An email to health club members, from brothers who are small business owners with two gym locations in our town.
Dear Members,
First, we hope you and your families have been able to stay safe during this lockdown and have managed to find a way to get a good workout in without the gym. As we start to move forward as a Nation, State and City on reopening America, we at Gym XYZ plan on following all government official’s guidance to reopening our brand. We have worked tirelessly to make sure that our facilities have been cleaned from top to bottom and disinfected the entire facility. However, the virus still exists and will continue to be a part of our lives for the years to come. There is no way to guarantee 100% safety at this time, but we also must realize that we must find a way to get back to our lives and coexist with the virus. It will be a different world out there and many businesses will implement new rules to ensure the safety of its patrons. Gym XYZ is no different, we have spent many hours discussing how we will react to this pandemic and continue to provide a facility for members to achieve their fitness goals.
The White House has established a Three Phase approach to reopening America, and those will be the guidelines we follow. In addition, the Federal Government has left it up to the individual states to determine when it is safe to go back to business. Thus, we are waiting on our Governor to make that call. Once the call is made, we will be ready to get back to work. We are optimistic that we will be able to resume operations May 1, 2020. In the immediate reopening there will be changes to Gym XYZ’s operations, including but not limited to billing, amenities, hours, and classes. Please understand that as the threat of the virus continues to decrease, and the Government provides further guidance, we will remove the restrictions to our operations and resume operating under our normal business model. We have highlighted below the most significant changes you will see at Gym XYZ in the coming months.
1. Billing – Because we understand everyone has a choice in life, and some may not feel comfortable coming out of quarantine yet for their personal reasons, we have decided to freeze all members recurring monthly/annual billing until July 1, 2020. We have made this decision because we do not want people to pay for a membership they may not feel comfortable using, nor do we want anyone to feel obligated to visit our gym if they feel they are at risk. For the months of May and June we will implement a new temporary procedure to pay for the use of our gym. Members will be required to pay $5 a visit, yet we will only be charging a maximum of 7 times in any month or a total of $35. Members that come to the facility will receive a punch card, this card must be presented at each check-in along with their key tag, once the punch card has reached 7 punches, the member will be able to visit the gym at no charge for the remainder of that month.
2. Hours – During Phase I and Phase II of reopening Florida, we have decided to only operate under the following hours. Monday through Friday 5:00am – 10:00pm with Saturday and Sunday being 7:00am – 7:00pm. We have chosen these hours for a multitude of reasons, some of the most important are the safety of our employees and members, allowing our staff to disinfect the gym each day, and to try and control our monthly costs. We have experienced significant decrease in memberships as a result of this disaster and we plan on remaining a viable Company long term.
3. Social Distancing – We will be required by all government officials to implement strict social distancing rules to remain open. This means we ask all members to be smart, cooperative, and understanding, not to just our staff implementing these rules, but other members. We ask all members to avoid congregating in large groups (10 or more) in the gym and to do their best at keeping 6 feet separation between other members. We do not anticipate having to limit the amount of people in the gym at any given time. However, if that does become an issue we may have to have members wait outside to come in until someone leaves, along with reducing the amount of time we allow each member to stay in the gym. Again, we do not anticipate this becoming an issue, but should it arise we want to make sure you are aware.
4. Kids Zone – During Phase I and Phase II the kids’ zone will not be open, and we will reevaluate the reopening of the kids’ zone under Phase III based on the current trends in infections and guidance from government officials.
5. Group Classes – During Phase I and Phase II we will not hold any live group classes. We will reevaluate continuing the classes under Phase III. We will still offer the virtual classes, and we will ask our members to follow our social distancing rules highlighted in number 3 above.
6. Sanitation – We have decided that we will continue to use paper towels and sanitizing spray instead of the wet wipes. The spray itself kills more bacteria rather than the wipes. We ask all members to make sure that they continue to wipe down all machines after each use to help prevent the possible spread of the virus.
7. Towels – During Phase I and Phase II we will not be offering towels for member use, we are looking to avoid unnecessary human to human contact. However, we will have brand new towels available for purchase should a member forget their towel and need one. Small towels will be $1 and large towels will be $3.
8. Maintenance Fees – Any member that was supposed to be charged a maintenance fee in April, May or June will be charged the fee on July 1, 2020.
Again, these are just the most significant changes to our operations over the next several months, going further there may be other changes we need to implement, at which point members will be advised. We ask all members to be patient with us during these times, we understand that the changes above may be significant to you and not why you joined Gym XYZ. These reasons contributed to our decision not to bill any members until July 1, 2020 when we anticipate being open under normal circumstances. This gives each member the flexibility to come to the gym or remain at home and not have to worry about paying for something they cannot use. We want to remind members that we are a small family business, many of you know us personally through our interactions at the gym. Many small businesses have been hurt significantly as a result of this virus, with expenses still occurring during this closure.
As many know, we work extremely hard to provide you amazing facilities to achieve your fitness goals, and we do what we can to make sure we help our members. We also understand that we closed unexpectedly in March and a lot of members were billed for only a few days use. Please understand the closure was forced upon us by government officials and that money was allocated to pay our obligations noted earlier. As things get back to normal, we will figure out a way to give back to our members the lost time they had. We encourage members to support all the small businesses in the community as many of them employ your friends, neighbors and loved ones. They will need our support in the coming months as we all work together to overcome this virus and get back to normal. Should you have any further questions or concerns please do not hesitate to reach out. We wish you nothing but a healthy fit lifestyle.
Sincerely,
Gym XYZ Management