By having the help of Ozone, that means my overheads
means I can touch a lot more people.
Island Fitness and Massage, Kangaroo Island
(South Australia)
Several years ago there was a large gym and a Pilates
studio on Kangaroo Island (South Australia). Both closed
aware’ market on Kangaroo Island’s most populated town,
Kingscote. Sheree Geci, who had left a retail job after 15
years to work at the larger gym was not only left without a
The gym is not big by any means, measuring only 20m
for massages. Word is getting out, and the community is
showing its support by the number of gym users growing.
She now has 70 members who usually buy visit packs. During
her split gym sessions (the gym is opened for set hours in
the morning and evening), Sheree runs mini circuit classes
for two to four clients for those who are in need of some
motivation as they need to book in as well as show up for
signing up for a three-month membership.’
‘When I did my course, they [lecturers] said that it’s like
personal training a dollar a minute, I just laughed and said
that there’s no way on Kangaroo Island that they would
pay that.’ Sheree admits that the biggest problem running
her business is low income as the island has a fairly ‘low
income’ population. Charging the right amount to keep
clients coming back is tricky, ‘If I tried to charge for personal
training what the big city people do, I wouldn’t have a
business. You almost risk devaluing yourself to make it
Admittedly, the isolation is a challenge especially when you
want to do any further training on the mainland as island life
is governed by the ferry and plane times and costs. Sheree
does have a casual employee that she can call on when she
does go away and a buddy on the mainland she met during
her Cert III and IV courses that she often shares training ideas
with.
‘We’ve got about 20 members on the books, ideally we’d like
it to be around 50 members to makes things viable enough
to employ someone part-time.’ Rocky says that there’s not a
lot of things to spend your money on in town, and although
the support has been good, it can be trying to just get
people in the door. ‘Tennant Creek is a great place to get
The real challenge they have found with running the gym
is educating people. ‘A lot of people have been here most
of their lives and it’s trying to get them motivated… and
probably the hardest thing is just trying to get people to
realise that it is important [exercise], and if you’re consistent
it is easy to keep the weight off,’ he says. ‘We’d love our
clientele numbers to be higher so we can actually afford to
hire someone to help us out with the long hours.’
Through a serendipitous call from Recreation and Sport SA
offering to supply her with boxing equipment, Sheree, now a
Positive Movement Fitness Centre, Tennant Creek
(Northern Territory)
personal training experience. With no gym in town apart
from the government funded sport and rec centre, which
is more focused on sports for youths, Rocky and Leigh-ann
decided ‘to bring a bit of the Gold Coast back to Tennant
Creek’ and opened Positive Movement Fitness Centre.
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