I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and is looking forward to what looks to be a beautiful week. Summer finally showed up! As we roll through May and are already eyeing the start of June, I know like many of you ,we are really starting to get antsy about our situation at hand and what the future holds. Unfortunately once again we don’t really have any information for you. Our Governor and State continue to be very closed off and secretive in terms of laying out any sort of long term plan and they continue to roll with incremental and small announcements at press conferences a couple of times a week. As of this last Friday the broad range of Fitness oriented businesses in Vermont still have no timeline, no proposed guidelines, nothing. In the Governor’s press conference this past Friday a few things were hinted at. The Governor announced that he hoped by June 1st outdoor seating for Restaurants would be allowed, close contact businesses like hair salons would be allowed to open, and indoor professional services would be allowed open. We honestly have no idea if we fall into either the close contact businesses or indoor professional services. While we certainly hope we do, there is no clear information that we’ve been able to find to see where/when we might fall in the re-opening process.

At this point we hope we’ll be lumped into these businesses which are hoping to be allowed to open June 1st, but we feel, given the lack of information and direction we may be unfortunately pushed back even farther in the process. With the State of Emergency extended to June 15th, and the recommendation to stay home whenever possible until June 15th, we are now being mindful that we may have to wait this long until we are allowed to open.

As we move forward we are now starting to look at the options of running some classes outside. We have discussed this with a handful of members and gotten a wide range of responses from interested, to maybe, to encouragement that we should keep doing what we’re doing until we can actually open the gym. We know that as of today there are two other CrossFit affiliates who are starting outdoor classes, and we’ve heard of a local Bootcamp company meeting at parks. Unfortunately we’ve been unable to find very clear guidance that relates to operating fitness based business activity outdoors. We are aware of the gym in Rutland that opened fully, with social distancing guidelines a couple of weeks ago, and has since been forced to close via threat of lawsuit/legal action from the State.

Our biggest goal, regardless of what we do is to try and support you guys, and provide you with whatever we can to bring enjoyment and convenience to your lives. As we look at hosting some classes outside one of the big hurdles is equipment. Since we’ve lent out the majority of the gyms equipment we are in a position where we either run classes with very limited equipment, or we ask that those who rented gear start to return equipment so we can run classes outside. The consensus from people we’ve spoken to is that they’re prefer to keep their equipment and continue working out at home until we can fully open. This weekend Dani and I went in to work on some projects and take inventory of what we have. There are a few pieces of equipment that we have a bunch of still, Assault Bikes, Barbells (no plates), broken Slam Balls outside, Battle Ropes, and a couple of other items. We certainly have enough to create workouts, but they will be limited and include a lot of bodyweight movements. With the weather finally taking a turn we are considering this if it something you would like to see us do. Something to be mindful of is that if we do this, the gym will be closed, you won’t be able to use the bathrooms, there will be no going into the building, class size will be capped at 10 people, you’ll have to sign-up in advance, and we will be asking everyone to follow generalized social distancing guidelines (we won’t be asking you to wear masks).

So with the above info. If you could PLEASE fill out the quick survey at the link HERE. In doing so please be very specific about times, and whether you are committed to joining in this. We are slightly hesitant to begin with given the lack of guidance from our state, so we don’t want to do this just to have 1 or 2 people show up.

If you have any additional thoughts/comments/etc. regarding this information please feel free to let us know. In addition if you have any general questions for us, need adjustments to your membership, etc. please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Jade + Dani