and members tested their baking skills and lots of treats were available. In the evening we had our 2 hour spin-a-thon with almost 30 members taking part, the studio was pumping with music, strobe lights and a smoke machine. To round off the day we had lots of Mexican themed snacks available to build up all the energy from the Spin-a-thon. We also had the club decorated with bunting and our staff dressed in Mexican attire.

So far we have raised almost £1000 and still counting……..

We had a fantastic and taste barbecue with member and community involved.

I ALMOST BURN MY ON MEAT, as you can see :0)

It was great!

*Next time you are our guest”.

12.30 Wednesday we have a circuits class in our freestyle area, lasting 30 minutes.
Look at these guys working their butts off, huge effort given by them all.great job!!!
Now next week, what can I have planned to make them work harder??!?!?!?!? mwahhhhhhh

Staff made home made cakes, some good, some not so good, and we had them on offer to our members for a donation per cake. We had lots of different cakes from choc brownies to fruit swirly ones to fairy cakes and they went down a storm, making some more money for Asthma UK.

Rocking the Red; was the launch of the les mills, New Music and New Moves. This was a great weekend event where all our instructor came together to launch the new les mills moves and music in Body Pump, Body Combat, Body Attack and RPM.

Look forward to our next launch the beginning of October.

MOTIVATION, INSPIRATION & DETRMINATION

My aim is to improve my quality of life. My fitness levels have improved and my overall health is great. I feel less fatigue and concentrate better at work. My blood pressure is now normal. I attend to Frank’s Fit Club aerobics his Spin and Core classes.
(Benson Wachai).

Excellent classes, very hard but challenging! I love the music!
(Sarah Ponturo).

My aim was to lose weight and tone up! Franks classes combind with others and a healthy diet has helped me to lose 12kgs all together!
(Amelie Biau).

My aim now is to be able to complete Franks classes without having to stop through the class! I have lost weight and feel great and fitter!
(Les Bowers).

I was 10st,11 and i now weigh 9st,4, I feel much more toned and fitter and would like to see the Fit club class more!I love the music and would like the Fit club class to go on for an 1hr instead of just 45mins.
(Emma Brake).

I was 12st 9 and now 10st 11 I attend to Frank’s Spin and Fit Club aerobics classes. I love Franks classes and would like to thank Frank for inspiring me!! I am determained to keep it up.
(Diana Deans).

Spin and Fit club aerobics, I really enjoy the variety of Franks spin classes especially work on the arms. Its also good to alternate sitting and standing positions. More ”Dizzee Rascal” please! More stomach exercises on the Fit club class please! I have lost weight from 10st4 to 9st 12 and i feel pleased with it, I feel fitter and have better indurance than my fiancee who has always been fitter than me. I also enjoy telling people that i have acheived my goals by going to the gym which is much more fun than just dieting.
(Sarah Beale).

Fit club is excellent high intensity class that always gives me a great work out. I have improved fitness and enjoyed attending classes that put me to the test and make me sweat so i feel like i have worked out properly.Thanks Frank.
(Chloe Kantsas).

I attend to Franks Spin Classes.Thanks to Frank for giving me support due to his encoragement, I tried spin because of him ( Previously i felt too intimidated by the class) after braving it i have never looked back. I love working out in Franks classes, they are challenging. His vibrant personality just makes the workout go by quickly. He is a great assest to Fitness first . I wanted to change gyms as i needed a swimming pool due to my shoulder injury, but i didnt because i would miss Franks Spin cloasses.

I was 9st 8 and now weigh 8st10, Thank you Frank for helping me to acheive my goal.
(Mina Hayer)

On Tuesday 26th July we held a UV day at the club and all proceeds were donated to Cash For Kids. The day started with a breakfast morning for our members, followed by a UV step class at 9.30am, a DJ played music on the gym floor throughout the day. A UV spin class finished the day off at 6.00pm. All our members joined in with the fun by dressing in their UV gear and the day raised £420 for this local charity. Downtown radio where also at the club throughout the day helping to promote the event

To help keep all our staff fit and also for our FC to try out his new circuits routine we organised staff circuit training in our studio!

Hosted by Ritchie our FC, the GM, MSM, SM, Receptionist and MC took part in sweating their hearts out to the sounds of Katy B!

Great for staff morale and also to learn and use those techniques to inspire our members!

Magic!

We held a big open weekend on the last weekend of the month to help relaunch our new refurbished club to the public.

We had a Superhero fancy dress theme. Superman, Robin and Captain America held an outdoor bootcamp and got everyone in the spirit of things.
On the Sunday we had a Gladiator pit outside the club, this got members wanting to compete against the Fitness team so see who was fitter and there was a real buzz around the club. The club was packed!

We held a school style sports day with Egg and Spoon races, Sack races and 3 legged races. Much fun was had by all, mainly laughing at our HFM Matt Sutton trying to jump to the finish line in a pillow case!!

All good fun for our members and it ended up being a lovely sunny evening

Independance Day at Wednesbury Fitness First.
Staff in Blue White and Red, Pretzels, Bagels and juice! lovely !

With the weather being good but our hair being bad we manage to raise over a hundred pounds for Asthma Uk wash cars all day long… thank you to all the members at Fitness First Birmingham for giving so generously.

To celebrate the launch of the new BTS releases on the 4th July we linked in with the theme of independance day.

We set up a table outside the club to promote the BTS classes by displaying flyers and playing music to create a buzz. We also used the area as a meet and greet for members attending the launch classes

We created the theme by decorating the studio and getting the instructors and staff to wear red, white and blue clothing.

The classes were great fun with all classes full house! Members are looking forward to the next launch already !!

Fitness in Line is an up and coming easy to follow exercise class that incorporates line dance with modern day dance moves. Forget country and western and think pop, hip hop and rock and roll!!

We arranged a free master class for the members, the class was a great success with over 40 people attending. Unfortunately many of the ladies did not want their photos taken.

We are now looking to arrange another master class for august and hopefully look at adding the class to the timetable for September

At 14st 5 lbs (92kg) and borderline hypertensive, Denis came to see me. I reassessed his dietary intake, set out an exercise plan to reduce his body fat and increase lean muscle mass. I was there with him every step of the way and he has lost NEARLY 3 st (17kg)…and counting! In addition to his remarkable weight loss, Denis has impressed his doctor by reducing his blood pressure significantly! Denis now maintains his new lease of life by continuing training 3 times per week and eating healthy.

One if the PTs in Jersey organises a White Collar boxing event which is where 12 members (and PTs) are trained by him over 12 weeks on how to box and then they flight each other at a black tie evening that raised £25K for various Jersey charities, including children’s cancer research. this was an amzing night out attended by hundread of our members.

A massive thank you to all the Southampton Fitness First members for attending the Frank fitness classes. The list shows true dedication towards your own lifetime changes. I am overwhelmed by the commitment and belief you’ve shown towards my classes and i am sure that you will acheive your fitness goals if you keep it up.

”Calories will continue to burn, The vibes’ will keep on pumping, the energy will expload the place and together we will take it to the next level”. A big thanks to all you great people.

Frank Fitness

William’s Gym Floor 7am circuit class Tuesday’s & Thursdays.

William not only put a smile on my face but also on the 12 people that took part.

I found that this was the community aspect of our recipe and that he poured this into the members by introducing them to each other by first names and after the class I could not believe my eyes when I started seeing members training with each other where as before they trained on their own I can not stop thinking about how unbelievable this was.

Round up of our Tour DeFrance
We have know completed our journing of the Tour De France here at Lewisham. It consisited of a warm up spinathon with three instructors team teaching with a live DJ, a Tour de France Breakfast morning for members & staff and the 21 stages of the Tour de France covering a total distance of 3430.5km. This has been a very great success within our club enoyed by all who took part including members and staff.

We raised a total of £407.19 for Asthma Uk.

To see more on this event check out our stories and pictures previously posted this month on fitness firsters.

By dressing up as Bananas we were able to draw more attention and fun to our smoothies that we’d made, with Sculptress protein, for members to taste. It was a great interaction tool and awareness for the product that hasn’t been a big seller in our club. 90% of the members who tried the smoothies agreed that they tasted good and we have made extra sales on all protein lines since.

One of our daily gym floor classes/activities.

Members did various exercises and played games which focused on their abdominal area.

This was one of our weekly staff verse members games. We chose a different game/activity every week and keep a running score.

This week we had football over on the near by park as the weather was nice.

Our Harry Potter day was to raise money towards our rowing event which will be happening next month to raise money for the air ambulance.

All Staff were in fancy dress, all classes on the time table were adapted to fit the theme.

To raise some money for the air ambulance to start us off for next months big event we were selling hot chocolate drinks with cream, 5 minute massages, a lucky dip and raffle tickets.

A fully refurbished free style area has been introduced in Portsmouth. We have TRX bands, Bosu balls, Kettle bells, Vipr bars, Plyometric jumping stations, Power bags and many more functional exercises available. Our gym floor classes for tutorials on how to use the equipment start on Mon 25th July 2011, Come on down to try out our new style of training.
“The freestyle movement, you were born to move”

A new Urban Funk class has been introduced in Portsmouth on a Fri evening 7.30-8.30.

This class has the same concept as Zumba as it is a danced coreographed class, however Urban Funk has got a strong street vibe.
Get your hiphop shoes on and come dancing on a Fri night.

Our quarterly BTS launch was in the theme for Summer holidays.
We had packed classes and really pushed it for the mums and dads who are looking to get fit throughtout the summer holidays.

We had full classes for each one and a great atmosphere was created.
We also had a lot of members attend that had never attended classes before

Mickey Mouse was having a quiet night in with Minnie last week and she decided to tell him all about the recent events at Fitness First Pontefract. Mickey said “That sounds like my kind of operation….!?” and they both decided to pay the club a visit. Some of their friends also decided to come along to see what all the fuss was about and along with the full club team and the clubs enthusiastic members had a fantastic day on the 18th July helping to collect much needed toys for underprivileged children on behalf of the NSPCC.

HI EVERYONE!!!!!!!!

WE’VE CHANGED OUR SUNBED LIGHT BULBS.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO TRY THEM OUT THEN COME DOWN TO TOWER HILL…WILL BE HAPPY TO SEE YOU…

TOWER HILL IS WHERE THE SUN IS AT…

It was an early morning, Kim our SEM was on the open shift and one of our regular members knew we were having the Charity car wash and so decided to come to his regular spin class in his work Vehicle to get it washed by Kim!!
Shes the smallest member of staff and had a big job on her hands but she definatly rose to the occasion and was cheeky enough to ask the member to throw more money in to the ASTHMA UK charity pot for washing such a large vehicle…. it put smiles on everyones faces and so far have raised £100.00

Just to share our recent challenge here at Pontefract!

One country – One Challenge – Two teams (Red/Blue)

Each team consisted of two fitness team – One team started at John O’groats the other at Lands end, the distance 1200km (750miles) the race was to the centre of the country, approx 600km (375miles) per team, for asthma uk.

Members pledged their allegiance to there particular team by spinning next to us at a set time to distance conversion, blue team members racked up an impressive 215km. The red team members blitzed the competition with 265km. A massive total of 36 members joined us over the three day period.

Red team smashed the 375 miles in two days 10 hours cycling a piece, blue team after suffering an injury and calling reserves finished the distance in three days.

The total raised by team Pontefract for asthma uk – £230

Go team Pontefract

During the Wimbledon time we wanted organize a charity event links to the tennis and the Table Tennis tournament seemed to be the greatest idea. We charged non/members £5 per registration or £1 per bat per game as a donation to ASTHMA UK. After very successful tournament when everyone loved it and enjoyed the game, we have decided to keep the table and made a contribution across members as well as staff. It shows how simple idea can be a fantastic retention tool.

Sophie one of our New PT’s ,took three of our members and beasted them with a group out doors circuits class, they absolutely loved it and felt the whole benefits of working within a team.

Well done Sophie!

Each week the fc’s are challenged to see who can interact more with our less frequent users!

Last week Steve managed to go head and shoulders above everyone and received his amazing crown, trophy and more importantly his chocolates!!!

Two Jersey PTs have set up a Bootcamp which is based outdoors, three times a week, with nutritional advise and one to one help with the training.

The Jersey Team all doing the FitBrit Challenge and getting the members to join in!

Thursday circuits class now being taken in our freestyle area!
All areas of the body being worked and high usage of the area.
Awesome class!!!!

Our Tour de France breakfast going down a treat with all our staff & members, the breakfast included fruit and croissants.

At present we have completed 1823.83 km only another 1606.67 km left to cycle over the next 11 days. So far we have raised £342.89 for Asthma uk.

Our very own member Eileen has been a great help cycling every time she is in and so far has completed 18.86km.

Myself and Emma, our superstar Zumba instructor went down and held a 25 Min ZUMBA Session for them. I didnt do it, I just supplied some stress ball type dumbbells and a free 1 day Class Pass for them to come down to the club, and took the photos! Feedback was fantastic and has opened up some more opportunities to do something similar at other companies.

GREAT FUN and everyone had a great time!
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!

If you want to check out the video, it can be seen on our Fitness First Bournemouth FACEBOOK page;

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fitness-First-Bournemouth/105970572769618

Dont forget to hit “like”

On the 1st July we held a Family Active Day free of charge for all of our members and their families. Non members were also welcome. This event was held in our carpark and included face painting for the kids, a magic show and Hip Hop dance demonstartions from our local dance troope. Dinky Doughnuts also supplied delicious food for the day. The day ended with an outdoor Zumba class where all the kids and parents joined in. The sun was shining and we all had a fantastic day.

OUR VERY OWN TOUR DE FRANCE HERE AT LEWISHAM ALL STAFF AND MEMBERS INVOLVED IN COMPLETING THE TOTAL DISTANCE 3430.5 KM RAISING MONEY FOR ASTHMA UK.  WATCH OUT FOR MORE UPDATES SO FAR COMPLETED 383 KM IN TWO DAYS

To get all our members warmed up and ready for our Tour De France Event we hosted a spinathon to raise money for Asthma UK.
This involved 3 back to back classes each class with 3 instructors team teaching and a DJ mixing the music.
This was a big success within our clubs with 51 members and 3 top instructors.

All the staff dressed in american flag colours or as cowboys and girls.
We offered pretzels and donuts and bagels and they went down a storm!

The team organised a summer social with the members, we organised with a bar in the local area to host us.

Ryan one of our FC’s holding his regular gym floor class – core workout. Was quite a popular one!

As part of a local Fitness week in June we were offering free health checks and Nutritional information so they could track their achievements and help them to keep achieving.

Team Cardiff East have been out flyering all morning and lots of people have phoned in already!

A real buzz in the club today with this event.

The Challenge was to climb the height of Mount Everest which is 29,029ft (8.8km up). We did this using the gym stairs which worked out to 58,993 steps, or 2,682 flights on the stairs in the main gym.
The Team did this in an amazing 19 hours starting out at 12 oclock midnight and finishing at 7pm the following day. We had a dj playing thoughout the whole thing and had snacks on for all the members.
We raised over £1000 for a local charity in Birmingham and we spent nothing!
This event built up an amazing atmosphere in the club and the support from the staff, members and outside community was phenominal.

As part of Bournemouth’s Mind and Body Month local nutritionist Barbara Cox from Nutrichef spent the morning in the club promoting the Nutrichef products and offering nutritional advice to the staff and members.
Due to the success of the morning Barbara is looking to set up similar events in the future and is keen to work more closely with Fitness First as a whole.

FF Cardiff East welcomed the regional qualifier for the UK Strongman competition on a very warm Sunday in June. An awesome turnout from members and non-members to support such a great event, and encourage all participants during each heat. A 4% retail day also accomplished – great work from the FOH Team. BOOM!

Lucozade – A great interaction between members and staff to promote the new range of products in club.

FF Cardiff East welcomed the regional qualifier for the UK Strongman competition on a very warm Sunday in June. An awesome turnout from members and non-members to support such a great event, and encourage all participants during each heat. A 4% retail day also accomplished – great work from the FOH Team. BOOM!

This month all of the staff at FF Wednesbury dressed up as Hippie’s in order to raise money for Asthma UK. The members were very generous in their donations! Thank you x

In club member promotion by Cardiff based, The Travelling Runner UK. Luke Evans works closely with various gyms and running clubs, selling running shoes and offering gant analysis to ensure the correct footwear is purchased.

TEAM TOWER HILL Friday meeting about H&S.

All of our classes are very important to us at Portsmouth and our members. While all of our classes have a wide range of people, skills and abilities we realised that the same people were attending spin classes.
When you think of spin you prob think “not fit enough for that”! and you will be the same for many of our members. However it is not the case, spin is a great workout and although it is hard and will push your cardiovascular capacity it is a class for the masses.
Therefore we decided to put on 20 min spin taster session throughout the day and evening for non spin goers.
It was great and lots more people are confident in going to the spin classes and with 2 new early morning classes Wed & Fri 6.30-7.15am a few new names are cropping up on the spin booking sheets!

Zumba Party was a huge success with two classes during the day, we had great member participation, lots dressed up in bright colours and skirts. It was Kelly’s Birthday that day and we got her a sash and badge to wear, we also had nibbles Zumba style with salsa, bread sticks, tortillas and fruit kebabs.
During the class there was a dance battle and the winning side received zumba wristbands, the club was alive and everyone had an amazing time and can’t wait for the next !

We organised a Mind and Body Month for June as part of the event representatives from Forever Living came in to the club offering aloe vera supplement and skin care tasters to the members.

We wanted to do something different for our members and educate them on a variety of core exercises.

So, dressed in a fat suit to get their attention, I rallied round to get some members together for a gym floor core class which was instructed by Sean.

The class was a hit…and even after the class had finished there were a new set of members on the mats trying out the exercises they’d just seen! Hopefully next time they’ll join in…

Throughout the month of June we have been running weekly ‘Breakfast Mornings’ where we treat the members to a healthy breakfast compliments of Fitness First! It was nice to see members socialising in our Lounge Area and perhaps meeting other gym-goers who they might not have spoke to otherwise. It’s been a massive success so we hope to continue it going foward…

Great opportunity to talk to our members about nutrition and Maximuscle products. We had two flavours of Sculptress and we served to our members. All receptionist wore purple clothes.

We organised a full on BBQ, disco and party. The venue was a hotel/restaurant not far from our club called The Robin Hood.

Tickets were £6 which included all the BBQ food and disco, these were sold in club at reception. The Robin Hood staff kindly supplied and cooked all the BBQ food and we secured a disco completely free from a friend of the club!

In total we had a MASSIVE 180 members turn out for the big night!

The pub had already put in an additional beer order due to amount that was consumed last year PLUS they even had to send someone out for more food!!

A really fantastic night was had by all, great atmosphere from the members and all the staff. Lots of embarrassing stories the next day and many sore heads but every one who came commented on what a great night it was and urged us to do a Christmas event this year too! Great for retention as no other health club engages and socialises with their members like we do. Great magic’s as staff got to know our members more and even better the members got to have a drink with us and get to know us! MAGIC!

I like to hear why you put your Fitness First?

Rob Valentine
General Manager
Fitness First Monument

We all dressed up to celebrate start of Wimbledon (tennis outfit), we gave away strawberries and cream.
We played lots of games as catching the tennis balls, juggling tennis balls, guessing the winners etc.

16 males contacted the club stating that they were riding from Bristol to Paris for CLIC Sargent for children with cancer.
Their route passed Portsmouth Fitness First and Portsmouth was scheduled to be their first stop off point. They asked if we could provide the use of our showers and changing room facilities. We of course said yes and they rolled in used the changing rooms, refuelled with a few lucozades and made tracks.

In Portsmouth we have lauched “gym floor classes” we have everything ranging from abs classes to stretching classes. From power plate sessions to swiss ball workouts. We have 11 running every day and they run on the hour by our fitness team. They are completely free and are great if you do not have loads of time, just fancy a bit of variety or want to learn more about a particular exercise.

It was a sunny afternoon, so we decided to take our weekly staff versus members game outside again. Non stop cricket gets every body running continuously. Its a great way of working out with a bit of fun.

We held a 2 hour Zumba masterclass with 4 expert instructors and 30 of our Zumba ladies.

Participants made a donation to take part in the class and all proceeds went to Asthma UK

We then treated our ladies to a glass of wine afterwards

Gym Floor classes, a 15 minuite blast, summer is coming guys!

The Camberley team offered to wash cars for £5 a car with all proceeds going towards our national charity Asthma UK.

Fun day had by all, and we raised money for charity…

We raised £40…

Charity International Fitness first Tower Hill Convention

Kris J. Mrozek – SEM and Tower Hill TEAM

Free Special Spinning Classes for you with Kris

Kris J. Mrozek – Studio and Events Manager Fitness First – Tower Hill

Amazing Modren Dance with Kris

Amazing and creative dance for you with Kris.

Strength, Endurance, Interval – “The Power” – Absolutely Free Marathon Spinning

I invite you!

Kris J. Mrozek – Studio and Events Manager Tower Hill

THIS WAS A REALLY WELL RECEIVED EVENING WITH LOTS OF CHAT AND CONVERSATION TAKING PLACE IN THE LOUNGE AREA

Myself (MSM) and several other members did the Race for Life of the 5th June

Every monday we have a staff versus members game. This week was non stop cricket. It is a great way to interact with our members, plus a great workout rather than just being on the treadmill. Everyone has fun, and gets involved in the community at the club due to playing games together.

Red Bull promotion and all the staff wore wings and tutu’s for their shift.
Lots of chatter and questions about the promotion and it was enjoyed by all the the club… members and staff.

20 DAYS OF FITNESS GYM FLOOR CLASS

ITS THE SIMPLE THINGS WE OFFER OUR MEMBERS THAT CAN MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE

We decided tp put on a meet the manager night. We have a new msm in the business so we wanted to let the members know the new team.

It went down very well, and we got some good positive feedback.

We were pleased to work in partnership with 3 of our members and their children who raised money for cancer research UK. by holding a Toy sale inside and outside our club on the high street.

We have launched gym floor classes in Portsmouth, we have 11 running each day ranging from abs blast to functional workout.
These are taken by the fitness consultants, are absolutely free and take between 20-30minutes. So this is great if you want to vary up your workout, OR do not have enough time to complete an hour class/workout

We wanted to raise awarness for the birminghams childrens hospital cardiac unit appeal, so we thought we would try a nice endurance challenge. 128,986 steps, Everest!! It took just under 19 hours of going up and down the main stair case in the gym. In the process we managed to get into 3 local papers before and after the event, gaining free publicity for the gym, but more importantly, it helped us raise just under £1000 for the childrens hospital. We have started training for the next challenge, so watch this space…..

It was a quiet thursday afternoon, so we decided to get the members involved in a game of handball. We rounded up all of the members in the gym, and played for 30 minutes. Just making there training fun, interactive and helping them to become part of the community at Walsall Wood.

I am very happy to continue the practice of sport that has been my life and at the same time developing the next generation to realize their dreams

Richard Callendar (the biggest loser guy) holds work out events this one was at the Harrow Leisure centre and was a sold out event with over 300 people. It was from 10am to 4.30pm. the classes there were Armageddon Circuit, Zumba, TKO, Total Body Work Out (Michael Jackson tribute dance), Urban Funk, Soul Stretch and Pilate’s.

16 Members went from our club after our SEM announced there were a few spaces left to go.
Sam The SEM again got Fitness First T-shirts and printed names and Luton Crew on them so they could stand out from the crowd. There was over 300 people and FITNESS FIRST LUTON CREW were the biggest group of people there.
Impact on the club is that now more people want to be booked onto the next one that he is holding which for HARROW is Sep 4th 2011 with over 20 members booked on for that already and SAM the SEM has also managed to get him to hold a class here at LUTON which he is now doing on the 11th June 2011.

Posters are up in the club advertising both advents. And members are amazed at how Sam managed to get him to come here.

We held an outdoor Zumbathon for asthma uk and hired a stage & DJ we also had 2 instructors at the event which attracted approx 90 people some of who were not members. We had loads of free gifts for people who donated money to the event. Great day had by al! Outside the gym looked well as we had it decorated with lots of banners and helium balloons.

Raised excellent awareness around the community for the gym the atmosphere around the gym was awesome and everyone was on top form we also joined up 6 new members on the day. Total amount raised on the day of event was £300.

Heather the club SEM arranged a charity bike ride to Hornsea which is 30 mile round trip in aid of Red Nose Day. They set of at lunchtime and stopped in Hornsea for fish and chips and came back to the club as a group at 4pm. The club raised £300 for Red Nose Day

On Sunday 27th March we held an event for staff and members to run 10k, the route started at the club to and around Sutton park and then back to the club. It was £5 per person to enter and the money raised all went to Asthma UK.

Good staff & member interaction
Raised money for our supporting charity – Asthma UK

We organised for members to have the opportunity to donate toys for the Bristol children’s hospital. We asked members to participate in gym floor work outs and reach a certain goal i.e run 4k on treadmill in 20 mins etc and donate a toy – the winner for the best run got a few complimentary sunbed sessions – the event went down very well and we received lots of donations.

Good effort by all members of staff to make awareness of event and importance of fitnessfirst involvement with local community. Received excellent response from members and we had 20+ toys donated by the end of the week.

Childrens hospital was very grateful for our help and we left some marketing in the waiting room to hopefully pick up some new guest passes from central town way.

This was set thought-out the whole of the region to really get members engage with what is happening in our club. We had loads of gym floor classes going on a pts doing different things. We had competions and challenges for members and also for staff. We had a different theme for each day giving us something else to focus on these were things like the top 20 programme cards to nutrition and supplement advice. There was something for everyone.

This really had a good impact on the club. Members got involved and with the help of our pts really made the week worthwhile. The gym floor classes were full and with many members not even aware that we had these classes they are now returning each week to take part. A lot of fun was had by everyone involved

Reading Fitness First took part in annual pancake race, which takes place every pancake day for charity. Being that are team name was fitness first we would have felt very bad not to have come in at least the top 3. Due to determination and passion of our team we managed to beat 4 companies in different legs to get to the final. In the final was the oracle (winners of last year), a local church and of course Fitness First. Although the final was very tight, we managed to pull through and WIN the race! As a price we won a trophie, a ingraved pan, vouchers and a cake from the charity, the british heart foundation. Oh and also received the title ‘Best Flipping Tossers!’

World Challenge provides educational expeditions in the developing world which teach life skills and expand minds outside the classroom. Their bespoke 3 to 6-week student travel itineraries foster team spirit and leadership skills. The programmes are designed with the students’ personal development in mind. Young people are involved in planning and fundraising their way to the experience of a lifetime. The life skills they learn will not only aid personal growth, but can help secure university places and impress future employers.
Fitness First Reading were proud to be invited to one of the races at Wellington Country Park where Sasha one of our PT’s joined forces with Atlas the Ape on stage to warm everyone up and the rest of made sure everyone was well hydrated

This was our International Fitness Week:

Monday – Body Pump challenge in the studio

Tuesday – International Spin at 6pm with 2 instructors team teaching

Wednesday – 3 gym floor classes! Fat Burner, Balance, Core

Thursday – Health Checks all day with our 10 PTs

Friday – SHAPE with team Kingly ST….XBOX KINECT Gym Challenge

Almost every member has got involved in our IFW, it was amazing to watch how they were enjoying different ways of workout

As part of International Fitness Week Fenchurch St held a gym strength challenge. All members enjoyed the class and since then they all keep coming back.

One of our PT’s who has a massive amount of expertise in a range of areas, held a fat loss seminar in the studio. There were about 20 attendees and they all gave really positive feedback.

It enabled the members to realise how much knowledge and expertise the PT’s have. This bought in new leads for the PT and demonstrated that we care about all aspects of the members’ health and well being.

We screened our members using the latest PULSE WAVE TECNOLOGY which shows real time cardio gram and CASP (central aortic systolic pressure) .
In a nut shel this gives a very accurate indicastion of arterial health. Many people dont know they have heart problems until they have a heart attack. This is very exciting stuff and happening in our club right now.
4 members went away knowing they have to take action. fantastic!!!!

On the 14th of April we organized the 1st ever Headsets & Mindsets event to bring together the Membership Exchange, Talent Exchange and Membership Services.

The event was a huge success with great input from all departments and a fantastic amount of energy during the afternoon.

We would like to thank the days Headsets and Mindsets winners:

Maggie Quick – The ‘Headsets & Mindsets’ Fitness Firster Award
Amanda Walton – Talent Exchange Award
Richard Gawlicki – MSC Administration Award
Jason Little – Credit Control Award
Jordan Hopkins –Retentions Award
Beverley Smith – Customer Services Award
Linda Travers – PT & Beauty Award
Daniel Hawkes – Membership Exchange Award
Mike Coombes – Membership Exchange Award

We look forward to seeing you all again for the next Headsets and Mindsets.

Jemma and I decided to take on the challenge of the London Marathon this year in aid of Asthma UK. Having only ever run two half marathons before it was going to be tough but we knew that with a bit of hard work and determination we’d have no problems… or so we thought! The training started off well but with a knee injury, a leg injury, a couple of colds, numerous blisters and the endless early morning runs we started to doubt if we’d made the right decision! It was only the support from friends, family and work colleagues not only through sponsorship but through their kind words and advice that kept us going.

We had entered ourselves into the Bournemouth Bay half marathon run which took place two weeks before the big day and with both of us achieving new personal bests our confidence was restored and we were ready and raring for the 26.2 miles ahead!

The day arrived and we were surprisingly calm. We found our starting point and we were away along with the 35,000 other people! The run itself went really well, we felt great until about 21 miles when the legs started to feel the strain but the crowd were amazing so there was no way we would let it beat us! We crossed the finish line in great time still feeling pretty good considering what we’d just done – maybe we should have pushed ourselves that little bit harder!

So far we’ve raised £2,200 for Asthma UK which is a great effort but we aim to raise £3,000 so if you’d like to help us support this great charity visit our JustGiving page www.justgiving.com/Vicky-Jemma

Thank you to all those that have supported us, especially those who bravely allowed us to wash their cars!!

The helpful bunnies at the Support Centre took part in a ‘Great Big Easter Egg Hunt’ to raise money for Asthma UK today.

The event was a great success with another £79 raised for the charity…It’s amazing what the promise of chocolate can do!

Thank you everyone for taking part and having fun:)

The Membership Exchange took to the streets of London on the 17th of April in a bid to help Andy and his team from the Highbury club to generate some fresh leads and create some excitement about the new Black Label club opening at the old Arsenal football grounds.

Outreach was planned around the Arsenal/Liverpool game and was split into 2 parts. We set up an hour before the game right out the front of the Emirates stadium and entered the crowd as thousands of people descended towards the game.

We were handing out bottles or water, Fitness First branded mini footballs and offering people the chance to play guess the goal with a prize of a football shirt!

After a break for lunch we headed back to the stadium armed with bags filled with water and Highbury flyers to hand out to fans leaving the game. We had Dave ‘Capt. America’ Cox and Mike ‘The Hoff’ Coombs in the middle of the crowds to lighten the mood while the rest handed out water.

Well done MX and good luck Team Highbury!

On 25th of March the UK Membership Exchange, along with PT Talent Coordinator Marcus Atkins from the Talent Exchange and PT Jamie Vandersteen from the Poole club attended the Vitality Show at Earls Court.

The aim of the day was to generate new leads for the business and raise brand awareness.

During the day we had ‘Power Hours’ running where we would compete to get the most leads. Also going on we had Personal Training demonstrations and press up competitions to get the public involved and excited about Fitness First!

While all that was going on we were also handing out bags filled with water, lip balm and wrist bands… they were so popular we were handing them out faster than we were making them.

Overall the Vitality show was a compete success, in total over 1600 new leads were collected at the event for clubs all around the country and around 600 bags were handed out with Fitness First goodies.

Well done guys!

Over 1,000 Personal Trainers and the Fitness First Senior Management teams enjoyed this year’s PT Conference in Loughborough on Thursday 7th April 2011.

Headline speakers included the likes of Scott Atkins, Paul Chek, John Hardy and Bobby Cappuccio. The presentations provided a mix of practical, interaction and business ideas which kept the audience stimulated and engaged throughout the day.

Congratulations to our male PT of the Year winner, Steve Cole from Berkhamsted who showed great dedication to his job and a huge passion for fitness. But a special congratulations to our female and overall winner of PT of the Year, Katie Ford from Sheffield Hillsborough who impressed the judges with her innovative training approach and her involvement with local charities.

Watch this space for next year’s line up!

The National Fitness Team.

Alperton Fitness First was a gym that was forgotten about…until 2011!!!

look at our sales team in action at the local sainsburys!
not only promoting health and fitness by doing a live demonstration of spinning but also helping the staff at sainsburys raise money for comic relief!!

C for COMMUNITY and also collecting leads of course

Nicola led a fantastic members Zumba Marathon. 2 hours back to back and all involved had a fantastic time. We’ll be doing one next month for those who missed out. All the fun of the circus.!!

I just wanted to say a huge well done and thank you to our amazing Fitness First UK Talent Exchange Team (TX) Helen, Jackie, Rachel, Marcus, Rachel, Jo, Naomi and Amanda for their achievement in becoming finalists in the ‘Best Corporate use of Online Recruitment Award’ at the 2011 Onrec Awards. We were up against some stiff competition from the likes of John Lewis, BBC, Staples and BP Retail to name a few and although the BBC was the overall winner we were delighted to have been in the final selection. I would also like to thank Gavin and Nick from Culture Bank for there involvement in helping make this happen and also for partying with us late into the night. Also thanks to Jason – Head of Ops for keeping us on track with the wine and song! and Neil Tune for his ongoing support and guidance. As the picture shows we all had a great time.

The Onrec Awards acknowledge the hard work of companies and individuals in the online recruitment industry. The awards aim is to recognize the impressive efforts made by companies.

As a club we are always working with the local community to help promote health and wellbeing. The membership team along with the fitness department took part in a spin event held at Whitechapel Sainsburys.

The feedback was fantastic and we will now be holding regular events so that the community around Bow Wharf can get involved.

Good to see the team doing boxing out side

Over 300 Fitness First staff and freelancers made the trip to the Winter Gardens in Blackpool on March 24th to take part in the Fitness First Group Exercise Experience.

The event was an enormous success and the feedback has been extremely positive.

Thanks to all those who attended and we look forward to next year’s event being even bigger and better!

The National Fitness Team.

On my journeys around the UK, I am sometimes able to get a PT session in

with a new PT.

I did this at Southampton with Frank.

Frank arrived at the start of the session full of promise. He strapped
my wrists and then proceeded to put me through my paces thoroughly.
Keeping my heart rate up through a mixture of cardio and boxing, and
getting me in positions I haven’t been in before!!!!

We went through a variety of different exercises and I was exhausted at
the end of the session.

Thank you Frank!!

Gabrielle Brownlie.

March / April see’s the start of the next group of Future Leaders and ALP (advanced Leadership programme) candidates to start there ongoing development journey towards top flight management.

We wish them all the best for the future and look forward to supporting you all on your journey.

For more info on both development courses, speak to your RBM or HR Business Partner.

We had draw for our members and they could win bottle of Jameson and Baileys.

The Reason4 training with Frank at Fitness First.

a.. Life’s been a whirlwind since we appeared on the X Factor series 7. The moment we got back from Simon’s house we threw ourselves into our music and were quickly signed by Sony ATV. Since then we’ve been crazy busy writing, recording and gigging up and down the country and we admit that at first the gym became a distant memory! That was until we met Frank, a wicked personal trainer who helped us kick our bodies into shape between our hectic schedule. Read what we all thought about it below…

Marc Higgins

a.. Being a singer/songwriter, personal image is of the utmost importance and that’s what really made me decide I wanted to work with a personal trainer..

I wanted to gain muscle mass and muscle definition. It was important for me to keep lean as I had a lean physique before I started training with Frank.. My goal was to gain better overall fitness and have an athletic build.

Frank put me on a six-week training and diet plan; the diet was low fat, high protein, which included three meals a day and only snacking on citrus fruits. This was brilliant for me as I was previously on a low carb diet and the introduction of carbohydrates was greatly received!

I needed structure to my training and Frank put together a very intense muscle fatigue training program, mixing short but high-level cardio with medium weight ,high repetition muscle training. For example I would train back, arms, legs, shoulders, chest and abs all in one session, 3-4 days per week.

I would arrange to meet up with Frank 1 day each week for a personal training session. This is where Frank really beasts you!! He put me through my paces, constantly changing the exercises so that I kept my body guessing. I have to admit that I never looked forward to these sessions beforehand, but after I was really proud of myself and the effort I put into each of them.

Overall I found that working with Frank gave me a better level of fitness and a great foundation to build on. It has changed my outlook on training because I used to train only two muscle groups per session and didn’t see the results. From Frank’s training, my cardiovascular fitness has improved and I have a greater understanding of my body.

Glen Vine

a.. After a mental end to 2010 and a lot of service station junk food while gigging and in studio, it was looking as if i was going for contender for a heavy weight boxing match, so I decided that it was important to sort myself out.

Before I met Frank I was the kind of guy who would go to gym train a certain muscle each day and then try to put a bit of cardio in my training if I could be bothered. That all changed when I met Frank! He put me on a personalised six-week programme which meant I did 40-45 minutes of cardio a day, combed with weights to keep my heart rate up and to burn fat.

I would combine a session of squats, chest, arms, back and core muscle with a run, cross trainer, row and bike. I would do this 3-4 times a week as well as having a personal session with Frank once a week. This was when he would put me through my paces and push me to the limit. And when I say limit I mean it, it was that day that I hated every week! It was hard but I knew while I was singing I had to keep in shape.

He helped me to get disciplined in what I eat on the road. My diet consisted of citrus fruits, protein, lean meat and veg and I would only eat 3 meals a day, keeping my crabs at a minimum.

In regards to my body type I already had quite good upper body so my goals were to get fit but at the same time hold a little size but reduce my body fat to look more lean and athletic. I have noticed a big difference, not only in my body but in my health and wellbeing. Although training is a big part of getting into shape the main thing is getting your body used to eating right and getting yourself in the right mental attitude.

Scott White

a.. Like the other guys, a big part of my reason for wanting personal training with Frank was because of the fact we’re in the public eye and need to look good. They say the camera puts on a few pounds and I didn’t want to end up in Heat magazine’s Circle of Shame section!

I have always been into fitness training, but more the weight training than the cardiovascular work. I was not prepared for what was to come next!! By training with Frank I wanted to improve my fitness levels and tone up all over. I tend to look at food and I put weight on the hip area so that was first on the list to hit. Training with Frank gave me a new hunger for training and also made it fun. It was very tough to start but as my fitness improved I found myself pushing even harder in sessions.

Sometimes it can be easy to stray from a diet but the one Frank put me on was personalised so it was easy to stick to. Plus I knew that if I cheated I’d only be cheating myself!

I definitely feel a lot more confident in my shape and a lot fitter since training with Frank. Overall I’d recommend him to anyone!

Nathan Rawlings

a.. As the other lads will testify, I’m the laid back one in the band and although I used to keep fit through lax gym sessions and mountain biking, my diet and training was nothing like it should be for what we do for a living!

Through my work with Frank I really wanted to push my body to the limit – both in terms of my diet and training. I wanted to feel better about myself inside and out so the high heart rate intensive training and strict diet Frank used for me was perfect!

After just a few weeks of hard training I can run further, ride for longer and lift for longer. I’m no Jason Statham or Brad Pitt but if I had Frank and Fitness First behind me for my whole career I see no reason why I can’t be in the future! Cheers guys!

Kind Regards,

Frank Mangna

The members have all commented on the buzz in the club on Red Nose Day….

The full team dressed in red and held a bake sale on at reception .. We had a member waxing hairy legs, backs and chests for charity, a School Sports Day Circuit in the Studio, and a penalty shoot out for a signed Stoke City Football.

All in all, a good day was had and we raised around £150 for Comic Relief!

RAISING MONEY FOR RED NOSE DAY

We also offered PT sessions for £3 per person all day from 6am – 9pm!

Blaine Buttery, Daniel Buttery, Nikki Kirkham, Debbie Ellis, Catherine Liggins and Luke Stace, from Member Services in the Support Centre Poole smashed the Fitness First sponsored Southbourne Fast and Flat 5km race. Spot the person who only got in from a night out at 4.00am that morning!

All departments working together at Fitness First in Old Street! Bringing even more people in to make the world a fitter place!

It was hard, sweaty…but a very good fun!!! Bloomsbury Spin Team- good job!!!

I took a team of 10 to the Local climbing and caving wall, we ended up doing all sorts, slack lining, cargo nets, archery! We jogged on from the gym to the mill, spend 2hours playing (I was working hard obviously), then jogged back to the gym! WE had a fantastic time, we are booked to go again next week!

Some times is good to change the environment and talk about something different. ) We have a great community at FF QVS and our members always welcome any kind of entertainment.

It was the last spin class of the year 2010 at FF Queen Victoria Street. Time to treat our regular members with something special. I have invited DJ and together with other spin instructor Natalie challenged our members more then for an hour. The atmosphere was just simply amazing.

I had such an amazing team of dedicated members, that it was just a question of time turn our morning spin classes to the real cycling challenge. We did it in team of 4 but I was very proud of my team especially when we found raised over £4 thousands for British Heart Foundation.

I’m thrilled announce I have challenged another members to join me in the Anglo-French adventure this year again.

On Monday all members receive fruit at reception and lovely card with 2 days guest pass for their partners. We also provide 14 min 1:1 workout for all intreasted people.Members had a choice of circuit workout, cardio workout, streaching, 6 pack workout

There is lots of love at Fitness First Oxford Circus so we shared some with our members.

Valentine’s day at Bloomsbury was amazing!
We had sweets and flowers for our members.
Lots of fun and love!!

21 members of the Retention Team based at the Support Centre in Poole, took part in an early morning Mel B Group Exercise class to feel the true member’s experience at club. The team then took part in a 1 day training workshop with the Divisional MSM team, furthering their knowledge about how clubs operate, the experience our members receive on a daily basis and the tools we use at club to ensure this is a fantastic experience each time! Throughout the day, the team also completed challenges from the Fitness Playbook which were fun, motivating and also educational!

…the prize was a bottle of Champagne!!!

Lots of love and FUN:)

Wii Warm up @ VICTORIA was a 3 day staff against member dance off, instead of warming up on the treadmill or Cross trainer we got member to warm up in style, with Just dance and the fantastic Michael Jackson Experience.

Members also selected their best MJ songs to listen to it was good entertainment all round!!!

We had a MacMillain cancer fundraiser for the nurses. everyone was decked out in green and we had extra music going at reception to keep the energy high. we also had a spin bike going from 9am till 9pm so that staff and members had to keep it going for the entire time.

Our HFM is now qualified instructor and she is doing small (maximum 2 people) pilates classes, designed especially for our members with injury. We ask people if they have any health problems and we offer them free pilates session. Of course members without injurys can take part as well.We run classes twice a week

Holiday day – sunbed promotion

Working at Fitness First is all about helping to make a difference to people’s lives. Every year our New You competition celebrates the incredible life changing stories of our members and staff and this is the story of Jan Boulter, who was helped by her personal trainer, Paul from Walsall Wood, to turn her life around.

After suffering a nervous breakdown, Jan, from Walsall Wood, decided to make some changes to her life. She moved house, changed jobs and decided to join a gym. She was going through an incredibly dark time and felt the gym would help her focus.

At first she lacked motivation but then she met Paul, a Personal Trainer at Fitness First Walsall Wood. With Paul’s help Jan became excited about going to the gym and attended regularly. At her heaviest she was nearly 22 stone. She is now almost half that weight at just 11 stone 3.

Recently she completed a 10k run, a goal set by her PT and now he is trying to convince her to enter the London Marathon in 2011. “Thanks to Fitness First I am a much happier, more confident person and feel like my life is back on track” says Jan.

Working at Fitness First is all about helping to make a difference to people’s lives. Every year our New You competition celebrates the incredible life changing stories of our members and staff and this is the story of Geoff Beddall, who was helped by his personal trainer, Steve, to turn around his life.

When Geoff from Berkhamsted was 50 years old, he had a heart attack whilst skiing in Austria. Years later, another heart attack prompted a heart bypass. Geoff continued to have health problems, suffering a stroke and developing arthritis. As a result of the arthritis, Geoff had operations on both his knees. The first operation was successful but his second knee became infected and he became bed ridden. He was close to having his leg amputated. Geoff became extremely depressed and tried to take his own life.

His wife suggested joining Fitness First and Geoff hobbled into the club with the aid of 2 sticks. With the help of his Personal Trainer Steve and Fitness First, Geoff has now strengthened his knees and now walks completely unaided. “Fitness First is a great place to be” says Geoff, 78 years old. “I spend my time talking to people about how they can use exercise to help change their lives. I’ll continue to go as long as I can.”

Working at Fitness First is all about helping to make a difference to people’s lives. Every year our New You competition celebrates the incredible life changing stories of our members and staff and this is the story of Jenny Cornelius, who was helped back into health through her training at Fitness First.

Jenny, from Eastbourne, decided to make changes to her lifestyle after losing her husband to cancer and suffering a frightening chest infection that caused her to cough up blood. Jenny was a heavy smoker and regularly used inhalers for asthma. Jenny gave up smoking and joined Fitness First.

She began going to the gym regularly and wanted to improve her overall health. Then Jenny met her new partner, an experienced bodybuilder. He introduced her to the sport and helped Jenny get her eating under control. She spent approximately a year training in the gym and then went on to compete in various competitions.

Jenny now has a trophy for Best Women’s Physique and several medals. Jenny is working towards qualifying for the UK Championships and continues to keep fit and maintain her healthy eating.

Patrick Sinclair SEM Purley get the party started with a fun Zumba routine at the London South business launch Tuesday 1st Feb.

This is the way we like to start the month, fun and positive!

My name is Emma martin I joined Fitness First 2 years ago. My main aim of joining the Fitness First gym in Southampton was to lose weight. Over this period I came to the gym on and off and did not have proper motivation to working out hard enough and this meant that I wasn’t achieving my goals .

I then decide to get some help and this became my best turning point . I needed proper motivation and a strict training regime which would guide, help and push me towards towards achieve my goals. This is when I started training with Frank Mangna. Frank is a Personal Trainer in Southampton. I read through his profile board and realised that he has lots of experience as a Personal Trainer.

Taking this head on I knew it wasn’t going to be easy but I needed that push. Frank trained me for three intense months. Frank also designed a strict Diet programme to complement my training sessions. The journey was pretty tough and some days I felt like quitting but Frank kept on motivating me to carry on. This became the best thing I had ever done.

I lost 2 stones moving from 12 stones to now 10 stones. Achieving this goal prompted me into doing more challenges some of which I had never imagined myself doing. I became more confident and motivated. In December 2010 I took part in the 5Km Santa charity run which is held down in South Sea Portsmouth. To my biggest surprise I shocked myself by doing the run in 28 minutes. This was my proudest moment. Getting that medal at the end of the race was the best feeling and knowing that 3 months earlier I couldn’t run. Managing to run a 5Km race three months later was a great feeling.

I can say that I am now very proud of myself and I enjoy doing my training, this is something I never thought I would ever enjoy doing. I go to the gym 4 times a week and enjoy taking part in Classes such as Spinning which is my favourite and Kick Boxing. I would like to advise anyone who is still anticipating to kick start his or her weight loss regime to just get on with it.

Kind Regards

Frank Mangna

Post your charity and comminity stories, pictures and videos including how much you raised in 2010 and you could win £500 for your charity/ cause!

In 2010 I promised myself I would achieve some lifetime dreams and one of those was to achieve a Marathon. Where else can you truely meet that dream than at the Disney World Marathon in Orlando.

I am an avid rugby player and love sport and training in the gym but have never run further than 2 or 3 miles in one go (18stone prop forward rugby player). This was to be a challenge that would push me beyond my emotional and physical boundaries.

Over the course of the next 12 months I ran 3 half marathons and set myself on a hard training plan that saw me run through rain, wind, sand and snow.

On the day of the race I was more nervous than I have ever been in my life and was amazed that I had come so far in such a short space of time. The start of the race was amazing, it started with a bang and I felt fantastic running into the morning surounded by disney charachters and many friendly faces of runners who where just as excited as me.

By the end of the marathon I had a very tired body and was finding it hard to run, the only thing that kept me going was the money I had raised for the Help for Heroes charity (£600 to date) and the messages of support from my friend and fellow fitness firsters. I had shed tears of emotion and joy but by the end I was filled with a great sense of pride, achievement and elation.

I had completed something that people had told me I couldnt do, It showed me that with hard work support of colleagues / Friends and a real beliefe you can achieve anything…….. Thank you to all those that helped me cross the line you where in my thoughts all the way round.

Hi, I’ve worked for Fitness First for 3 and a half years at the Bognor Club, I started on reception which I loved and eventually moved across to sales where the opportunity to earn more money was available, I’ve now been a part of the sale team for about a year and a half and I love every second of it.

I recently became a member of the executive club, where I got to go for lunch with the ‘real’ exec team, I got to share a table with Mr John Gamble and Daniel Selmon, How exciting is that? I had such a good time and as a result feel like a real top achiever. I couldn’t of done it without the support and training form my GM and the fantastic team we have at our club.

So basically I’d just like to say its good to be at the top and I plan on staying there. Watch this space.
Lisa

Five members of staff from sunny Stoke-on-Trent Fitness Fist club, attempting to raise money for British heart foundation on December 3rd 2010 by jumping out of a airplane at a hight of 12,100ft with the out side air temp at – 31 (brrrrr).. We all one by one took the small step into the giant unknown vast open space, free falling at 120mph. Carol Fraser (GM), Big Russ (HFM), Rhys Tatton (Recption), Dave Brookes (No 1 FC), Rob Darrlington (PT). A massive well done to all the members and staff at Stoke over the past 4 month helping us to raise the money to make this happen, from the 12 hour single person none stop tread mill walk (77k) to raffling mountin bike…

Ramadan is the ninth and holiest month of the Islamic calendar and the month in which the Qur’an was revealed. Fasting in this month is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Muslims fast during the daylight hours from dawn to sunset in order to burn away all sins. Ramadan is a time for discipline and gratitude and giving thanks for what we have. Muslims believe that the Qur’an was sent down to the lowest heaven during this month, thus being prepared for gradual revelation by the angel Gabriel to the Islamic prophet Muhammad who told his followers that the gates of Heaven would be open all the month and the gates of Hell would be closed.

The fast is entire, nothing may pass the lips of a devout Muslim between dawn and sunset. For Atif, membership manager at Reading club, this was to be an enormous challenge so, I decided to support.

In comparison my fast was a modest one, I simply gave up food during my working day, I am addicted to water and always have a bottle on my desk, as I was a novice faster, Atif allowed me to continue to drink only water during the day, my only real sacrifice was early morning coffee – a habit which jolts me into action for the day ahead.

For Atif however Ramadan was a very different story. The membership team enjoy their food, we have a microwave and a fridge in the office and Asda is less than 20 paces away. The office has a constant supply of Red Bull, morning croissants and microwavable food. As if this was not tough enough for Atif, his sleep pattern was also interrupted, many mornings he came to work having had no sleep at all. During Ramadan, special night time prayers are conducted during which long portions of the Qur’an are recited. It is usual for Muslims to spend several hours at night praying and studying the Qur’an or visiting the Mosque.

Without food, water and often sleep you can see why so many Muslims take time off work during Ramadan. Atif however, boldly made it through to the end without a day off. We were all thankful when the 30 days were up !

Our Xmas Party was held on Fri 3rd in the middle of the biggest snowfall we’ve seen in a while. We had champagne cocktails on entry, a DJ from Priva nightclub, a singer who performed for free, a dance troop who performed for free, buffet with mince pies and xmas cake. Coach was provided for free transport to The Studio & Priva to continue on the evening.
Even though we had snow, ice and then it started to pour with rain, we still had a good turnout.
Both the singer and dance troop were brilliant and members asked for them to perform again.
We managed to fill a coach to go on to The Studio to see a live act, which was enjoyed by everyone.
Many members who couldn’t make it because of the snow, requested for another party in the New Year.

Fitness First giant advent calendar! With ’20 days of fitness’ behind each door.
Each day we opened a door and got the members involved with that day’s activity.
This co-insides with the launch of the new 20 fitness cards and worked festively well
Fitness First Christmas post box- for members and staff to post xmas cards to each other, the post box was really full and everyone got tons of cards.
‘January’s unwanted gifts toy drop’ Walsall Manor hospital– Since the end of November we have been asking the members of the club to bring in any items they have from kids toys to board games, selection boxes and sweets and we are also asking members to bring in any unwanted gifts that receive at xmas time and we will be doing a ‘gift drop’ at both the children’s ward and the adults ward of Walsall Manor Hospital at the beginning of January.
‘Get fit with Mel B’ launch, Full class on a Monday prime time evening at the end of November. All the clients loved the music and defiantly felt the pain the next day.
‘Car Pull’ The plan was to do an outside car pull using a tow rope and a section of the car park however due to the snowy weather we decided to bring this indoors with a reindeer theme, instead of pulling a car we got members to pull the sand bag Reebok bases that are used for the boxing. We dressed the base up as a reindeer and Matt Sutton our HFM sat inside it dressed as Santa creating a make shift sleigh, shouting HO HO HO!
Santa Circuit – Matt our HFM did a Santa Circuit along to Festive music, some of the stations included Tug of war with Santa and Sack raises.
Wed 22nd Dec – we had Mince pies for all the members.

On Sunday 12th December Fitness First St. Albans participated in the ‘Jingle Bell Jog’. This was a 5k run set up to raise money for Grove House Hospice Care. Also the 1.5k Reindeer Run which kids could take part in wearing Reindeer ears. There were over 400 participants all running in Santa outfits to make it a really festive event. We took down 18 cases of Fitness First outreach Guest Pass water that we passed out to all of the runners. Our very own Personal Trainer A.J took the warm up for all the fun runners. It was great to see one of our Fitness First team members motivating hundreds of people! It was a great morning with our members also participating in the run and lots of other activities like music, celebrities, people on stilts and a raffle. It was filmed and photographed by the local media with our MC Shab posing for a picture giving out the water! Great healthy fun and raising thousands of pounds for charity!!

Celebrating Xmas with members is like tradition in our Club. Every year we have similar party . Everyone is cooking something delicious at home and then we can share it together and discus differences in cultures.

Two of our staff members dressed up in ‘sexy’ santa outfits and posed at the ‘grotto’. Members had to give a minumum £1 donation to take their professional photo with the santas. The pictures were then developed and given to the members the next day

We managed to raise £145 for asthma UK and had a great atmosphere in the club!!

We booked the VIP area at a local bar and invited the members to join us for a social evening. Great atmosphere and smiles all round.

Ok it all started one Tuesday in October, my good friend H took part in my Tuesday evening Resistance Band training class. After the class he asked me if he could have a word, it was at this point he told me that he was suffering from early stages of testicular cancer.

I was shocked and taken back by what he had just told me, we talked and I reasured H that he can fight this and we are all here to support him at our club.

To show our support to H at this testing time of his life I started to plan a BootCamp Fitness Master Class, H loves fitness and training in my BootCamp class on a Saturday was a highlight in his week. I started to spread the word amongst our members yet told them to keep it all a secret until the day of the class, word travelled fast and I started to book peoples places. Once I had an idea of the number of people that wanted to take part in the class I could start to plan it. I had 50 people to structure the class around, this wasn’t an issue as I completely emptied our studio to create enough space. You will see the amount of variety there is in this class when you watch the youtube clip, links are below.

The BootCamp Class was really only a small part of the day, the main aim was to show H how many good friends he has that are here for him whenever he needs them. Donations were made by all participants, this was given to H to help him whilst he is not able to work, I ran a raffle to give something back to all the people that showed up to show their support. To top it all off we had a buffet in our members lounge which included a smoothie bar (picture), indian foods from a local company and lots of homemade cakes!! (picture)

I also recorded action from the class in order to put together a motivational video clip, H can watch it whenever he needs to know that his friends are here for him. Watch the interaction between the members, this is how you build rapport, breakdown barriers and increase members experience when they attend group fitness classes. Links are here: (please watch on a PC if it doesn’t load on phones)

Video 1

Video 2

The buzz around our gym for the whole day was amazing. When we talk about member retention and showing our members that we care this is how we do things at our club. Group fitness is a great way to prove this to our members, get them talking about ours clubs and provide a MAGIC from time to time! Thank you for taking the time to read about this months members event. It was a HUGE success and will be talked about for weeks to come.

On Wednesday 15th December we held our annual members Christmas Dinner/party in Beatles Restaurant in Portrush. For 4 weeks prior to this we advertised in club and verbally told our members about the event. In total we have 20 members attend the dinner and around another 25 turn up for the later part of the evening. We placed guest passes on the table for them to bring their friends to the club till the end of December. Everyone had an enjoyable night and hopefully each year the numbers will increase.

Hi,

Jo’ Gough is a member at Fitness first Southampton. I have been training Jo’ for 6 weeks and he has lost a staggering 7kg. I put Jo’ through a weight loss programme, with a complete diet guidline, most of his workouts comprised of Cardio, High reps, Low resistance, Plymetrics, Functional exercises and general athletic style training. This is what Jo’ Has got to say for himself;
:-I have been going to the gym for around 11 years or so and in that period I was even working out 5 times a week, for all of the effort I was putting in I was never getting the benefits I wanted. The issue I had was I kept running out of exercise ideas and my body was getting used to the ones I was doing. I never had an issue with bulking up and putting on mass but could never get trim.

The main reason I choose to go down the personal trainer route was for a holiday in Australia and to final try and get lean and trim

Frank came up with a 6 week programme which included various exercise to keep the heart rate up and a diet plan which was easy to follow. I trained with Frank once a week and all the session where never the same so you are always kept on your toes.

Since training with Frank I have been introduced to so many different styles of training techniques which I have found to be the best yet. Frank used exercises I have done in the past but then add something a bit different, this way my body was always guessing. By keeping to these training methods and a very simple diet I started seeing results in only a couple of weeks and after the full 6 weeks I had lost 7 kilos.

When I had the PT sessions with Frank I always got a full work and pushed myself to the limit. Frank has a great way of pushing and motivating you knowing your body’s full capability.

I would 100% recommend Frank, especially if you are not getting the right results that you want, he has innovative training techniques, a variety of fitness exercises to suit all and is a great motivator.

Cheers Frank.

On the 24th of November the UK Membership Exchange and the London Team joined forces to let the streets of London know about our new Spitalfields Tower club!

6 of us were up at the crack of dawn to jump on a train to London town and after a few coffees (and for some an extra nap on the train) we arrived at the NIDO tower to meet Edwardo and his team.

Our plan for the day was to hit Spitalfields market with all the energy we could find to generate new leads and hopefully gain some new members!

We had Chloe and Mike dressed as gorillas running around like lunatics handing out bananas with information strapped to them. The rest of us were armed to the teeth with leaflets and outreach tools and sent out on the streets. We also got involved with the highly energetic Body Combat being held in the centre of the market…

An amazing time was had by all, although it was hard work (especially for the gorillas) it was very rewarding for us to get involved with the new Spitalfields Tower club. We took our mad energy (and by mad I mean crazy) and successfully helped generate 130 new leads and from those so far there have been 5 confirmed members (there are more coming in)!!

Go Team London & Team MX!!

Mykee is one of our personal trainers and group ex instructors who goes the extra mile.
He organised a Christmas special fancy dress circuit class, which went down very well with our members.

They all raved about it and looked really great. After they all had a well deserved Christmas cake, mince pies and mulled wine!

Well done Mykee!

We are pleased to announce that from 1 November, Asthma UK are the official Charity of the Year for 2010/11.

Asthma UK is dedicated to supporting the 5.4 million people with Asthma in the UK and their families. Our aim is to raise £100k for charity during the next year and we need your help to do it!

The money we raise will help fund vital research and an Asthma advice line run by Asthma trained nurse specialists.

On Friday 19 November, we celebrated the official launch of the partnership by sending 100 helium filled balloons off from Support Centre in a balloon race.

Each balloon had a tag attached promoting the partnership plus each had a guest membership featured too! The balloon that was found the furthest away was Chandlers Ford in Hampshire – an amazing 40 miles away!

When people hear you work for Fitness First they naturally think you work in the Gyms. To discover there is a world of IT jobs “behind the scenes”, is often surprising to them. Amazement follows when they learn that there is a whole Test Team that works every day testing our new Membership Management system, Members First (MF).  So I wondered how many people within the company know we exist and how can I make this information visible to other areas of the company…. then along came Fitness Firsters!

So , here I am, my name is Donna Jones and I joined Fitness First just over a year ago as the Members First Programme Test Centre Manager. My team and I are located in the Support Centre in Poole, in the Group-IT office. The team consists of 10 Test Analysts, two of which are Team Leaders, one is leader of the MF System Test Team and the other is leader of the MIS Test Team. MIS, is the Management Information System which takes information from the Members First system and produces reports  for business management.

We are responsible for ensuring that there are no serious defects/errors (also called bugs…no not the 4 legged kind, though it is not unknown for ants to crawl out of keyboards!) in the system when it ‘goes Live’(is released) for use in the clubs and back offices.  We work very closely with the other teams in both Members First Development and Group-IT.   When the System Test teams are satisfied that the system meets the requirements of the agreed changes and enhancements, we then support the business as they carry out their own testing (UAT).

UAT (User Acceptance Testing) is the opportunity for the business to perform some testing so that they have the confidence to accept the system as suitable for live use.  I also work with the Design & Analysis team (D&A), working closely with the business, to assist in the planning, preparation and recording for the UAT testing.

With the help of the Development Team (the team who writes the code to make the system work), we are starting to automate more of our testing which ultimately will enable us to test more of the system and in less time.

One of my Test Analysts is also on the newly formed LIM (Live Issue Management) team. LIM has been created to ensure that any defects in the system which were not resolved before it went Live, will still be fixed and tested.

We have started to collect & analyse defect and test statistics, which will give us some evidence of areas we should concentrate on for further improvement.

The new Members First system is successfully running Live in 9 countries at present with implementation in the UK and then Asia being next on the agenda!

An e-mail came through to us on the 24/09/2010 from Stacey Love who is the general manager of Fitness first in Bognor Regis. It was a very touching e-mail which outlined her concern for her dad’s inoperable pancreatic cancer. Stacey’s dad needs a new life extending treatment called Cyberknife! Cyberknife is a treatment that requiers a direct zap to the bad tumor. Stacey’s dad needs to be zapped at least 3 to 5 times in order to extend his life. It would cost anything between £10,000 and £12,000 per zapping.

Our general manager at Fitness first Southampton called for a staff meeting to discus this touching story. The out come of the meeting was to set up a week’s long charity appeal which would help to raise some money to donate towards Stacey’s dad’s treatment. We set up 5 different events over 5 days that would help to generate some donations.

Beginning from Monday the 1st of November we set up a spinathon which ran from 17:30 to 21:00, we put the bikes in front of our bar area where members normaly sit down for cups of tea or consultations.We asked Abs’ one of our Personal trainers who is also a Dj to run some live djing alongside the spinathon. Each bike cost £5 per hour. The event was lively and Fantastic.On day 2 we had a Pt open day where our Pt’s voluntered to train members for £5 per session, this was a successfull day too. Day 3 was car wash day, staff would wash the members cars for a £5 donation. On day 4 we did a rescue run which meant that we needed to keep a treadmill running from 08:00 to 20:00hrs and encouraged members and staff to run any distance for a £2 donation.Day 5 was a friday and we organised a members party at one of our local bars. Each member and staff had to pay £10 per ticket. We had a Southampton pop group called ‘The Reason ‘ who have also been featured in this years Xfactor. ‘The Reason’ performed about 5 of thier songs towards the charity event.They were about 150 people in the bar ,mainly members and staff.

All these events were fantastic and our members enjoyed every minute of them. We managed to raise £1,300 toward’s stacey’s dad. We hope that this money will help to contribute towards getting Stacey’s dad’s treatment and a better quality of life.We would like to thank all the members and Southampton staff who dedicted thier time towards this event and all of our fantastic members who took part and Donated money to the Charity event. You are all very special people thanks again.

Great Night for all, members and non members to once again experience the fun and enjoyment that FF Purley has to offer.We combined a Charity spin with a night of local enterprise. From hair dressing, teeth whitening to flower arrangements. I called various adverts off our community board, who were happy to come down for the evening to showcase there busness!

A celebration for our members on our 11th Birthday including members that were here from day 1 and two members of staff Patrick and Chantelle.
Fancy dress party and FF Purley quizzes throughout the day. Prizes for the winners with questions relevant to our club. I.e How many varieties of Multi power Protein drinks do we sell and Name two classes we take bookings for.

The London Divisional Team had a day out Wakeboarding. The day began with a very motivating meeting full of great presentations followed by the wakeboarding in the afternoon.
This was a great exercise for the team and really helped us build rapoor with each other. A few people really proved themselves on the water and a few didnt!!!
We had an amazing day which ended with a very competitive volleyball game.

Fun was had by all at Clapham Fitness First on Friday 19th November raising over £105 for Children In Need!

All the staff came into work dressed in pyjamas for the day!, I even did a PT interview in my PJ’s! Lol

Beside our reception desk we had a members table with ‘Guess the bears name?’ & ‘How many sweeties in the jar?’. Any donating members were invited to help themselves to a piece of fruit or a cake.

It was a great day!

Here is just a taster of what goes on at a London Division Business Launch!

Being an MD to your own company can have its benefits, but it can also leave you making excuses too.
At 51, Sam Marshall is one of the co-founder and joint director of the UK’s leading personal finance lending company.
Sam had struggled with his weight over the years as a result of socialising and entertaining clients – suffering from type II diabetes and gout, his doctor referred him to many sources of help. Help from dieticians, medications, leaflets, the GP referral scheme, self-help, etc – none of which worked for long. Sam was getting bored easily and soon settled back into his old ways.
With his daugter’s wedding looming and his wife “nagging” him to see a personal trainer she worked with, and the doctor threatening lifetime medication, Sam felt he had to do something – which is why he met me.
I had already been working with Sam’s wife, Lorna for 5 months and the results could clearly be seen. I already knew that Lorna and her family were eating well from food diary reviews so I knew Sam’s weight wasn’t shifting due to a lack of movement and/or exercise.
I soon got Sam into PT 3 times a week at 6.30am!! much to his surprise – along with a circuit class once a week at 6.45am. The reason for early sessions – simple! Sam had no excuse not to turn up before work and that way if he had to travel to see fellow brokers, he could do so after a PT session.
Within Sam’s first 6 weeks of PT, he lost 6kg (13.22lb) and increased his hydration levels by 2%.
Now, 30 weeks (6 months) later, Sam has lost in total:
- 14.5kg (2st 3.96lb) of bodyfat (total of 7% bodyfat)
- put on 4.2kg of muscle (9.25lb)
- and his hydration levels have shot up 10.5%!

Sam underwent several hurdles along the way, namely seeing his home football team play home and away, business trips to UK and Europe, the Ryder Cup, his daughter’s wedding, two weeks holiday in Florida – but he has surpassed them with flying colours.

Sam recently said: “Embarassingly, I am turning into a woman! In the last six months, my progress with Rebecca has been such that I can no longer fit into the new trousers and shirts I bought to celebrate my recent weight losses. This means that all of the new clothes hanging proudly in my wardrobe and hardly worn yet need to be replaced. I simply have nothing to wear…See, I told you, I am turning into a woman.
The last six months have seen my waist, chest and neck size decrease to such an extent that I am now looking for coloured labels in Marks and Spencer that I haven’t looked for in 15 years.
The reason for this is my continued perseverance with diet and exercise. Rebecca remains a key catalyst in this equation and has managed to keep me motivated enough to join a gym with a view to putting in some extra work between our sessions.
Rebecca continues to update all my exercise regimes every 6 weeks and is gradually making them more challenging. She is very conscious of the need to introduce different elements into my sessions in order to continue the progress we have made to date.
If I did not work with Rebecca, I would probably have given up by now. In the past I would have used any of the situations mentioned above as an excuse to return to my old lifestyle. The value of having a Personal Trainer is that it does motivate you to do things that you would normally avoid and knowing that I had booked some sessions with Rebecca upon my return from holiday ensured that I got back into my routine straight away and did not give me any excuse to get lazy. If I was relying on my own self discipline to go back to the gym, I am certain that I would not have completed two sessions already.”

It is for this reason that when people like Sam get results like this that make me love my job and make me want to return to my job everyday. Thank you Sam!!!

Our annual pumpkin making competition

Every member of staff at the club is aware of the impact we can have on the planet and how we can be Green and do our little bit to help the environment – from turning lights & computers off in offices that are not being used to thinking before printing that email & recycling paper that we use on a daily basis. The club team also help promote the use of the new green bins to our members to ensure we are making the most of our efforts to put the planet first.

Our receptionists take every opportunity to use the bins to recycle the paper, newspapers and magazines that we use on a daily basis. Amber a receptionist thinks the bins are a great idea “We get through so much paper, its good that we can recycle everything now!!

Fitness first Southampton is celebrating its 2010 Fit Brit contenders who all came out at the top 10. The 3 girls worked extremely hard to get to where they are. None of them believed that they could perform to that level. After months of training and preparing, I took the 3 girls to Birmingham for the competition. The girls were so nervous at the begining but i managed to use exercise mind coaching skills to calm them down.

Aimee Norman was the first competitor who managed to complete the challenge in 12:00mins putting her in the 6th position. Brooke Murray was next and she did it in 11:54mins putting her in 5th position. Chloe Kanstas who had a bad cold on the day managed to stumble to the finish line in 12:36mins and got herself on the fantastic 8th position.

We at fitness first Southampton are proud of the girls acheivements. We have developed club posters and presented the 3 with some bottles of bubbly, just encourage the other members. We want to encourage every one out there to take part in future events. Every one and any one is welcome, you dont have to be an athlete to be able to complete a challenge as none of the girls were. We will train you and help you to get there. Motivation, Inspiration & Determination

To support the implementation of our strategy map, as part of our commitment to “we attract and recruit the best”, we have introduced and launched Talent Exchange and the new Talent Discovery recruitment tools in clubs, which will really help us to drive this forward. However, recruiting the best is only one part of the journey! To support these initiatives, and our commitment to quality training and development, we have recently launched our one day company induction workshop for our new starters. This fun and interactive workshop is all about promoting and developing the attitudes and behaviours we want from new starters when they join us. It introduces the key components of Fitness First to ensure our new starters are raring to go when they return to their club and join their Fitness First teams, with the core knowledge about our business and industry. The day sets the expectations of the Fitness Firsters, especially to be self-sufficient in their own development and sets them up on their own Fitness First journey, with a support network for the first few weeks. Working with the Talent Exchange team, the Training and Development team is starting to run these inductions on a weekly basis, to ensure the company induction is their first day in the business. These changes are all about ensuring we recruit the best and support them in becoming effective as quickly as possible, so they can have a great career with us, whilst helping our members achieve their goals. The Fitness First company induction journey has begun…watch this space for our next steps!

Our staff Launch of our new class

My journey started nearly 5 years ago on reception at FF Halifax, i was 18 and didn’t really know what i wanted to do as a career never did i imagine it would be as it is today. After a few weeks i thoroughly enjoyed working for the company and was desperate to try the sales role. My General Manager was quite reluctant to let me try it but in the end gave me a chance. After a few months i was excelling within the team and realised i really could make a career within the company, just as i was starting to drive myself towards the Sales Manager role i fell pregnant, i was extremely worried that this would stop any chances i had with career development….i could not of been more wrong. Upon my return from leave i was promoted to Sales Manager. After several GM’s passed through the Halifax club the team were left to pick up the responsibility and continue to push through budgets. I was really enjoying my career but had not thought about what i wanted to do next until my RBM approached me to go on the Future Leader Assesment day, i was totally gob smacked to say the least but thought why not, it can only help my development….not in a million years did i expect to pass and go onto becoming a General Manager!!!!
I have now worked as a GM for 2 years and loved every minute, the constant challenges are what keep me coming to work everyday and make it enjoyable. Aswell as this i have some fantastic team members who are also future Gm’s within the company.
My club has taken ‘Community’ to some great levelsvwhen personal Trainer Lee Barker also a close friend was fighting his battle against cancer, staff and members came together to help with fund raising to help Lee persue other treatments. Some fantastic events were orgnaised..the club and members managed to raise around 20K but sadly after 3 years Lee lost his battle to cancer.
I feel i have achieved great things within my career such as nominations at GM Summit for Club Of The Year and GM Of The Year.
I have recently been off with my second pregnancy and again had 100% support from all within the company.
I have had the pleasure of working with some great people who have most definately contributed to my success as a GM and my continued passion for the company….Michelle Everett & Brad Rushton especially.
I will continue to further my career with Fitness First, i have gained many good friends and completely changed who i am for the better, five years ago i would of never set any personal goals or believed in myself as much as i do now….Fitness First has made me proud of what i have achieved. I am 23 years old, Married, i have 2 beautiful children and a thriving career!!!

I have worked for Fitness First for over 12 years. I started as Bar Manager when Telford opened in 1998, I progressed to Administration Manager and then got General Manager of Burton on Trent in January 2000. I have been in my current role since Summer 2003.

I have always been overweight. I remember being a size 18 at 18. In 2008 a lot of things happened to make me realise that I needed to take action regarding my weight. I got to the stage where I knew that if I didn’t do something there and then, I would kill myself from a heart attack or an obesity related disease.

In November 2008 I decided that I wanted the weight gone, and the weight gone NOW! So I investigated the Gastric Band and Gastric Bypass privately. I asked my parents to loan me £11,000 for the Gastric Bypass operation and ended up having a big family meeting regarding all the information that I had found out. Having weighed (no pun intended!) up the pros and cons, the thought of potentially dying on the operating table, post-operative complications and being on nutritional pills for the rest of my life, meant I ultimately decided that an elective surgery was not right for me.

So in January 2009 I gave up smoking, got a Personal Trainer and joined Weight Watchers. I am now on my 4th and 5th PT (yes I have two – one scares me, so I do as I am told, and the other I can verbally abuse, as I don’t like working out!). Each week I weigh in with Weight Watchers and every month I have my measurements taken with my PT. It’s great to be able to quantify my achievements by something other than weight. For example, at the end of October 2010 I had lost 2kg in the month, which I was not that happy about. However, I lost 3% Body Fat – which is insane! Had I just been going from weight, I think I would have been demoralised, but seeing all the other measurements coming down is a real boost. I’m in the gym most mornings, but use classes if I’m losing focus and motivation.

I’ve lost 10 stone so far and need to lose another 3 stone to achieve my goal of being within my “healthy” 21-25 BMI. I’m now down to a size 14-16, which is MAD, as I have never been an adult at this size. I’ve discovered I have bones where I didn’t realise before! I have to be really organised with my food and write everything down.

I can honestly say that I could not have done this without the help and support of everyone I know in Fitness First. Here’s to the next 3 stone!

My journey started as a PT at the York club and with that opportunity started my careeer with Fitness First. After 8 months i had 36 clients a week 2 classes anda niutrition semiar once a week i got noticed ) My RBM sugggested i try for HFM and after 6 weeks i made GM!!
When offered the post i said i need a couple of weeks to think about it because i had enjoyed every minute of my time with company so far and i didnt want that to change.
I however was never in a postion to turn down a full time position i said yes.

i have been with the company now for…well this is now my 4th year as GM and i can honestly say that i have enjoyed every day, even when things are tough i know that i am being paid to do what i love and that is sharing what i have learned, in the most part as a hobby, with people who share the same interest and want to be the best at what they do………

cheese …maybe….truth…100%

In July we held our first ever Gala Dinner (black tie do) and awards evening. The event was attended by over 60 members, guests and staff and was held at a local golf club. On the night guests were welcomed with a bucks fizz reception, 3 course meal with coffee and tea and bottles of wine per table. We played exciter games such as play your cards right and we projected on a big screen several videos of the events over the past year. We also had an award ceremony with 4 categories in which members voted for in club leading up to event. Each winner received a £50 voucher of choice. Winners of the games also won a £25 voucher.
Each member and staff paid £30 per head – the event was a sell out with many people on the waiting list. We finished the night with a disco & lots of dancing.

The winners:
New you achievement award – Darren Mcniff
Group Exercise award – Barbara Harrison
Member of the Moment – Jackie Dixon
Community Award – Derek & Winn Campbell
Cycle of service award – Kareen Dunne

Our group of 14 members and staff set off on our journey from fitness first Stockton to complete the National 3 Peaks (Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon).
We started our challenge in Fort William, after a 6 hour climb in the rain, hail, gale force winds, minus temperatures, and snow we had completed the first mountain.

We then headed to the Lake District to conquer Scafell Pike. We started at 5.30am and for some of us this was the biggest challenge as wind speeds were up to 70 mph and the rain never stopped pouring, after 4 hours we all returned safely back to the bus and headed to Wales.

We arrived in Snowdonia at 4pm and were told that we may not even be allowed to climb Snowdon, as the weather conditions were too dangerous! However the weather calmed down and the sun even made an appearance so we started our final climb.

After driving 1100 miles around 3 countries, walking 25 miles, climbing 3374 metres and walking approx 857,000 steps as a team, we crossed the finish line at 9.30pm.

We all had a fantastic weekend everyone in high spirits and a great team challenge!!

We had lots of laughs over the weekend even though for some of us it was the toughest challenge we have ever taken on and everyone is still talking about it now! So far we have raised £2000 for the BHF but our mission is to raise £5000.

The Fitness First Support Centre has raised over £1,700 for the Over The Wall charity. This fantastic achievement was reached by a gruelling 300 mile bike ride from Lands End to Poole over 3 days, and an exciting charity football match against Blandford Metal Craft. Fitness First 2 Blanford Metal Craft 1!!!!

Over the Wall provides residential activity camps during school holidays for children aged between 8 and 17 who suffer with a serious illness. These camps help children to rebuild their confidence and self-esteem through a variety of activities. The charity has a dedicated team of volunteers, doctors and nurses who all give their time to help the children. Over The Wall is totally reliant on donations to provide camps for 500 children each year. Fun and laughter should be a part of every child’s life, unfortunately a child with a serious illness can forget how much fun it can be to paddle up a river in a kayak, face paint your friend or climb forty feet up the climbing wall to ring the bell.

We’d like to thank everyone who has helped us raise this money, a big thank you to everyone who participated in the bike ride and football match and to everyone who helped support and organise both events.

Fitness First participates in and supports local communities. A great example of this is our Support Centre in Poole ‘adopting’ a local under-funded childrens’ Sports Centre. We have now completed redecoration works at the centre through regular volunteer challenge days and our relationship with the centre is going from strength to strength. This has had an immediate, positive and lasting effect on the local children who use the facility. As one child simply put it: ‘thanks. You have made loads of people really happy.’

Pupils at Tanner’s Brook Infant School in Southampton had a different activity on their timetable a week last Thursday when the Fitness First Southampton team took over for an hour and a half.

The government’s recent plans to cut back on the funding for the valuable Change 4 Life national health campaign, has not dampened the spirits of schools such as Tanner’s Brook who have instead turned to local health and fitness professionals such as Frank Mangena and the team at Fitness First Southampton who are happy to help keep health and fitness high on the school’s agenda.

Fitness First personal trainer Frank Mangena made a special guest appearance at the school, teaching three half hour aerobics classes with around 40 children taking part in each session. The classes were to coincide with National School Sports Week which ran from June 28th to July 2nd to help promote fitness for children aged between four and seven years old.

Frank taught the children a variety of different exercises ranging from low impact walking on the spot, right through to jump squats and push ups. Even the teachers took part in the class which was set to up-beat studio music, keeping the energy and enthusiasm high amongst both staff and pupils. The sessions were a real success, showing children how aerobic exercise can be fun as well as really good for you.

Helen Rayner, PE Co-ordinator at Tanner’s Brook Infant School said; “Frank brought a wealth of experience and enthusiasm along to the classes on Thursday. His energy and motivation had a really positive effect on the children as well as the staff. “

Frank has been a personal trainer for Fitness First for eight years and works with people of all ages and abilities, constantly striving to get the best out of people. Frank said “It was such a great experience and a big surprise at how agile the kids are. Many adults find some natural movements difficult but the kids made all of the moves look so easy.

Parkstone Sports and Arts Centre has begun to benefit from Fitness First’s local community programme. Staff members from Fitness First are volunteering at the centre to make a positive difference to the youngsters who use the facilities.

Twenty three volunteers from the Fitness First support centre in Fleets Lane, Poole, recently spent a day decorating the interior of the centre which has suffered both at the hands of vandalism and a lack of funding.

The world’s largest privately owned health club group has created its own community programme which demonstrates its commitment to the local area. This activity supports the company’s belief that engaging the younger generation in fitness can positively change attitudes and behaviours through wellbeing.

Parkstone Sports and Arts Centre offers classes for 8-16 year olds; with around 150 youngsters enjoying the evening sessions of basketball, cricket, drama, dance, arts, crafts and football with qualified instructors every week.

Fitness First is in discussion with Ray Parish, Chairman of the centre to agree a schedule of works so that the Fitness First team can draw upon their resources and skills to update and improve the facilities.

The next session has been planned in for September 10th, when Fitness First volunteers will continue their hard work, but this time will also invite parents of the children who use the centre along to help out too.

John Gamble, Managing Director of Fitness First said: “Activities which support our local communities form a large part of our club activity. It is a pleasure to be involved with a local centre run by people with such passion for fitness and arts. It has been enormously beneficial for the teams involved in the volunteering activities and we are thoroughly looking forward to completing further works in September.

Members at Fitness First Gorton are currently in training for this Saturday’s annual Gorton Grueller Challenge, one of the toughest and fastest growing gym challenges in the world, which sees participating athletes put themselves through numerous gruelling exercises in order to be crowned champion.

Supported by the UK Gym Challenge association, the event takes place May 22nd from 9am at Fitness First Gorton, where approximately 80 athletes from all over the country will take part in the three categories of the competition; Sprint, Intermediate and Open.

All participating athletes will be keen to beat last year’s champion and course record holder, Ben Stroud with his incredible time of 17.07 minutes. The challenge involves ten different exercises including bench presses, box jumps and a stint on the rower, bike and treadmill, the athlete who completes the challenge in the fastest time wins the prestigious Gorton Grueller trophy.

Fitness First Gorton Personal Trainer, Mike Jones comments: “The Gorton Grueller is now in its 7th year here at Fitness First Gorton and attracts members of Fitness Firsts from across the country.

The event has really helped raise the clubs profile within the X Training Gym challenge circuit, winning Fitness First Gorton the title of Fittest Gym in 2009, an achievement we are very proud of.

Fitness First’s Bike Challenge, (AKA “THE BEAST”) – Lands End to Poole – July 17th 2010….

In May 2009 Fitness First entered into a partnership with Lifetime to design and deliver a bespoke Customer Service NVQ . This initially was piloted in one region and is now being rolled out across the UK for all club based staff. The target is that all staff will go through the programme at level 2 or 3 by the end of 2012.

On the 22 June Fitness First recognised and celebrated the success of the first 50 employees who have successfully completed the programme and gained their NVQ qualification.

The event was held at the HQ of Fitness First in Poole and the staff were presented with their certificates by John Gamble the UK Managing Director.

John commented that “this initiative is a great example of our commitment to delivering quality training and development; equipping our staff with the skills and understanding to help our members achieve their fitness goals