That’s where associations come in
to play. Associations empower. They
give voice. They advocate and fight
for their members.
up for your boot camp sessions you
don’t have time to be fronting up to
council meetings to fight exorbitant fees.
Drafting economic modelling to validate
why your members shouldn’t have to
pay FBT when in-house corporate gyms
are exempt isn’t really the bag of the
average health club owner. And that’s
before the research, preparation and
drafting of the standards and guidelines
that gives our industry the status that it
enjoys with government and regulatory
bodies is taken into account; that’s an
entire business on its own.
That’s where associations come in to
play. Associations empower. They give
voice. They advocate and fight for their
members. Your association, Fitness
Australia, has been taking on unions,
businesses, regulators, commissioners
for years, and we will continue to do
so. Sure, we don’t win them all, but we
win most of them. We get to express
the perspective of our members to
government, who unless you’re the
biggest business in your category, are
only interested in talking to associations
that represent the entire industry.
Fitness Australia represents close to
30,000 trainers, gyms, studios and
instructors, who collectively represent
around four million Aussie exercisers.
That’s a lot of people, and that’s our
strength – your strength.
We need you so that we stay strong.
When we’re strong we are better
positioned to get things done, things
WHAT’S NEW IN FITNESS - SPRING 2016
that are important to you as a business
and to the industry as a whole. The
communication goes two ways, and we
want to hear from and understand what
you need from us. We want to be able to
tell you what we can do for you as well
(you’d be surprised – we can and do
more than you think).
This is my first column for WNiF, who
themselves are great advocates for our
amazing industry, and I promise that
in future articles I won’t keep banging
on about Fitness Australia and why you
should become, or remain, a member.
But it’s important, and my team and I at
Fitness Australia are passionate about it.
Give us a call, or flick us an email, we’d
love to hear from you. We are, after all,
your association.
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