Year in review 2008

In January 2008 I opened my eyes not knowing what to expect with the New Year. What should I be looking for? What new projects should I be attempting? I knew that I was going to have the Weight Loss Challenge starting in a few days and I was very excited to get that started but I was also concerned about the economy and what my business would look like at the middle and then end of the year.

Things were going along just fine. I had more people join and the Weight Loss Challenge was going along very well. Then one day after my step class I run into a member and she informs me that a friend had died just the other night. She was hit by a drunk driver on rt67. To say the least I was very said and concerned for the family. After a few minutes I also figured out that the person who died had two children and one on the way. I was told that there was four people in the car and two survived. One was a boy and he played on my son’s soccer team.

I had gone to the school where she taught that next Monday and the mood at the school was very somber. People were walking around in a daze trying to figure out if it was really true. I remember seeing the Superintendant in the hallway and I asked her what if anything I could do. Besides praying for the family the idea of some sort of an event in remembrance of her would be a good idea. At that point my brain kicked in and, in a short period of time, put together a 5k walk run in remembrance of Jennifer and her daughter. Over 500 people ended up participating and it was a success*.

After finishing the Weight Loss Challenge, I found myself day dreaming again and decided to put on a program I called Shape Time (people not quite obese but 15 to 30 pounds overweight). I ran this in July thru August and once again it was a success*.

A few weeks later, while at my son’s track meet, I was watching the kids warm up and noticed that they did not, in any way, loosen themselves up enough to compete at the levels I knew they could compete at. I also noticed that they just could not perform well against people they really should be beating. After my son finished the Junior Olympics I decided that it would be a good thing if I started at strength and flexibility class for kids and run it 10 weeks. Well that seems to have been a success* also.

This next year I am going to continue to improve on these programs with the hope that I can continually help people help themselves.



*success as I define it is helping people change their life for the better.