Why fitness operators should start to think health

Ian Turley, Operations Director at Future Fit for Business and Health Club Consultant, has been committed to the Fitness industry for over 30 years starting out working the gym floor and eventually into operational management and director level positions. Working across a number of operations including working as Sales Director of Les Mills in New Zealand and more recently as COO for Holmes Place, Ian is a passionate and highly experienced professional with a demonstrated history of working in the health and wellness industry leading high performing teams. Passionate about people and workforce development within successful and progressive businesses, Ian made a move out of the role of operator to join Future Fit on it's mission to raise standards of training across the sector.

Andy King is the CEO of Your Trust in Rochdale and Chair of GM Active that consists of a collaboration of twelve operators across Greater Manchester. Before joining Your Trust Andy was the northern Regional Director for GLL after merging his previous Trust, Carlisle Leisure Ltd into GLL. He has also been a Director with Serco Leisure and worked in the private sector with Virgin and Fitness First. GM Active was originally formed in response to the devolution of the health budget to the region in 2015 and has really come into its own in a number of ways during the pandemic.

GM Active have responded to the pandemic and what has happened since on their mission to link with health effectively. GM Active have created an Academy to ‘pivot’ to wellness across GM and have created a new ‘Transformational Leadership’ programme that is upskilling managers across GM in how they can play a part locally in working more effectively using collaborative and system leadership to really support those in the community that need it most. In addition they also have an award winning Prehab4Cancer programme that supports people across Greater Manchester newly diagnosed with cancer and as a result is now commissioned by GM Cancer to the tune of £1/2m per annum.

Stu Stokes is the Managing Director of ReferAll and has been involved in the Health and Fitness industry for 25 years specialising in public health projects from implementation to delivery to evaluation. Stu co-founded ReferAll in 2010 to improve data collection and to drive efficacy in programmes such as exercise referral, weight management and physical activity services. ReferAll's customer base includes Local Authorities, Leisure and NHS Trusts and the Voluntary Sector. The ReferAll platform has witnessed over 680,000 referrals amassing a huge body of evidence. As such, Stu has been involved with the ukactive Research Institute for the last 6 years helping to bring data to life through research studies and more recently the creation of the National ReferAll Database hosted on the Open Science Framework.

Anthony Crozier MSc has over 20 years of experience in community and clinical exercise provision as a rehabilitation practitioner with the NHS, various local authorities, and the private sector. Following a Masters degree in Public Health, he is currently studying for a PhD, focussing on clinical exercise and provision in the UK, and is one of the first four registered Clinical Exercise Physiologists in the UK. He is the Health and Wellbeing Specialist at Future Fit, writing and overseeing all of the health-focused courses and has recently spearheaded new courses for the innovative School of Health, including the Living Longer Better course with Sir Muir Gray.