Please take a few minutes to read through this as it concerns everyone whether you are a student or parent of one. Firstly thank you to everyone that has supported the clubs over the years whether you just come to class and train, fight or help out in some other way. Me and Jo have always been fiercely proud of the clubs and the fact we run it like a martial arts club and not a money grabbing business, trust me on this when we say if we made a fortune out of doing this I would pack up building and open up clubs everywhere like some instructors do – we believe in quality rather than quantity! As such our time is very precious to us, as you all know our daughter is growing up rapidly, I have found it hard to leave her after being at home for a few minutes after work to come and teach but we do it because we love doing so. Money is of course a personal subject but we have always tried to be reasonable with class fees & equipment & when other clubs have raised costs we have not done so. Recently we sold PKA tournament tickets at what we buy them for as we didn’t believe in making money out of our students representing the clubs. Room hire costs, public liability insurance, franchise payments & advertising all add up to a substantial cost & that all ultimately comes out of the money made by your training fees. Also, many of you may think we only do a small amount of hours a week but when you work out all the background work that Jo does in the office with the banking, equipment ordering & sourcing – and this is just mentioning a few of the many jobs – the actual teaching hours are minimal in comparison – Jo is busier now than when she worked a 50 hour a week job ! So if Jo billed in a wage for her hours the clubs would be bankrupt !! Regarding your equipment you MUST remember that the PKA insurance stipulates that any equipment used in classes or tournaments (PKA run) must be purchased through your Instructor. This is something stated very clearly on all documentation you received from us – on the initial membership form & the members pack you receive with your uniform on joining. So in a roundabout way of saying it if you haven’t got your equipment through your club you insurance is void. There have been a number of incidents in other classes where injuries have occurred but the student was not insured due to the above clause. On top of the fact you are voiding your insurance any profit made from equipment sales is saved & put towards the purchase of new pads & equipment for the classes, it might not be your class, but we are always replacing / buying new things for the Dragons & all other standard classes that run on a Monday & Thursday. Recently we purchased just under £800.00’s worth of Sandee focus pads. These as you may know are extremely high quality (especially if you are one of the students who use them), we wanted the best possible pads for YOUR use in class. We know you can buy a lot of boxing gloves etc cheaper than us on sites like Ebay or Amazon but remember you are not supporting YOUR club and you will not be insured. There are an awful amount of fakes and substandard equipment out there (especially on sites like Ebay & Amazon) that hasn’t been approved by an official body – as all our equipment has been by our professional supplier so our insurers quite rightly state that why should they pay on something that hadn’t had prior approval.... its like you expecting your car insurance to pay out on a car thats never been professionally checked or MOT’d !! Also people sell on equipment that is secondhand and could have anything wrong with it and if that resulted in an accident to yourself or another student our insurers would claim non-responsibility. This is what this clause protects – you and other students! We may have been sometimes lenient on this in the past but your safety is paramount to us and this is why we are really pushing this going forward. This isn’t a direct ‘go’ at anyone, but sometimes I think we all need a prompt about certain issues / aspects that have been forgotten. Please LIKE this if you have read and understand Lee & Jo
Posted on: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 12:52:36 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015