Clubindustry

I just firmed up some details today on my invitation to speak at the FitLife Club Network’s Summer Conference in Bend, OR, July 15-17. The flight has been booked, a room for one night at the resort has been placed in my name and now I just have to find a hotel in Portland for one night (I’ll be arriving late the night before and don’t want to make the 3 hour trek to Bend in the dark). Oh, and I guess I need to create my presentation, which will be to the personal trainers, group exercise instructors and directors in attendance.

I’m excited about going to this conference. I’ve never been before, and I always look forward to getting to meet new people. I’ve also never been to Oregon before. I’ve been told that the drive from Portland to Bend is gorgeous so I’m excited to check it out for myself. Too bad my plans with the boyfriend to do some fly fishing beforehand didn’t quite work out, but maybe another year.

If you’ll be at the FitLife Conference, definitely stop in on the session (Sunday, July 15 at 2:15 pm) and say hi! -Pam

We were left in the dark Monday afternoon. Shortly after 2 p.m. local time, a transformer blew, and the power in our building went out, except for a bank of lights near Pam‘s office. With the computers shut down, we were forced to actually talk to each other–a frightening concept. Pam had some backup juice in her office thanks to a laptop connected to her mainframe. After about 30 minutes, we were told to head home. Good thing, too, because it was getting hot in here, but fortunately, no one took their clothes off.

What to do with an extra 2 ½ hours? Me? I got a haircut that I desperately needed (with a graduation, a packed Memorial Day weekend and the upcoming Club Industry East show looming) and I did some grocery shopping. Not exactly whooping it up. Jennipher Shaver and I had Pam e-mail us our notes and stories that we‘ve been working on to our home addresses, fearing that the power wouldn‘t be back up today. But about 5:30 p.m., an e-mail was sent out saying power had been restored.

The news of our power outage still hasn‘t made it to the company Web site. Houston had a problem with a power outage last week, and they got to be on the Web site. Why can‘t we? This is our moment of glory! -Stuart

Do you pay your staff enough for all they do for you? If not, what’s holding you back from paying more? If you are a personal trainer, director, GM or front desk person at a club, are you getting paid enough?

We’re working on a story about employee compensation for the upcoming issue, and we’d like to hear from you on this issue. Is pay keeping up with the cost of living? Is pay enough to turn jobs in the fitness business into careers? Do you offer health insurance to your employees? How else do you compensate your employees? Give us your thoughts by clicking on the comment button below. - Pam

It’s rather quiet here this afternoon. Stuart and Jenn (and most of the other editors at Penton Media) are at a boot camp. I bet you thought the fitness industry was the only one doing boot camps (besides the military, of course!). Well, no, even the magazine industry has taken to calling some of its events by that name. However, in the magazine world, the boot camps don’t involve waking up before dawn, doing push-ups and running for miles. Instead, they involve eating a pretty good lunch, networking with other editors and then listening to lectures about writing better headlines and opening paragraphs (or leads, as we call them in the publishing business). I’ve attended the boot camps the last two years, but I decided to take this afternoon to catch up on various items on my to-do list.

One of those items is to begin inputting some of the Top 100 club numbers into an Excel file so that when the May 20 deadline arrives, I know how many clubs are still missing from the list. We’ve received about 40 entries so far, which is great, but we have about 60 more clubs to go. So if you haven’t submitted your form yet, please click here and do so. It’s a great opportunity to compare your club(s) to others, and it offers those in the investment community an opportunity to see the growth and health of our industry.

And, of course, it will show Stuart and Jenn that I did something productive while they were at boot camp. -Pam

The June issue is in full swing here. I can hear Stuart making phone calls for his article on sports-specific training for adults, and I know Pam is diligently working on the July issue‘s Top 100 list (a lot of work goes into it each year). I have also begun interviewing manufacturers, experts and clubs for my story on user-friendly cardio equipment, but I‘d like to hear more from you. Do you believe that new cardio equipment is getting more intuitive and easier to use? Or are new features making it more intimidating for new users and the deconditioned market to use? Also, what‘s the coolest and most user friendly feature that you‘ve seen on cardio equipment? Is it virtual personal trainers? Ipod connectivity? Fewer buttons to push? Let me know what you think, and what‘s best for your members and club. –Jennipher

Isn’t it time you stacked your club’s best programs up against those of other facilities of your type? This year, the magazine is once again running our Best of the Best contest. For an entry form, click here. You can submit one or more of your facility’s programs to be judged by a panel of experts. The categories included in the competition are Best New Member Integration Program (and no, just offering an equipment orientation won’t get you this award), Best Community/Nonmember Program, Best Senior Program, Best Children’s Program and Best Behavior Modification Program. The entries for each category will be judged against entries from similar facility types. That means that programs from for-profits will be compared to programs from other for-profits, programs from nonprofits will be compared to those from other nonprofits, etc.

The best part of it is, even those of you who are hesistant to enter your programs can benefit from this competition. We’ll feature each of the programs online and five of them in the magazine. In addition, the winners will receive their award at the Club Industry show in October, and five of the recipients will offer a short presentation about how they put their program together and the challenges they faced. By being there, you may learn some secrets about how to improve your programs.

Don’t you think it’s time you entered the competition? Deadline is June 20, so start pulling together your entry now! - Pam

Today marks my three-month “anniversary” at Club Industry‘s Fitness Business Pro. There wasn‘t as much fanfare as I had hoped here in the office. In fact, two members of our staff are home sick. I guess that‘s what happens the day after you‘ve just completed a rigorous May issue that included the always-exciting-to-produce Buyers‘ Guide. The good thing is, now that my first 90 days are up, I‘m no longer under a probationary period. I can now do or say what I want–until I get fired for violating certain office codes.

I know this is not late November, but I‘m in a thankful mood. Specifically, I‘m thankful to Bally Total Fitness for providing us news on an almost daily basis. I know that Bally has seen better days, and I wish nothing but the best for all of those involved with Bally. It‘s kind of like when I covered sports teams. I didn‘t openly root for those teams, but I liked to see them do well. And if they didn‘t, for me, it was on to the next game or the next story. No emotional strings attached.

What I do look forward to is the next big story–good, bad or indifferent. Our Top News stories the last three months (including the upcoming May issue), included a look at Bally and two stories that originated out of California.

So I guess I have the Golden State (not the Warriors) to thank as well. Perhaps I‘ll send the Governator a thank-you note or a bouquet of flowers. Better yet, he should send me something for my three-month-iversary. -Stuart

As the art director for the magazine, I don’t usually blog, but I was the sole representative of the editorial staff at the Maggie Awards presentation this past weekend in Los Angeles so I’m now adding my name to the bloggers on staff.

Club Industry‘s Fitness Business Pro magazine was a finalist for the 2007 Western Publication Association‘s Maggie Award for Best Overall Health/Fitness magazine. This is the second year in a row that we‘ve been nominated for an award from this magazine association. Last year‘s nomination was for Best Series of Trade Articles.

We won last year, but no such luck this year. Still, the staff was thrilled to be a finalist. Personally, it was a great experience to meet others in the industry and see what designs/magazines won awards. Several magazine publishing firms attended the awards banquet. Each person there was up for one of the 93 awards given that night.

The evening is set up similar to the Golden Globes. The presenters read the names of the nominees and then say, “And the Maggie goes to….” Outside the banquet room, the association displays the magazine finalists in a newsstand. It is a great way to see what other publications are doing. We hope that next year we will be able to report a Maggie Award win! –Jennifer Ray, senior art director

Do you have a funny story about your club or member experience? It can be anything from a funny comment you’ve received in your suggestion box to your front desk staff’s most recent lame excuse for coming in late. If so, e-mail Jennipher Shaver at jennipher.shaver@penton.com with your best “One Last Thought” or post them as a comment by clicking on “Comments” below. The Club Industry‘s Fitness Business Pro staff will pick the top five or so stories, feature them online and send Exerflex Flooring T-shirts to the winners. We’ll even pick a couple to publish in the magazine.

Click here to read April’s One Last Thought column for inspiration.

Well, after much deliberation, we made a decision on the Lifetime Achievement winner for this year (Doesn’t that just conjure images of the editors sitting around a table in a dimly lit room with half-empty glasses of hard liquor scattered about the table and smoke wafting from cigarettes resting in ashtrays? Believe me, the real process is much less “movie-like.”)

We had several qualified candidates, but our choice is industry veteran Alan Schwartz, co-founder and chairman of TCA in Chicago. Not only has he played a big role in TCA’s expansion in the Chicago area and other parts of the country, but he’s played an even bigger role in moving tennis forward in the professional and recreational realms. He is currently chairman and president of the U.S. Tennis Association.

You can read a Q&A with him here.

We’re excited to be presenting this award to him at 11:30 am on Oct. 11 at the Club Industry show in Chicago.

Each year for the past four years, we’ve scoured the history of fitness to find someone we think is worthy of our Lifetime Achievement Award. The first year that award went to Joe Weider of Weider Publishing. The second year, we chose Joe Gold, founder of Gold’s Gym and World Gym. The next year, we gave the award to Judi Sheppard Missett of Jazzercise. And last year, the award went to Rick Caro of Management Vision. Each of these people were very deserving of the award in different ways because each made an unique contribution to fitness. We’re pleased to add Alan’s name and accomplishments to this distinguished list. -Pam