http://blog.fitnessbusinesspro.com/fitnessbusinessproblog Just another Penton Media weblog Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:33:05 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Planet Fitness has a new employee handling its public relations, and he’s a name you might recognize. John Craig, editor of the now-defunct Fitness Business News, came to Planet Fitness about two weeks ago. John and FBN and our magazine became direct competitors when FBN was launched early last year. John, ... http://blog.fitnessbusinesspro.com/fitnessbusinessproblog/2008/07/11/pr-for-planet-fitness/ Today, I was finally able to meet Dr. Kenneth Cooper, founder of the Cooper Institute and coiner of the term "aerobics." OK, I didn't actually meet him in person as I hoped I would when I went to Dallas in February. Instead, I met him as journalists often meet the ... http://blog.fitnessbusinesspro.com/fitnessbusinessproblog/2008/07/02/dr-cooper-speaks/ Here‘s a quick update on a couple of Iowa fitness facilities that we reported on Wednesday concerning the floods in that state: An employee at the River Plaza Athletic Club in Waterloo, IA, said today that they‘re still trying to pump water out of the club. The hope is that the ... http://blog.fitnessbusinesspro.com/fitnessbusinessproblog/2008/06/13/flood-update/ Yesterday, Jennipher Shaver and I called a bunch of fitness facilities in Iowa in an attempt to find out how the recent flooding in that state has affected their businesses. In just a small sample of calls, we found out that a lot of places, from for-profit facilities to YMCAs ... http://blog.fitnessbusinesspro.com/fitnessbusinessproblog/2008/06/12/a-flood-of-troubles/ Late last week, I received an e-mail from IHRSA that the club membership levels in the United States were 41.5 million. Earlier this year, IHRSA had estimated that that number would be 44.1 million, but upon final tally, the number was just slightly above the 41.3 million members the industry ... http://blog.fitnessbusinesspro.com/fitnessbusinessproblog/2008/06/09/have-club-memberships-really-dropped-by-one-million/ At first, the idea of doing a photo shoot to get some new photos for my editorial page sounded like a lot of fun. And it started out that way. We had a great location--Woodside Health & Tennis Club in Westwood, KS, (a cute, little suburb of Kansas City, MO)--and ... http://blog.fitnessbusinesspro.com/fitnessbusinessproblog/2008/05/23/are-we-done-with-the-photos-yet/ I'm in the midst of collecting what I hope are the last of the Top 100 forms for our annual Top 100 club list, which is published each year in our July issue. We started collecting the forms a bit earlier this year than last year, and that has helped ... http://blog.fitnessbusinesspro.com/fitnessbusinessproblog/2008/05/22/top-100/ During the last few months, the Club Industry‘s Fitness Business Pro editorial, sales and online staff members have been diligently updating the Web site. Without doing a complete redesign, we‘ve tweaked the organization of the site quite a bit, streamlining content, in hopes that you, the reader, can more easily ... http://blog.fitnessbusinesspro.com/fitnessbusinessproblog/2008/05/06/a-tweak-here-a-tweak-there/ When I started as a magazine editor more than 15 years ago, I worked on one magazine, and my job consisted of writing news, editing all content and attending trade shows. Today, the magazine world has changed. In addition to those responsibilities, editors on magazines today also keep up their ... http://blog.fitnessbusinesspro.com/fitnessbusinessproblog/2008/05/01/video-never-did-kill-the-radio-star-right/ It seems like I‘ve been blogging all afternoon, so I want to leave you with a few random thoughts about Club Industry East 2008: Although I didn‘t get to see as much of the trade show floor as I had hoped, one thing that stood out was the number of massage ... http://blog.fitnessbusinesspro.com/fitnessbusinessproblog/2008/04/19/random-thoughts/