Dear Auckland Super City – why do you hate poor, fat people?

By
Martyn Bradbury
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7
1

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Dear Auckland Super City

How’s it all going? Nice to see you are going to mow people’s berms and sorry for all that negative focus on Len, let’s hope he can resist punching Cameron Brewer in the face long enough to get Wellington to pay for our underfunded transport infrastructure.

Would love to see you do something meaningful on affordable housing that doesn’t amount to a class cleansing the way you are acquiescing in Glen Innes.

But I digress.

The reason I’m writing to you is to ask why do you hate poor, fat people so much? I am of course referring to your decision to stop accepting month long contracts at the Tepid Baths gym in favour of 3 month fixed contracts.

I take my daughter to the Tepid Baths every weekend and I am currently training there for the Round the Bays and it is a wonderful inner city gym that caters for a broad cross section of the community. I would have thought that with NZs terrible obesity levels, that the Super City would be doing all they can to help initiatives that allow Aucklanders to join Council run gyms as easily as possible, yet here you are erecting barriers to access simply because no other gym in the CBD gives people a one month option.

Why make joining the Tepid Baths more difficult and why punish those without the income to pay up 3 months worth of contract? Surely your focus should be running these things for community benefit rather than for revenue?

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I look forward to your reply and hope you change your position on this.

Regards

Martyn Bradbury

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7 COMMENTS

  2. If it wasn’t for the Direct Debit BS, it looks to be cheaper to buy a weekly concession ticket for the 13 weeks, than the 3 month concession. ($250 against $293 – rounded up.)

    Is there some other ID than Community Card that people could show as evidence of ‘right to have’ that concession? Not everyone wants to leap through WINZ hoops to get one, after all.

    For people with a medical need for gentle exercise – would a doctor’s letter be acceptable as evidence, without incurring the possible embarrassment of having to show how poorly one is paid?

    Also how about family tickets for various multiples of kids to swim at a reasonable price? School holiday specials, perhaps.

    Lots of possible cracks in the bureaucratic veneer. Hope you can get through to make a beneficial change.

  4. Hi Martyn,
    The one month pay as you go memberships are no longer offered for several reasons.

    •They are time consuming to our limited number of staff to administer, thus raising the average cost to serve our valued customers and members.
    •When we researched the memberships purchased throughout the year, this was not perceived as a popular membership type from our offering.
    •We still offer the 1 month membership type through a direct debit option so we feel this offers those who wish to purchase a one month membership to still do so.

    While I understand your frustration at the 1 month memberships being removed our weekly, fortnightly or monthly direct debit memberships are a definite alternative. The direct debit memberships have no contract length and can be cancelled at any time, the price is exactly the same.

    We are committed to providing an affordable option for “more Aucklanders to be more active more often” whilst also working smarter for the rate payers of Auckland.

    I hope this answers your questions

    Many Thanks
    Davin

    • I hope you upvoted my post, Davin. Brewer has his sights on you and your colleagues’ jobs so that the Orakei mafia don’t have to pay higher rates on their McMansions than the people of Takanini or Henderson pay on their single storey 2/3 brm houses.

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