A MESSAGE FROM
FITNESS AUSTRALIA
By Bill Moore
Anyone could be forgiven for
questioning spending money on
something that they don’t really see,
or maybe don’t fully understand the
benefits of.
I
n the electric fitness
landscape, where even
the disrupters are being
disrupted and the appetite
for our products and
services have outstripped
our wildest imaginings of
20 years ago, it can be a
tough gig trying to validate
why you should kick the
tin for membership to your
industry association year
after year.
10
Even in the robust current trading
environment dollars are still hard
earned. Anyone could be forgiven
for questioning spending money on
something that they don’t really see,
or maybe don’t fully understand the
benefits of.
But when you take a step back and
check out what’s happening in
the broader commercial and legal
landscape, it actually comes as no
surprise that associations are one of
the fastest growing categories in the
corporate world.
Business is getting more complex, more
regulated, and fitness business is no
different. The downside of being on the
upward health and wellness trajectory is
that it attracts other players who want to
have a piece of us.
While some local councils put in
place outdoor training licence fees to
genuinely raise standards and monitor
open space, some council are using
this as their chance to cash in on our
contribution to the health and wellness
of their ratepayers.
Unions are trying to change our award
rates to inflate the cost of the out-ofnormal hours that are the hallmark of our
industry. And we only have to think back
to the madness that the music industry
tried to foist on us (all the way to the
Supreme Court, no less) to understand
that the industry needs someone in its
corner.
When you’re busy keeping the numbers
WHAT’S NEW IN FITNESS - SPRING 2016