UKH

My gym has just announced it's closing indefinitely due to corona, given most predictions suggest we wont see peak infections for 3-6 months, it seems like it's closed for a while. 

I pay a monthly fee, should I keep paying? I see it as a bit of a dilemma, on the one hand it seems unfair to pay for services we are not getting. But alternately, they need to pay their staff so they can buy food etc. Do we have a public duty to keep paying? 

I think im leaning towards the civic duty. Although I admit, a tiny part of me thinks there's some opportunistic laziness going on. A bunch of people at my work have gone off sick to self isolate with coughs. Except it's all the slackers who regularly pull sickies and get spotted down the pub. Maybe it's a coincidence... or karma, but in all likelihood I think they're probably just enjoying 2 weeks paid holiday.  

Ask them if they will continue to pay their staff and not dismiss anyone.  

If they will and you can afford to keep paying, there is a purpose to it.

If they won’t...

Will your gym pay their staff or will the gym owner let the staff go and use the reduced income to pay the rent? I think this is a dilemma that many businesses, especially in the service sector, are facing.

If it was a large chain, I'd be less likely to support them, as they should have contingencies. An independent might be able to make up the investment you've provided by one on one coaching after the all clear, for example.

I don't think that there is a one size answer. You might pay, only for them to fold after X months. Or you, and others like you, may be the lifeline that they need.

I don't have a gym membership but I do have a climbing wall membership. Though the wall chain is still open, I would neither cancel my membership nor expect a refund, whilst they are attempting to keep paying staff and stay afloat.

I am in a position where I can (currently) afford it though.

Not so much me at the moment, but the kids have various clubs/groups they go to, which are/will be cancelled.

Some of them are paid by the term and have already said they won't be issuing refunds - I don't have a problem with that, as it's nearly Easter anyway. But they'll struggle next term.

While I'm generally not in favour of paying for a service I'm not getting, I should be easily covering the cost with savings in other areas, although you could argue it's the government's responsibility anyway.

If it genuinely keeps someone in a job, then I'd be happy to pay a "retainer" fee, but I'd be suspicious of big companies pocketing it and, in all honesty, I'd rather be saving the money for moving house.

For most things, particularly smaller businesses, I will keep paying for now. I can afford it and I am lucky enough to be able to work at home on a full salary so I am willing to pay for the survival of services that I enjoy using.

For interest, TCA have been one of the first walls to close - they have frozen their memberships. I assume this means that if you have two weeks left on a monthly pass now, you will get two additional weeks when they re-open. They are of course allowing people to cancel memberships, but are asking people to stick with the freeze: https://www.theclimbingacademy.com/tca-life/tca-coronavirus-closure/

My gym sent me an email saying they are closing for a period and everyone will have their April membership fees returned. I was impressed with that!

In regards to the public duty dilemma, I had same issue with our dog walker who comes twice a week when my wife works. As I am now wfh for the next few months I could cancel her, but realised once I thought about it that it was unfair as I am not being hit financially by this crisis (yet) and she needs the money so the decent thing is to keep her on. 

It's good if you can afford it. I suppose it's easier when it's an individual rather than giant corporation to see the consequences. 

You can’t legislate for slackers as they will exploit the situation. The Chancellor has just announced £billions in aid, specifically covering your main point. I would suspend all membership payments though, as the payees may be in the very situation you are highlighting.

Just an aside when I ran a company we required everybody to be employed and contribute via PAYE with holiday and sick pay. More than a few refused this because they didn’t want to pay either income tax or NI. Times were good and there was loads of work for free lancers. Now circumstance has changed I’m sure they will want financial help.

I realise that this does not apply to the vast majority of free lancers, but it annoyed me for years, that competitors were not faced with the additional taxation and benefits and clearly had a financial advantage.

Just read this thread and enjoyed all the comments.  Was just about to move on to reading the rest of today's posts, then the following occured to me:

if it was the other way round, if you fell on hard times (e.g. you lost your job) and had to suspend gym payments for a while, what would the gym do (some gym chains are notorious of enforcing payment schedules and making it difficult to cancel subscriptions: just read the Saturday newspaper money pages & readers' letters).  Figure out what the gym would do, and do likewise.  All's fair in love and war   If the gym would give you a subscription holiday to tide you over, then keep paying them now.  If they would enforce the payment schedule and show no mercy, irrespective of your temporary blip, then you know what to do.  A good gym deserves a good customer & vice versa.

(As a by line, two months ago, I booked a hotel in Stratford-on-Avon for last weekend one night via booking.com on a cheap non-refundable, non-changeable deal.  Due to CV, I had to cancel.  I fully expected not to get a bean back.  I rang them, and they said they'd hold the funds over till I could rebook.  Then yesterday, they contacted me, and they are going to refund the lot onto my card.  I wanted to support the business/hotel and hope they survive and feel sorry for the circs they must be in.  I will remember that hotel and will definitely be going back there again as I need to do the visit, once all this CV business is over and hopefully they're still there).

My business has a 15 month buffer. This means I can pay for the business and staff until June 2021 if we don't turnover a single penny. Longer if the government postpones tax, VAT, rent (etc) payments. Hopefully it won't last that long but......

That is amazingly good well done you. i am fully impressed with that however you are not the norm unfortunately

The business i work for are already introducing enforced lay offs due to falling sales and you could look at it like it's a shame that money trumps loyalty to the staff but that is most businesses out look on it i suspect

It's only been a week of bad sales and even the bad wasn't that bad but i suspect it might come to worse yet

I would - if I had a choice. The GCC is the only membership I had and they've now closed and frozen membership. I'll stay with them but this does not help the staff laid off yesterday / today.

The climbing hanger chain is doing similar and freezing membership until they re-open. I already thought it was a great bouldering wall (Swansea), this kind of customer service in a difficult financial time for them is impressive and makes me feel more loyalty to their brand.

Having read this thread I am now feeling guilty at cancelling my membership of the wall

I don't climb indoors in the summer so I always cancel April through October so I suppose it was inevitable any way but I hope everyone cancelling due to Corona doesn't shut the wall permanently

My BJJ gym has shut but made a heartfelt request to everyone to keep paying their subs as this is the profs only income now.  Likewise, the Mrs had a similar request from her yoga teacher.

It's a big hit these small businesses are taking and for those of us on a regular salary (despite still being expected to work from home), I think its hard to justify cancelling the subscriptions. 

I suspect a lot of the calls for earlier longer quarantines and more draconian interventions from government come from people who have more stable incomes, less impacted by this.

I have a monthly subscription to the Depot, which I plan to keep going throughout. 
 

On the other hand the gym I go to is a local authority related big outfit with 14 different gyms, so I am seriously considering moving to a small family owned gym locally. Pretty sure they will need more support. 

Mine will be closing soon and, assuming the current crisis doesn’t last years(!), I’ll be keeping up my membership to help them out and to ensure I’ve got a gym to go back to. 

Edit, the aforementioned is a gym in the traditional sense, not a climbing wall. 

Currently discussing a slightly different situation with the organisation that provides running track and sports hall for my running club, we pay between £700 and £800 a month.

Government “guidance” is cancel all non-essential social contact. But it is part of a school complex so they are following choosing to follow education sector guidance and stay open. Current situation is that we will have to give a months notice. If the government close the schools, we can stop paying immediately. 

We charge people to come to the club, we don’t charge them, if we don’t put a session on.

Well if nurseries are forced to close, they will have no choice but to ask parents to keep paying fees (more than £1000 per month for us) for childcare that we wont get in order to avoid laying off staff. I will then have to take the choice of taking unpaid leave or childcare 9-5pm, job 5pm-1am.

Agree. We're lucky so far but I don't want the places and people who work in them to close & get laid off. On another note, the hairdresser my wife uses is fairly OK with things as he said he can call to people's houses or they can visit his, given people are allowed to travel for work even under the lock downs. 

Our nursery have posted a policy saying they will expect full fees to be paid if they shut. After some consideration I've emailed them back saying that's not acceptable and they need to try again, with an offer to pay 50%.

They have a lot of fixed costs that still need to be met, but they also have a lot of variable costs that won't exist while the premises are shut; heat, light, food, cleaning products, staff training, overtime hours, etc, etc.. and their fees also have a profit margin built in to them. I'm also offended by the idea that 100% of the contingency for this situation needs to be met by the parents - where's the business' rainy day planning in all this?

On top of that, even with the government chipping in to the tune of £500ish a month, our nursery still costs us £1,500 a month. I can't commit to paying that indefinitely while our earning power is reduced by 50%, it's just not viable.

I also checked their accounts for the previous year and they turned a profit of ~£340,000 (across a group of nurseries, that is). It seems decidedly cheeky to me to be sat on a healthy bank balance and then farm out more than 100% of their fixed costs to the customers. It's less 'we're all in this together' and more 'you're all in this together'.

Edit: just in case the above makes me sound unreasonable I will add that I also contacted our cleaner to say we’re happy to keep paying her her normal rate whether or not she cleans for us until this is over. The difference is I doubt she’s banking £300k profit a year!

I think you are being more than reasonable, generous even.

My gym (not a climbing wall) will close on Friday. It's a local authority owned facility operated by a charitable trust. First I will see if they offer to suspend memberships, if they don't I will be paying attention to how they treat their staff. A lot of the fixed costs are underwritten by the Local Authority, so staffing is their major cost, if they let large numbers of their staff go, I want to make sure that my money is doing something more useful.

Thanks. I really wasn’t sure what is reasonable or not. I understand that everything we spend goes in to someone else’s pocket further down the line, and I don’t want anyone to lose their job due to a business failing but there have to be limits, surely?