13th September 2019 | Portsmouth

Manager’s Welcome

Summer holidays are now in the past, and for those with young family members now starting school you may find yourself with some more free time on your hands.  If this is the case why not start putting that time to good use and try out a new class, kick-start a new routine with new training programme or, if that's too energetic, pop down to the club for a nice cup of Costa coffee in our relaxing bistro.

August saw lots of changes with the team and I would like to take this opportunity to officially welcome on board both Carl Walshe and Lacey Ryan. Carl is our new Operations and Fitness Manager and will be overseeing the club operations, cleaning and fitness teams. He has several years of experience working for other leisure operators and his main focus is making sure the club is kept up to high Roko standards. Lacey is looking after our events department and is on hand to take any enquiries or bookings for functions within the club. If you have a birthday or event coming up and would like to book out the bistro on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday evening for your event please get in touch (and remember, members get 50% off the room hire price).

We have said goodbye to facilities manager Lee as well as Louise from the group exercise co-ordinator role. We are actively recruiting Louise's replacement and we would like to wish them both all the best in their future endeavours.

The club has also been working hard to resolve some long term maintenance issues and we hope we have finally resolved the air-conditioning issue we had in the studios. We replaced safety valves in the ducting and the initial feedback from the instructors is that is has really made a difference. Recently we also had some major pool pump issues which we again have been working with contractors to rectify and hope to minimise disruption moving forwards. Thank you for your patience whilst we were addressing these issues.

Health and regards,

James Sandercock and your Roko Portsmouth Team

Sweatember

Are you sweating?  There certainly has been times this summer when the temperature has made us all sweat!  But what about when we exercise? Are you a ‘go through the motions’ sort of person or an ‘all out sweat or nothing’ sort of person?

With this in mind we are throwing down the gauntlet and asking you to sweat through September! All for a good cause of course! 

We would like to encourage you to do some exercise that makes you sweat every day for 30 days and it’s all for Cancer Research UK. 

We have such a wide range of classes both in the studio and on the gym floor where you can really challenge yourself.  Don’t think that you can’t sweat in pilates, yoga or aqua.  If you put the right sort of effort in then YES you can.

Watch out for gym challenges to keep you motivated or if you prefer come and book your stayfit. for your Sweatember Challenge.

Let’s help give Cancer the Boot! Sign up at:: https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/get-involved/find-an-event/charity-challenges/sweatember

Come and join us for this charity event. Whatever your reasons for working out, be it for lifting your mood, giving you focus, goal specific we look forward to seeing you in club through September.

club  news

New Member Surveys – Please Help Us Get Even Better!
We have introduced new member surveys which are sent to you by email at regular intervals and, as valued members, we would love you to help us develop your club by giving insight through these new surveys.

They ask you to give your Roko a score and then confirm the main reasons for giving this score. Your feedback will help us to learn and to develop your club; we can report on it and detect themes making improvements to areas of the club it relates to.  Thank you in advance for helping us to improve – we really appreciate it.

Fitness News

End of Summer Holiday Reviews
Now the summer holidays have come to an end, is it time for you to review your training? Have you got a new goal; as we are not all just looking for summer bodies are we? In the review our experts can give you new training ideas, introduce you to some new techniques or give general nutrition advice to try and cut out some habits which could be affecting your training/goals. Is there a piece of equipment you are unsure of or avoid because you don’t know what it does? This is a free of charge service that could potentially help you reach or maintain your fitness goal.

Please speak to reception to book in a review or, as we like to call them, a stayfit. session. You can also book your stayfit. session within the "your rokofit." tile on the Roko app.

New Personal Trainer

Georgia Baker has joined the team so if you are looking for that extra boost and personlised training plan with support and coaching on a 1-2-1 basis, book in for a free taster session with her this month.

Her specialisms are fat loss and toning and gym confidence building.

Group Classes - Traffic Light System
As part of our continuous aspiration to improve our group exercise offering we are about to introduce a traffic light system for monitoring classes. Simply put we will be looking to see which classes are popular and which are not.

The information will be displayed outside the studios on the notice board.
*Classes in green are those well attended classes that we will look to putting on more of.
*Amber classes are those that are stable but not over subscribed.
*Red classes are those that are not well attended and therefore on a watch list for the current 3 month period. If there attendance does not improve we will exchange them out for an alternative class or try a different time slot for them on the next timetable update.

Children in classes
We would like to remind parents that unfortunately children under the age of 16 cannot partake in aqua classes as we do not lifeguard these sessions and therefore we cannot allow them into the class as the parent or grandparent also partaking in the class is not directly supervising them in the pool either.  This is purely a safety precaution and apologise for any inconvenience caused. In addition, several of our group exercise instructors are not insured to teach children as they do not hold the relevant qualification to do so safely. Therefore we also suggest asking if children are permitted to a specific class before attending. 

For further information about children attending group exercise classes please ask at reception. 

Squash News

Club Session
We are now running a complimentary weekly squash club training session hosted by our club coach Glenn Brighty.  This session is open for all levels of ability and runs from 7pm-9pm on Mondays. Hopefully it will give you the chance to meet some like-minded squash players. Make sure you book your place via reception.

Squash Coaching
Squash coaching sessions are now available with our resident squash professional Glenn Brighty. For further information about coaching sessions or joining our squash league and squash team for Roko Portsmouth please ask at our main reception desk. 

Club Lounge

Looking for that pre or post work out boost? Remember we you covered with great tasting protein shakes available in the bistro and via our vending machines at reception.

Junior Activities News

We are currently in the process of updating our junior activities here at the club, we are hoping to start some new style dance classes and some junior circuits and junior racquets classes.  Please keep a look out on reception and our Facebook page for the launch of these later this month.