LIW 2012– were you there?

A delegation of FIA staff and myself travelled up to the Birmingham NEC last week for three packed days of everything health and leisure: LIW 2012 – the biggest annual trade show for our sector.

And once again, the show didn’t disappoint this year – it is great to see how members continue to innovate and develop solutions to gaps in the market, with suppliers showcasing some amazing pieces of new kit, including a personal favourite opposite us on the Life Fitness stand – the Synrgy360 which ran a demo loop to keep us entertained.

A big thank you as always to the LIW team who did such a great job on creating our excellent FIA stand – a hub in the middle of all the activity, showcasing the FIA’s achievements and current projects.

It was great to see so many members visiting our stand to find out more about the FIA, to hold meetings or just grab a seat (and a drink – kindly provided by VitaCoco and UltraBody) and relax for five minutes.

My personal highlights included having the opportunity again to give a keynote, which showcased the FIA’s passion and drive for delivering on an Olympic and Paralympic physical activity legacy;  seeing some of our brilliant Team GB athletes at the show including the UK’s most successful gymnast Beth Tweddle, rower Greg Searle and the inspirational weightlifter Zoe Smith (who I made sure I had my pic taken with); and our drinks reception (sponsored by Life Fitness) on Wednesday night, which I think personally was the best yet, with a great atmosphere and band, and a successful raffle for our chosen charity, the Matt Hampson Foundation (see below for the winners). The IOU seminars in the education village were also a huge success, covering a wide range of relevant topics. But the best thing about LIW is always for me and the team to meet our members in person – thank you to everyone who took the time to come and visit our stand.

The FIA stand was a hive of activity throughout the three days, hosting an afternoon tea sponsored by TRX, a lunch for Sporta members, a speed networking session and a dinner and lunch for the leaders in health and fitness hosted buyers’ programme. 

We also launched the process for the Flame Awards 2013 at LIW, kicking off with a series of popular seminars presented by myself, David Monkhouse and Mike Hill on what Flame is, how to enter and how to stand the best chance of success. Following on from the success of this year’s awards, we are encouraging operators from across the sector to enter, no matter what their size or business model.

Going back to my keynote speech, I spoke about how together we can achieve more and work towards an ambitious aim of making the UK the most active nation in the world. This is not the FIA's legacy to deliver but the sectors. The FIA is the facilitator, creating partnerships and pathways to help deliver more people, more active, more often. This was reflected in our recent rebrand consultation, which returned an overwhelming ‘yes’ to our keeping this as our mission. I know many of you are very eager to find out more about our new name and brand identity, but you will have to wait until the big reveal at the  Summit in November.

If you missed my keynote you can read a report here summarising the key points.

At such a busy time for all of us working in this sector, it is so rare to be able to have the opportunity to socialise and network in an informal atmosphere. The next time we will see all our members together again now will be at our Summit in November – have you booked yet? The 300 or so of you who came along to the Summit when it re-launched last year will know what an interesting and thought-provoking event it was, and this year we have set ourselves a target of exceeding those expectations with our line-up of high profile speakers. Don’t miss out on being there – if you are an FIA member and you book before 25^th October you can also take advantage of an early-bird booking discount. Look out for guest blog posts from some of our speakers, coming soon.

And finally, if the LIW piqued your interest in education and professional development, you can now book for the FIA’s upcoming seminar series on accessing funding and also watch out for our upcoming webinar series– a new membership benefit for FIA members covering topics as wide as retention, social media, music licensing and public health structures. Whether you are an independent operator, manager of a single site or a PT, we will have something for you. Keep up-to-date one what is really going on in the sector.

All will soon be revealed, but in the meantime you can contact colin@fia.org.uk to find out more.

I look forward to seeing you at one of our upcoming events soon; if there were any questions left unanswered at LIW we are only a click or a phone call away – please do keep in touch.

LIW FIA raffle winners:

Congratulations to all our winners and thank you to the company’s who generously donated the prizes.

Matt Hampson Rugby Ball (MHF) – won by Juma Abdullahi

Book – Engage – The rise and fall of Matt Hampson’ (NHF) – won by Duncan McSporran

Lifecycle GX Bike (Life Fitness) – won by Patricia Carswell

Three courses/workshops from Lifetime – won by Sharon Clare

TRX suspension pack – won by Peter Gilpin

5 x ‘London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games: The Official Commemorative Book’ (spogo.co.uk) – won by Harry Sanders, Pete Todd, Steve Roberts, Jon Nasta and Chris Gledhill

Two conference and ball packages for the Flame Conference 2013 (FIA) – won by Jenny Wildi

Tame the flame - were you there?

Now that I and the FIA team have recovered from Flame jetlag, we can look back and reflect on the experience. I’ve said it already by a big thank you to everyone who attended Flame Conference 2012 in Sheffield last month and made it such a brilliant event. Thank you also to everyone who has passed on their feedback about the events, both negative and positive. We do use these comments to make Flame better every year (although the dozen or so of you who pointed out too me that the Ball of Fire was too hot may have overestimated the team’s ability to regulate the weather!)

Although the Ball of Fire did live up to its name, the glorious weather in what has been the wettest summer ever made for an excellent pre-conference Golf Day at Tankersley Manor Golf Club, and some impressive final results from our enthusiastic golf teams including a hole in one for DLL’s Paul Batty.

That evening we returned to Tankersley Manor for a pre-conference drinks reception and dinner, where we enjoyed some astounding evening entertainment from comic magician Ian Keable, who to my (and everyone else’s!) disbelief, hypnotised some of the industry’s finest – or did he?

The following day delegates arrived early for the Flame Conference at the Magna Science Adventure Centre. We heard a huge range of speakers including SAS hero Chris Ryan, trend-spotter Henry Mason, neuroscientist Dr Jack Lewis and brand guru Shaun Smith.

That evening Ponds Forge International played host to the FIA Ball of Fire for the Flame Awards ceremony. A highlight of the evening for me was inviting former England rugby player Matt Hampson to address guests. I’ve mentioned before that my team bought be a copy of Matt’s memoir, ‘Engage’ for my last birthday, and it is a truly brilliant read. The Matt Hampson Foundation (MHF) is the FIA’s nominated charity, formed by Matt after he was left paralysed by an accident whilst training for England under 21s. The MHF helps support young people suffering serious injury or disability, particularly those sustained through sport or physical activity. Speaking about his experience with such humour and positivity, Matt received a standing ovation, and I know that his is a cause our sector is well and truly behind.

Guests were all very generous in donating to the MHF through our silent auction and charity prize; I was pleased to announce today that we raised over £5000 for the charity.

Another highlight, as always, was seeing the reaction of the winners of our Flame Awards 2012 (sponsored by Matrix). Seeing just how ecstatic the teams were to win really brings home the value of these awards.

All in all it really was brilliant to see so many members of our sector together and I hope that we carry forward a spirit of unity and collaboration as a sector in the coming year.

We are now gearing up for LIW in September, where as always we will be running the FIA networking hub and launching our new Supplier Directory, and following that our Summit – the sector’s set piece political event for the year. Following on from the success of the re-launched FIA summit last year I know that I am really looking forward to this event, and we already have some top speakers in the pipeline. The event will be taking place in London on 22^nd November, so get it in your diaries now; more details will be released shortly.

The political agenda is front and centre for the FIA and our sector at the moment, with the upcoming publication of a report from a Lords select committee examining the physical activity and the Olympic legacy; watch this space for further information.

We were also very encouraged by a report released this week by the Royal College of Physicians which outlines a series of recommendations for establishing exercise as a routine tool for the prevention and management of illness. This is a ground-breaking document for our sector, and I was delighted that the report on several occasions highlighted the FIA as a “key collaborator” and the Joint Consultative Forum as the body to take forward many of the recommendations of the report.  There is still much work to be done in engaging the medical community, but this is a significant and positive step forward for our sector.

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