First look around new gym Groop in Chapel Allerton
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00:00 So I'm Tony, I'm one of the owners here at Group, which is a new small group personal training facility in Chapel Harleton.
00:06 Can you just tell me about this place, it looks brand new.
00:09 Yes, yes, we just opened on Monday, so 3rd of June, so a week in now and yeah it's going well.
00:15 How are the people taking to you here in this community?
00:19 Our community is unbelievable around here and we thought there was a gap for this in the market in regards to the fitness offerings that are around us
00:27 and yeah, it's a really nice response so far, people are really keen, people are really happy so far with their memberships as well.
00:33 Because this isn't the only gym that you've got is it? Can you tell us about the other gym?
00:37 Yes, we've got another gym down in Kirkstall, so Kirkstall is a self-motivated place, it's called Grafthouse
00:44 and basically the client base there, the guys and girls who know what they're doing a great deal of the time
00:50 and then up here in Chapel Harleton we're catering for people who are less familiar with what they need to do with training
00:56 that or just want to be guided a lot more, so it's like two sides of a coin we've got now.
01:02 Can you just tell us about the team that you've got here in Chapel Harleton?
01:06 Yeah sure, so here at Group we've got 3 coaches at the moment and 1 reception staff
01:11 and we're going to be building on that fairly quickly, as far as the client base increases
01:15 we start adding more hours to the session timetable and we've got 2 studios at the moment, we've just got 1 in use
01:21 so as that turns into 2 in use and as that turns into more hours we build up
01:26 so it'll be myself, my wife Charlene and then 4 or 5 coaches down the line and a few receptionists.
01:32 Now from the outside you look really, really small, but can you tell us a little bit about what's inside?
01:37 Because it is quite large.
01:38 Yeah, so it's a bit of a TARDIS building, it's very narrow from the front but it's a very deep building
01:43 so we've got 3 floors, the bottom floor is reception, changing rooms, shower room and consultation room
01:50 and then there's a toilet and things like that and then upstairs we've got 2 studios
01:54 which are basically carbon copies of each other and we've got all the kit in there you need for a nice solid full body workout.
02:02 And what's your background?
02:06 Way back in the day was marketing for the longest time and then Charlene and I realised we wanted to not be behind desks anymore
02:14 so we were in a gym in Thailand at the time and thought how can this become our life?
02:19 So got back home, handed our notice in, did personal training courses, got into the industry and yeah I think things snowballed quite a lot from there.
02:29 And obviously you will have hopes and aspirations for the Singles' Shelter, what would they be?
02:35 So in the short term we just need to get our client base to a nice break even point
02:40 so the same as any small business starting out you've got numbers that you need to hit in a time frame you need to hit
02:46 happily things are going nicely on that front so far.
02:50 In the long term we've loved the model, we'd like to see more groups pop up around Yorkshire
02:57 so it's trying to find similarly beautiful locations.