editor’s letter
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healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital 3 an olympic legacy
Will the London Olympics deliver the desired physical activity Legacy? Not as things stand, it seems: with less than a year to go, only 21 per cent of the public think the event will inspire them to become more active; 67 per cent say it won’t. Just five per cent feel they’re already more active as a result of the Games. These are the findings, released in July, of an ICM poll conducted on behalf of The Daily Telegraph. If harnessed correctly, the Games do represent a unique
opportunity for our sector – but we need to start putting words into action. As GLL MD Mark Sesnan said in his recent interview with HCM: “The Legacy’s not going to magically appear – you have to go out there and make it happen” (see HCM Aug 11, p30). So how can we go about doing this, and how should we define ‘Legacy’ in the first place? What can we realistically hope to achieve? The sports sector has its own Legacy routemap and the fitness industry now needs to clearly state its ambitions in this area. But as if the ICM stats didn’t represent enough of a challenge, the fitness industry faces a further
hurdle: even if the Olympics do inspire some of the UK’s inactive masses to get off the sofa and try a sport that’s particularly caught their eye, health clubs – with their predominantly gym-based offering – could find themselves some way down the line in terms of benefiting from this. Leisure centres might fare better, with their involvement in sports development offering a more obviously Games-related entry point, but the challenge of converting any uplift in public interest into action will still remain. So what are our options? The FIA is
Should we settle for a Legacy that’s based on getting people more active – in itself a great way of boosting member retention – or should we strive to get more people active?
certainly hoping that Legacy opportunities will stem from a memorandum of understanding signed with Sport England at the end of June, but there are other possibilities for operators to turn the buzz of public interest – which will surely grow as the Games draw closer – into
participation. Olympic partner Technogym, for example, is launching its ‘I Pledge’ campaign at LIW this month (see p79). Open to all FIA members as well as Technogym clients, this aims to establish fitness facilities as local hubs through which people can make activity pledges throughout 2012. It’s an exciting idea, yet its key focus is on getting existing members more active. Could we not broaden
the horizon of vehicles such as these to capture the imagination of entire communities? In other words, should we settle for a Legacy that’s based on getting ‘people more active’ – in itself a great way of driving retention, making activity ever more integral to these people’s daily lives – or should we strive for the higher goal of ‘more people active’, perhaps resurrecting Commit to Get Fit with an Olympic twist? This hasn’t been made clear to date, and is a decision without which a clear strategy cannot be developed. Ultimately it will be down to operators to decide what resources they can devote to Games-related
initiatives – and of course restrictions over the use of Olympic logos and terminology will mean a degree of creativity is required – but the real winners will surely be those who embrace the opportunity to turn their facilities into buzzing community hubs of Olympic excitement where everyone can get involved, from members to non-gym goers to the huge number of lapsed members (see p55) for whom eyecatching events scheduled around the Games might just be the hook we need to get them back through our doors.
Kate Cracknell, editor
katecracknell@leisuremedia.com
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