Are you the crème de la crème?

There is only a week left to get a 10% early-bird discount on entry to the FIA & Matrix Flame Awards 2012. Have you entered yet?

Established in the 90’s and receiving more and more entries year on year, the longevity and desire to win a Flame award is plain to see. But what is it that makes these the hottest awards in our industry?

Delivered by the FIA for over 15 years, the Fitness, Leadership And Management Excellence (Flame) awards are our crème de la crème industry awards that recognise excellence and best practice within the health and fitness sector.

The strict Flame award criteria and in-depth three stage Flame assessment process offers clubs and centres a rigorous independent business assessment to help benchmark their facility and honour the people who make such a profound contribution to their communities and organisation.

The assessment process may be tough going but this gives the Flame awards their credibility and therefore any club or facility who succeeds in getting a Flame award knows that they are delivering the best quality service in their category.

The 2012 FIA and Matrix Flame process encompasses; stage one qualifying information through an online entry form and participation in a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey, stage two, the formal assessment through an onsite visit by an independent auditor, Leisure-net Solutions in partnership with Right Directions and stage three a customer satisfaction survey. The winners are announced in front of a large audience of over 800 industry peers at the prestigious Ball of Fire at the Flame Conference in the summer.

You may have seen that earlier this year the Health Club Awards, run by HCM and the National Fitness Awards, run by Workout magazine were launched. These are consumer awards voted by members, which are valid in their own right but do not follow the in-depth and diverse Flame award assessment process. 

To enter or to find out more about Flame, visit www.fia.org.uk

Together we can build an Olympic health legacy

I am still on a high following the great success of the FIA & IMSPA Industry Summit: Winning in 2012 and Beyond, which was held at the Congress Centre in central London this week.

Over 350 delegates from 241 organisations came to discuss, debate and network with their industry peers, and I am happy to say that the venue was buzzing throughout, as we engaged on the subject of working together as an industry to create a health legacy post 2012 Games.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, we were lucky enough to be joined by a great selection of high-profile guest speakers from the worlds of sport, fitness, politics, medicine and economics.

Highlights of the day included the brilliant John Inverdale, who expertly hosted proceedings, an announcement from the Public Health Minister Anne Milton about the Government’s national ambition for physical activity, and a fascinating talk from the Chief Medical Officer for the Olympics and Paralympics  Dr Richard Budgett, who provided an insight into looking after our athletes as well as our nation’s health during and after the Games.

Also, for the first time at an FIA event we had a Tweet Wall, which was a tremendous hit. Over 200 Tweets were sent in the run up to and during the event with the hash tag #LegacyReady. I hope that you will continue to keep in touch with me and the FIA team using #FIA and #LegacyReady to tell us how you are preparing for 2012.

The theme of partnership was highlighted by all of the speakers, and I look forward to the FIA collaborating with new partners in both the public and private sectors in the New Year. The next twelve months really will be key for establishing priority status for our sector on the political agenda, and we must all work together to achieve this.

With 40 million adults in the UK still not taking part in just one 30 minute session of exercise each week, we really do have our work cut out; but I am game for the challenge, and I hope that you are to.

The feedback on the Summit from those who attended has been extremely positive, and we look forward to welcoming this year’s delegates and plenty of new ones as well to our next Summit and other key events in 2012.

New Government – New opportunities

According to the Times, the health and fitness industry enjoyed its 10th consecutive year of growth and we are now a £3.8bn industry with over 7.4m members (data sourced from the State of the Industry Report, compiled by the Leisure Database Company on our behalf).


That is one hell of a record, given the last 12-18 months. What highlights the significance of this achievement is the other news surrounding us in the Times’ leisure sector roundup. It included the collapse of Buddha-Bar, London hotels attacking the Mayor on a tax issue which will impact their business and the continued growth of Paddy Power. The good news is that gambling and our industry are OK, but the bad news is that the rest of the leisure sector is in deep pain.

In the same week we (i.e. the FIA) have also had very fruitful meetings with the Department of Health and key players in the food and drink industry.

So what does all this mean? Perhaps we can allow ourselves a small cheer of optimism – despite it being probably the most challenging trading conditions in recent memory.

Much has been said about the need to attract the right talent into the industry and up skill the operators who have produced the enviable record of 10 years of consecutive growth – actually, some believe that it is more like 29 years of consecutive growth, but we don’t have the data to back this up – so, despite the urgings of the PRs in our midst, we cannot make that claim.

But, with a new administration in Downing Street, our thoughts automatically turn to the future; to the next 10 years. The question is not ‘will we sustain that growth record’, but HOW will we sustain that growth record?

What does our industry have to offer UK plc and its new management team? Health is obviously key. The TwentyTen Commission points us to skills and new programmes (especially programmes which deliver our ‘Exercise as Medicine’ ambitions). To break through our 12-15% glass ceiling, we will obviously have to engage more effectively with our local communities. But how? Who? Where ie beyond the gym)?

These are the questions which keep me awake at night – these and who will win the World Cup; will Dillon ever learn to heel; will I ever recover from my jaunt up the seven mountains of the world in aid of Help for Heroes.

These are exciting times for our industry. These are challenging times for our industry. But would you want to be anywhere else?

David Stalker, Executive Director at the FIA