IHRSA’s Take 5 with Interim CEO Brent Darden: October 7, 2020 [VIDEO]

Each week, IHRSA Interim President & CEO Brent Darden will bring you his most important topics of the moment in a short five-minute video as part of an ongoing series called “Take 5.” From IHRSA updates, to the latest information on the fitness industry, legislation, research, programs, and events, Brent will give you the information you need, when you need it.

Check out his first video above. You can also read the full transcript below or jump to a section by topic:

• 0:31 - Legislation to Save the Health & Fitness Industry
• 1:03 - State Alliances
• 1:42 - Medical Fitness Association Partnership
• 2:24 - Gainesville Health and Fitness Air Quality Study
• 2:57 - Industry Leadership Council Renamed National Health & Fitness Alliance
• 3:36 - IHRSA 2021 Moves to Los Angeles, CA, in September

Make sure to tune in each week for the most up-to-date information!

Video Transcript

Hello everyone, Brent Darden here with IHRSA. This is the first of our ongoing series that we are just starting called “Take 5.” Every week, on Wednesday, we're going to deliver this to you in hopes of having a new communication tool that can give you the latest information, let you know what's going on at IHRSA and our industry, in a short five minutes or less. And, just give you the highlights with additional information, you can go to the website and look at if it's something that you find of interest. So hopefully, you'll tune in every week and get some of these latest highlights. So here we go.

Legislation to Save the Health & Fitness Industry: The Health & Fitness Recovery Act of 2020 (H.R. 8485)

This is the first time we've actually truly had a standalone health and fitness relief bill on the floor that's already been co-sponsored by several senators. So we’re really excited about that. We should know more in the coming weeks. The reality is, we're not, you know, too terribly positive about the effects of it passing. But nevertheless, it's a great public relations move. And, it also opens the door for us in the future to do more things together. So we hope you'll support us with that and write your congressman and get them to sign on the bill as well.

Become Involved in a State Alliance

Next, we've been developing state alliances. There are currently about 16 state alliances across the United States. They've been forming and they are getting their own members and putting their own boards together. And IHRSA is sort of serving as the sort of collection point, the “hub of the spokes of the wheel” around the United States.

If you're not already involved in a state alliance, we'd encourage you to do that. If you'd like to start a state alliance, you can reach out to us; Pam O'Donnell is a direct liaison here. And she can give you the resources and everything you need. There's already a toolkit put together. And there's a lot of references on our website about how to pull together a state alliance.

Announcing a Strategic Partnership with the Medical Fitness Association

We'll also be announcing this week a strategic partnership with the Medical Fitness Association. More to come on that. But we obviously recognize the importance of being affiliated with the medical community. In addition to aligning with the Medical Fitness Association, we're also in the beginning stages of putting together what we're calling a Medical Health & Science Advisory Council. So if you have any recommendations or someone you'd like to support, possibly in being part of that advisory council, reach out to us as well. We hope to have that in place over the next couple of months, once again, further developing our reputation in the medical community.

Research Study Out of the University of Florida Tests Air Quality

Speaking of, if you haven't seen it yet, Gainesville Health and Fitness is participating in an ongoing study with researchers from the local University of Florida. The study is actually looking at air quality and early findings have been really promising to the benefit of all clubs. You can read more about it at ihrsa.org if you're interested. IHRSA is really working to partner with universities and health clubs throughout the United States to replicate that data so that it can further reinforce how safe clubs are from a real legitimate third party standpoint.

Industry Leadership Council Renamed National Health & Fitness Alliance

Big news this week, also, is that we've announced that there's a new name change—the organization known as the Industry Leadership Council, is now known as the National Health & Fitness Alliance. Makes sense—we've got a lot of state alliances, and they're calling themselves the “California Fitness Alliance,” the “Oregon Health and Fitness Alliance,”—they all have similar names. So we're renaming the ILC in kind. And so it will replace what has formerly been the Industry Defense Fund (many, many years ago), now the Industry Leadership Council, and finally, as of this week, the National Health & Fitness Alliance.

IHRSA 2021 Is Moving!

Also, the Convention & Trade Show is really big news this week. Hopefully you got the notice that we'll be having the Convention. But we postponed it from March of 2021 to September 20-22nd in L.A. Obviously, we spent a lot of time talking to our members, all of you, many of our suppliers, club operators. Of course, the IHRSA board, and collectively, we decided we really want to have a Trade Show and Convention. It's been almost a year and a half or will have been by the time we have this Trade Show, given that we cancelled this last March. So we feel like it's time to get everybody back together.

Of course, you know, we're concerned about where the pandemic will be then and if there will be restrictions on travel and so forth. But nevertheless, we just felt like it was time to get everybody back together. We're going to make it a big glorious event. It's actually the 40th anniversary of IHRSA as well in that exact month. So that gives us a reason to celebrate, even if it's on a sort of a hybrid basis or a little smaller footprint. We're still very excited about a September show in 2021.