Hey guys,
Welcome to 2019! The year is flying and there’s been so much happening in the Flow hood, we thought we’d better get in touch to tell you about our exciting new additions!
Our community continues to grow, with Kate welcoming baby Alice recently and Ben welcoming baby Riley; little sister to Oliver and of course, Wilbur. We look forward to welcoming them as staff in a few years time!
We love to innovate and as you’ve no doubt noticed, have been busy with building works and expanding to give our members an even better experience at Flow Athletic.
WHATS NEW
PILATES
Over the last two years, we’ve had many requests for Pilates Reformer and recently we introduced our 8-bed reformer studio! These Pilates classes are specialized (for 8 people) and more intimate than traditional group exercise classes, hence the $20 fee. We’ve done our research looking at market costs – it’s around half the price of other facilities and is available to members only. You can get a discount by purchasing a 10 pack for $190 or a 20 pack for $360 at Flow Athletic reception or on the Flow App.
We’ve also added 3 mat Pilates classes to the timetable at no extra cost and we have more to come.
We’d like to give a warm welcome to Simon Ngo who is now running the Pilates and Barre department. He brings a lot of experience to the job and will spend the next twelve months fine-tuning these areas. If you have any suggestions or Barre/Pilates related questions, please reach out to him at simon@flowathletic.com.
FTC: FLOW TRAINING CENTRE
You’ve probably noticed we’ve taken over the old General Pants site, downstairs and replaced it with a world class Personal Training Studio! We’ve persevered for many years upstairs – now this facility is a built specifically for PT.
We’re hiring 5 new Personal Trainers to add to our very experienced staff, including Jamie Went who has who has recently returned from working at an elite gym in London for the past 8 years and Sally Cowan who has recently returned from Abu Dhabi after previously working in Sydney for many years. If you’d like to have a tour or are interested in one-on-one training sessions to help reach your fitness goals, please contact andy@flowathletic.com.
STUDIO UPGRADES
We’ve given our beautiful studio some love – with a fresh coat of paint, new equipment and flooring. You’ll notice new lululemon yoga mats, blocks, upgrades to the waiting areas, new athletic room flooring, assault bikes (we know you love them!) with suspension trainer upgrades to come in April.
FAQs
CLASSES SEEM A LOT BUSIER, WHY?
Year-on-year our member numbers are actually the same. We have members who leave and new joiners to replace them. We acknowledge peak classes can be harder to access. We’ve introduced a number of measures to help:
1. Adding reverse Strike classes during busy periods
2. We’ve added an extra 13 classes to the timetable including:
- New 5pm Yoga on Monday
- Rapid Cycling Classes Monday and Wednesday at 6.40am and Friday 5.50am
- Barre Sunday morning 8am and Wednesday 9.30am
- Strength: The 411 Monday 12pm and Friday 9.30am
- IRN Tuesday 8.30am and Thursday 7.45am
- Metcon Tuesday 5pm and Sunday 3pm
- Boxing Friday 7.15am
- 33 new Pilates classes; both Mat and Reformer
3. We’ve restricted guest passes and casual visits – with space reserved for members only
We take your feedback seriously. We dissect our listen 360 feedback during our weekly team meetings. It’s from this feedback we’ve introduced Pilates, new classes and different timeslots — if you’d like to make any suggestions please email alan@flowathletic.com.
PRE-BOOKING CLASSES AND CHECK IN
It’s important to pre-book classes and check in at reception. Two years ago we made a decision which has positively changed our business: we introduced a class cancellation policy. We received feedback from members not being able to get into classes, then seeing the classes were half full. We looked around the industry globally to see what the best processes out there were and we decided on our current system — which we believe is the fairest of all.
You can book classes 7 days in advance. You have a two hour window prior to class to cancel (many gyms enforce a 12 hour period). If you don’t turn up or cancel within 2 hours, we charge $10. It enables fairness for other members and also allows our instructors to deliver the best possible class and set up.
We have a common sense policy – if you have a genuine problem let us know. We believe we have a fair booking system and process – if you have any suggestions, please contact hello@flowathletic.com.
INITIATIVES
TEAM EDUCATION
We invest a lot of money to keep our team operating at world-class standard. In the past twelve months we’ve spent $40-thousand on education – including; guest speakers on topics such as Pre and Post-Natal, First Aid, CPR, Strength and Conditioning and yogic breathing. We’ve had specialist Personal Training education so we can deliver world class fitness and PT sessions in our new facility; including Pre-ab and Re-hab.
YOGA 20/30 CHALLENGE: APRIL
A 30 day yoga challenge to increase strength and improve flexibility – attend 20 classes in 30 days and special yoga events.
PERSONAL TRAINING CHALLENGE: MAY
Take part in a 5 week body composition and weight loss challenge, competing with PT members.
CITY TO SURF AND QUEENSTOWN MARATHON PROGRAMS
SUMMER BLITZ CHALLENGE: OCTOBER
FLOW PLANET UPDATE
In our bid keep the planet happy, we’ve reduced water bottles to zero, changed all studio lights to LED and installed sensors where possible for an overall year on year energy reduction.
TWO GOOD
As part of our ongoing relationship with charity TWO GOOD, we recently bought 250 salads to give to our members. They matched our donation and gave 250 salads to women who have experienced domestic violence.
COMPLIMENTARY ITEMS
At Flow Athletic, we’ve chosen to make the use of towels, shoes and mats complimentary, which is rare in the gym business. We’re about to upgrade our mats to new lululemon mats and also replace our cycling shoes.
As part of our Flow Planet we’re trying to reduce our towel usage; we encourage everyone to bring their own towel. If you don’t have one, please only use a towel if necessary – we see a lot of people taking sweat towels unnecessarily.
THANK YOU
We’re still innovating and giving back to our members. We love our Flow community and that’s why we continue to innovate and give back to our members. Your opinion is something we really do value – we’ve had more than 6-thousand responses to our Listen 360 research so please continue to tell us how we’re doing and what you’d like more of!
Thank you for being you!