When Twisters began, back in 2011, we were setting up and packing up the gym on both Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, in the Santa Maria College gym. There were only a handful of coaches and a couple of classes at each time slot. Classes were fully enrolled, very popular and strongly attended. Absences were very rare and there was no demand for make-up classes. Even if there was, we would not have been able to find a space to fit anybody into one of the other classes!
In 2013, we moved to our permanent facility, our current location, at Beavers Road in Northcote. The number of coaches, classes and enrolled members grew steadily in this huge space. The program offerings and new equipment were progressively added to meet the demand. Absences were rare, but for those members who occasionally missed a class, we had introduced the benefit of one make-up class per term.
Over the next few years, as our gym continued to grow in the number of members and class offerings, we started to see a few more people missing classes and using their make-up class benefits. Not an increase in the rate of absence mind you, it just became more evident due to the larger number of members.
At times there were frustrations from parents, who felt that one make-up class per term was not enough. Between our six week closure of classes over the Summer holiday period, class closure every school holidays (another six weeks) and four weeks of make-up tokens, totalling 16 weeks of the year, we felt there was enough time away from the gym to fit in holidays and such without consequence.
At some point along the way, we decided to increase the number of make-up tokens to six per member, and allowed them to be distributed and used at any time (not limited by school terms).
This six make-up class arrangement carried on for years, until the point where we were ready to open our second facility, at Showgrounds Village, Ascot Vale, in 2018. For those who have not been and seen, the opening of our Showgrounds gym was quite a bold move for a gymnastics club, which typically occupy old warehouses, where there is limited parking space. The Showgrounds gym is in a large format retail tenancy, which is part of a shopping centre, with a very large carpark. The space is very nice and bright, with many large windows and daylight coming in. It also has the wonderful benefit of a HVAC system (Heating, Ventilation, Air-Conditioning), so it remains at 22 degrees year-round. However, this all comes at a big cost. We would have to run our classes for more weeks of the year, to make this Showgrounds location viable.
After surveying all of our existing members at Northcote, we got a very good snapshot of how people felt about continuing gymnastics classes throughout the year, right through school holidays. The majority of families were very happy to continue, as everything else would stop for school holidays and they were desperate for things to do. The comfort of having six make-up tokens available, if they were to go on holiday, was fine for most. Some families expressed that they would like more make-up opportunities, or a holiday suspension option. Very few families were opposed to the idea.
So, our Showgrounds gym opened and would run through the year, through the school holidays, with only a three week break over Christmas/New Years. Members would now have the benefit of up to 10 make-up classes throughout the year, plus the option to use a two-week holiday suspension, if they went away on holidays.
At Northcote, we decided against opening classes throughout the year, but moved to the middle ground, with one week of class closure each school holidays. Northcote members would also have the same benefits with 10 make-up classes and a one-week holiday suspension.
Then the world changed at the beginning of 2020, when COVID and all sorts of craziness hit. Over a two year period, we were in and out of lockdowns and forced closures. Twisters had to close its doors for 370 days throughout that whole ordeal. In between, when we were able to reopen and run limited classes, we were so happy to have the kids in the gym. We understood that in so many crazy situations, kids were perfectly healthy but were unable to come to gym, as they, or their guardian, had been a ‘close contact’ and needed to remain in quarantine. Kids who had the regular sniffles, which they get a few times every year, but the fear of COVID meant that they were unable to come…
In order to try and keep our business alive, and all our coaches employed, we needed to keep people enrolled. We decided to open up our make-up tokens to UNLIMITED (both in the number of tokens given, and the timeframe in which they needed to be used). Some people weren’t seen for weeks, but would then return for three or four classes in a week. We were keeping kids active and doing our best to help them catch up with their physical development, after being stuck in their loungerooms…
After surviving the horrible years of 2020 and 2021, we began a new normal in 2022. We had to build the business again and our member numbers gradually returned to Northcote and Showgrounds, month after month. We had made the brave decision to open our third location, down at Torquay, in January. This was something that we were about to do back in February 2020, but with the funky virus looming, we shelved our plans.
By mid-2022, Twisters was going stronger than ever…but things had changed.
Attendance was becoming more sporadic. We were not sure whether this was because people were much more likely to stay away with mild symptoms of illness, or because their attitude had shifted. We had always been used to attendance at around 85%, but post Covid we were seeing attendance below 70%. We were starting to feel like attendance at Twisters was being treated much more casually. Make-up class bookings were more frequent than we’d ever seen.
We knew that it was important to keep the unlimited make-up tokens available to our members, at this stage. Some people had built up banks of tokens, so we looked to ways in which we could help people to use them more easily. We gave families the opportunity to use their make-up tokens for our popular holiday workshops (three tokens) and holiday programs (half-day five tokens, full-day eight tokens). This option was made available throughout 2022 and also for the 2023 summer holidays and it was very, very popular. So popular that almost half of the enrolments in these holiday workshops/programs were using make-up tokens; we were making a loss on these programs all year.
When we announced in our newsletter on 31 January 2023 and repeated in our March newsletter, that the use of make-up tokens for holiday program bookings had come to an end, there were a handful of disappointed families. But it wasn’t until we began taking enrolments for the April school holidays, that our Admin team really felt the heat! Some very angry parents, who could not accept that they had been given plenty of opportunity to use their make-up tokens. They felt that they had banked credit with us and in some cases expected refunds. Some wanted to cancel their membership and just use their make-up tokens for the next however many weeks to continue attending classes.
Too many angry and abusive parents, which is what has driven me to write this blog.
Our staff do not deserve to be shouted at and told that they are awful, nasty, greedy, dishonest, incompetent…all because somebody didn’t bring their child to class regularly, or take their many months, hundreds of days of opportunity, to use their make-up tokens.
I want those parents to understand that the make-up token is a benefit for Twisters members. Those parents have chosen to enrol their child in our program, in their particular class, at their particular time, on their particular day. That is what you pay for – their spot in their class. Attend this class frequently and then on the rare occasion that you can’t, you have the make-up token to fall back on.
We are the parents of two young lads (9yo Wally and 7yo Toby), who are involved in sports almost every day of the week (we’re currently enjoying Friday nights off). They love it and although we are extremely busy running Twisters, we are committed to getting them to their sport and we love it too. Over the years, our boys have done gymnastics and NinjaGym (of course), swimming, Auskick, Hot Shots Tennis, Little Athletics, Taekwondo, Aussie Hoops, Cricket Blast, Track Cycling, footy, basketball, cricket and tennis.
We know that if we are unable to get the boys to their sport and that they miss a session, for any reason, then it is our responsibility. We feel like we’ve let our boys down and with regard to their team sports, we feel like we’ve let the team down. I don’t chase up for a make-up class and it certainly does not cross my mind to request a refund.
My point is that we know our policies around make-up tokens are, and have always been very, very reasonable. Every decision we make within our business is very fair and reasonable. We make decisions as parents, not as ‘greedy’ business owners. We test our big decisions in discussion with a whole host of people and we listen to their suggestions, before we put it in place. The very open and unlimited nature of the make-up token has impacted negatively on regular class attendance; the Twisters Membership has become a little too casual. This impacts the physical progress of the kids, Twisters focus is on continuous progression towards growth through movement.
We want the kids to attend every session that they are enrolled in. This gives them the best chance to progress. We know that kids will work and learn better with the coach they know and the coach who knows them. Our lesson plans are structured so that what the kids learn this week will help them to progress with more challenging activities next week. When they frequently miss classes, they will miss out on the progressive skills and find it harder to achieve the more difficult skills that they all want to be able to do. Kids who chop and change, with missed sessions and make-up classes all over the place, will not progress as readily. It can also be disruptive to the class that they are doing the make-up session in; the coach will be unfamiliar with the child’s abilities and needs, they will have to quickly make decisions to up-skill or down-skill the activities appropriately for the child. The child will not be familiar with the coach, or the other kids within the group and will not get the same enjoyment or benefit from the class.
That brings us to today. The policy currently in place that can be found on our website in our fee policies HERE. If a child misses a class due to illness or holidays, a make-up token will automatically be issued. This token has a 90-day limit in which to utilise the benefit. Families still have an unlimited amount of tokens issued for 2023.
You need to be a current member to access the benefits of make-up classes. Members can book in a class up to 7-days in advance and have control of booking these in through our app or the Parent Portal.
If you haven’t downloaded the Twisters iClassPro app, this will help (don’t worry, if you don’t do it now, instructions are included with every make-up token notification email):
- Download the app by searching for ‘The iClassPro App’ through your app store. Enter your organisation name as ‘twistersgym’ (make sure to enter exactly this so you don’t end up at a Twisters in Canada). Then use your account details to login.
- Click on ‘My Account’, select which child you’re looking to book into a session, then ‘Makeups’. You’ll see the tokens available to use under ‘Current location makeup tokens’.
- Select, ‘Use Token’ and then at the top of the page, change the date to your preferred date (if you click on the date box it will bring up a calendar for you) select the appropriate class from the options, and click ‘Use token’.
- You’re all set!
We hope to see as many kids as possible attending their regular classes and gaining all the benefits of regular progression through our lesson plans to achieve whatever goals they have in movement at Twisters!
