I hope this message finds everyone as well as can be.

First I wanted to say thank you so much for the people who have voiced their support for us regardless of our decisions and have voiced they would like to continue to pay and support us, the gym, or employees, regardless of whether they are coming to the gym or not. I feel like I’ve always been a very transparent and honest person, so this will be no different. Dani and I, as many small business owners are, are in quite a bit of fear at the moment, not about our health, but about our finances. I actually read a recent article that the biggest disaster from this whole virus isn’t necessarily going to be the number of people who die, but the number of people who end up bankrupt (meanwhile plenty of large companies will probably make a fortune off of this crisis). While we have been smart and regularly saved and invested since we’ve had disposable income to do so, the reality is that if the government doesn’t step in to either freeze loan payments, leases, etc. we will likely be on a quick path to bankruptcy.

At this point we’ve already had a number of people e-mail to freeze/cancel (it’s the same thing, it means cash isn’t coming in to pay bills) their memberships, enough that Dani I have lost a large portion of our personal income in just the last 48 hours, in addition with the reality of closing, we also lose out on basic things like selling bars, drop-ins traveling to the area, all of which make up our personal income. I have already reached out to our landlord a few days ago to at least get the conversation started about what the future might look like and they have given us zero reply or feedback so we’re un-sure of what will happen there. I also want to make a point that we aren’t complaining, and we aren’t trying to get people to feel bad for us, we’re just bringing to reality the position that pretty much any small business that works in the service industry is likely dealing with. We have other members who are in the same position that we are, and we plan to support them in whatever role we can. I’ve never been one to ask for much help, but this is certainly a time where to a certain degree, a large group of our gym population and us are asking you to continue to support CVCF if you can, even if that means you can’t come into the gym. In addition we’re asking you to support your other locally owned small businesses, as the reality is that if this continues to escalate the people who will be hit hardest financially and from an employment standpoint will likely be the ones closet to you and the businesses you likely use on a regular basis.

On that note, for any of you who are small business owners we’d like to do our best to support you and hopefully use our community by supporting each other. So if you are an athlete at CVCF and own a small business let us know, where, what, contact, etc. and we are going to put a database together of the businesses owned by our members so that we can all try and support one another to the best of our abilities.

As stated in earlier e-mails our plan is to stay open for as long as possible, we know there are differing views and beliefs on our decision to do this, which we respect. Our decision isn’t necessarily right or wrong, while neither is yours. We understand that social distancing at the very least will help slow the spread of this and help the hospitals, so we will be making some immediate changes and decisions to work with both sides of the picture. Our biggest reason to keep the gym open and keep you all active is for your mental health. I know Dani and I both are profoundly aware of what our overall health feels like when we exercise versus when we don’t and we want to keep that option available to you as much as possible especially in times of such a crisis.

Schedule Changes

Starting tomorrow, Tuesday, March 17th, we will be cancelling all classes going forward, however we will not be closing. The gym will remain Open in an “Open Gym” capacity and at least for Tuesday, the 17th we will retain our normal business hours (as of this writing New York, Connecticut, and Mass have ordered all gyms closed, we may be next, we’ll keep you up to date). By doing this we do believe this will provide some social distancing by spreading out the times that people will be coming in. There will be a coach around at all times to help you with questions, scaling, etc. about the programming and we encourage you all, if you feel comfortable coming in that we are totally comfortable with having you in to train as well. We’d ask that you just continue to be as hygienic as possible, wash your hands when you come in, wash them when you go to the bathroom, wash them when you leave, wipe your gear down after you train and keep a little distance between yourselves and others in the gym. We’re fortunate to have the largest CF gym in the area which should provide ample space for people in here, and we’ll also look at laying down the mats outside as we do have some warmer days in the near future that will allow people to train outside if they want. If you continue to come to train at the gym, this will be treated just as a normal class, punch, etc. on your membership.

Home-Work

With the very real possibility that we could be forced to permanently shut down, and with many people choosing to distance themselves we are working to put together an Equipment Loaner program and structure an entire training system for people at home. We will start lending out equipment as of tomorrow. The run down will look like this.

• Bodyweight – Machine, Sliders, Abmat, a Couple of Bands
• “Move” Oriented – Pair of Dumbbells, Wall Ball, Box or Bench
• “Sport” Oriented – Barbells, Collars, Plates, D-Ball, Kettlebell

These will be our initial equipment package options. Going along with this we will be putting out specific programming written around these specific pieces of equipment. The program will be designed around only the gear you’re taking so that there will be a workout you can do everyday with no substitutions. In addition we will be posting a daily instructional video, ques, thoughts, etc. for the programming of the day. Finally my addiction to buying equipment and investing back into our space should truly come to fruition as we should be able to hand out a total of 150-200 “packages” of gear so most people should have something to work with.

In order to to be fair and equitable among our gym population, we’ll require that everyone who would like to participate in this either have some sort of monthly billed membership, or some sort of long term membership. Since there is no way of working these with people on Punch Cards in this situation, all athletes on punch cards who would like to participate in this will be asked to sign-up for a monthly 3x/week membership (splitting the difference of the monthly options)…your Punch Cards will stay valid and available for when we re-open for business in the future.

If this is something you would like to participate and support us in you can start by filling out the form at the link HERE.

We will be keeping a small reserve of equipment in the gym until we know we absolutely have to close. Gear packages will be given out on a first-come-first serve basis and we will begin handing them out tomorrow morning.

Positive Test

As we’ve been getting hit up with lots of text messages we feel, that although it’s not in our current timeline we do have one member who has a confirmed case of Coronavirus. Many of you know who it is as it has been publicly posted on Facebook. The individual has not been in the gym since February 9th, and has just started showing signs/symptoms and is now under quarantine at home. Given the timeline we have no reason to believe anyone has any increased risk to the Coronavirus by being in the gym over going to the grocery store, gas station, or any other public place.

I think that’s it’s for the moment. I imagine more messages will be rolled out in the coming days. We appreciate all of your support, CVCF holds an incredibly special place in our heart for everything its provided for our family as well many others and all the amazing experiences and opportunities that have been created because of this place. This has been the one of the hardest messages I’ve ever written as I’m not one to ask for charity, but at the same time, I truly do fear for any and all of us in similar positions as small business owners that things could take a terrible turn if the support of the community isn’t there. We thank you for any continued support you can give us where able, and hope that you also continue to support local restaurants, farmers, hair dressers, whatever it may be that is a constant and something of importance in your life, as currently there is no bail-out for the “little guy.”

On a final note, because I know I’m going to do this today, get outside, go walk around, feel the sun on your face, and be thankful that has hard as it might be to comprehend you get to experience this crisis and situation, I know for me things are scary, but I’d much rather be dealing with this than nothing at all.