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October, 2024 Rochester Parkour Newsletter

Greetings movement community!

As we embrace the beauty of Fall here in upstate New York, we have some exciting updates to share with you this month!

Before diving in, I want to take a moment to express my deep gratitude. It’s amazing how our shared love of movement has brought together such an incredible community. While we may come from different walks of life, our common passion has built connections that go beyond the gym—lasting friendships that I truly cherish.

This sense of connection was on my mind last night during Movement Circuits. I was struck by a moment that felt both touching and surreal: my toddler was playing under the watchful eye of Audrey, a longtime member of our community. Over 12 years ago, Audrey took a leap of faith and trusted us with teaching, playing with, and caring for her own children. Now, here we are—full circle—sharing the same space and trust with the next generation. It’s these kinds of moments that remind me just how special this community is.

In this newsletter, I’ve got a big announcement regarding our name/brand, a really amazing insurance opportunity that will be a huge asset to you all, a jump start to our YouTube channel, and some community questions regarding class times and schedules.

Class Schedule Changes

We’ve noticed some shifts happening in trends recently and our goal is to always provide a schedule that is accommodating and available for our community to access services when it works best for them.

With that in mind, and taking into account new shifts in class attendances, we created a small survey that will help us make better decisions on a schedule that you can benefit from.

Please use the link below to complete that poll. Every student that does will be entered into a giveaway that we’ll draw at random. 3 total winners can choose between a free 1:1 with me, a parkour pullover, or a pair of feiyues.

Thanks everyone!

Take the Survey!

Rebranding

(Yes, that’s me in the photo. Can’t you tell with all that hair?! I was 19)

For those you who don’t know, the name Rochester Parkour has existed since a fateful day in the Spring of 2007 when my buddy Zac and I were denied our bid to be an official RIT recognized club.

We were obviously frustrated at the denial (although RIT totally made the right call to deny us at the time) and Zac, completely infuriated, went home that night and bought www.rochesterparkour.com and said, “screw them! We’ll do our own thing!”. Fun fact, I still log in to his dreamhost account whenever I need to mess with the DNS settings of the website.

Thus, Rochester Parkour became a thing.

Back then, SEO was much more rudimentary and not as sophisticated as it is now. Choosing to call ourselves something so easily searchable was immensely beneficial and no doubt contributed to our early success. To be clear, we weren’t a business. We were just a group of kids that would invite anyone and everyone to come out to train Parkour at various parks throughout Rochester.

When Nicole and I chose to start the gym, we kept the name because the gym was supposed to be an extension of the community that we had grown from 2007 to 2011. The gorilla logo (yes, it’s a gorilla) was something that I searched all of 20 seconds for and spent 5 min in photoshop outlining. There was no real thought to it.

Today, while we’re not necessarily feeling trapped by our name, we’re also not really feeling like the name is very indicative of who we are, nor is it representative of the business we’ve become. Parkour itself has also changed and we’re honestly just a little tired after spending 14 years giving the same speech over and over and over again to new students, especially new parents, who want their kids to be active, but are worried about whether or not we’re going to teach their kids to jump off buildings.

So this is just an announcement to you all already in our community that we are undergoing a rebrand which will phase itself in over the course of the next several months. We’ll release more details on this soon. For the time being, we just want you to know about it. Anyone who is lucky enough to have RocPK merch, you’re about to have a vintage collector’s item 🙂

Parkour Insurance for Everyone

Several years ago, when FIG (the global governing body for international gymnastics) attempted to steal parkour and claim it as their own, the global parkour community rallied together to try and create an institutionalized framework to combat against the hostile take over. The United States Parkour Association was born.

Since then, while FIG is still attempting the takeover, USPK has grown to try and become more of a presence and has made some really cool changes and moves to help the US parkour community, the most cool one that I’m sharing here is their Parkour accident insurance.

USPK members, of which anyone can be, gain access to special accidental injury insurance plans that quite literally follow you anywhere you go.

For $60/year, you’ll gain immediate access to $10,000 per year of medical bill reimbursement w/ a $1,000 deductible.

For $90/year, you’ll gain immediate access to $25,000 per year of medical bill reimbursement w/ a $0 deductible, anywhere in the world!

If you are out training parkour in a park, at ours or another’s gym, in your house, on the sidewalk, at a competition, whatever, you can make a claim using this insurance to get your medical bills reimbursed.

RocPK is a member gym of USPK and I (Charles Moreland) am a contributor on a special committee within USPK. The gym will receive a portion of the member fees as commission, which we pledge to use for build projects and other maintenance costs within the gym.

Regardless, this is a really amazing program that USPK has created and can greatly help ease peace of mind for some of you for as little as $5/mo or $7.50/mo.

When you go to enroll, you’ll see a question asking you what community you belong to. You can write in Rochester Parkour or RocPK and that will help USPK know that we referred you.

Get Covered!

YouTube Presence

We’ll be making a shift soon to start putting more videos out online through our YouTube channel. The channel has existed essentially since the gym was created and contains a lot of really awkward and amazing nuggets from the past. If you were interested in a trip down memory lane to see how far we’ve come, or want to know how grungey the gym used to be way back in the dark times of 2012, then give the channel history a look through 🙂

Our first video will be covering the image problem of parkour – you know the one, where you tell your family that your kid is learning parkour, and they give you *that look* because they think you’re crazy. In that video, I’ll plainly and clearly spell out why the problem exists and what we can do to help solve it.

That video will be out soon! We’d appreciate if you subscribed and participate in that new medium as we build out this new presence 🙂

Subscribe!
By |2024-10-09T16:49:55-04:00October 9th, 2024|Uncategorized|Comments Off on October, 2024 Rochester Parkour Newsletter
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Schedule Changes for 2023

Greetings RocPK Community,

2023 will see some great changes for our little gym and some changes will be starting as soon as January 5th! Notable additions to our service offerings will occur on Thursdays and Saturdays. There will also be some schedule changes that will come into effect during Charles’ and Nicole’s parental leave sometime around late January or early February (the baby doesn’t seem to want to agree to any set schedule…). Read on for more details!

Thursday Changes – Adult Acro and Kids and Youth Level 2!

***EFFECTIVE JANUARY 5th***

Our 6pm and 7pm time blocks on Thursdays are being adjusted to offer two wonderful new additions to our Adult, Youth, and Kids Programs.

Kids Level 2 6pm Thursdays – This class has been requested for years and it’s always been a challenge trying to find the right way to implement it. This advanced level class is available to students who show an aptitude for dynamic movement and faster paced learning. Just like our Youth Level 2 program, there is a set of requirements that must be met and signed off on by an instructor in order to be granted entry into this class. If a student between the ages of 6 and 9 can…

  • Hang from a bar for 30 seconds
  • Hold a straight arm, straight body plank for 30 seconds
  • Broad jump their body length
  • Balance on a rail for 10 seconds without falling

…an instructor will talk to the student and the parent about the possibility of moving up to this special Level 2 offering. Students in this class can expect more learning on advanced level techniques and slightly more freedom than is permitted in a typical Level 1 class for this age group. If you believe your child can already satisfy these requirements, tell your instructor the next time we see you for class and we can make sure to assess and let your child know if they passed or what they can work on to gain entry into the Level 2.

Youth Level 2 6pm Thursdays – The biggest complaint we’ve heard about the Tuesday Youth Level 2 class is that 7pm is too late for many families during the school year. Also that there’s only one day option. Youth Level 2 will now have class options on Tuesdays at 7pm and Thursdays at 6pm to make attendance easier on families.

Adult Acro 7pm Thursdays – If you haven’t yet checked out an Adult Acro Basics class, you really should! We’ve only heard incredible things from this class and Josh has been KILLING it with lots of interesting tricks and moves that you likely have never heard of nor knew could be so easy to learn! Given the popularity of the Basics class, we’ll be adding Adult Acro back onto the schedule.

This Acro class falls within the parameters of our Level 2 program and will incorporate a faster paced learning environment as well as more dynamic and complex tricks such as flips, handsprings, and aerial twists.

Saturday Changes – Earlier time block, Kids and Youth Game Days, More Tinies!

***EFFECTIVE JANUARY 14TH***

We’ve heard a number of complaints that 2pm is a little too late to start some services for some families on a Saturday. We’ve gone in and adjusted our time block to reflect that of our Sundays, 12pm – 3pm. Here is the new schedule for Saturdays:

  • 12pm Tiny Movers
  • 12pm Kids Level 1
  • 1pm Adult Level 1 (one hour earlier than current)
  • 1pm Youth Level 1 (one hour earlier than current)
  • 2pm NEW Kids Game Day
  • 2pm NEW Youth Game Day

What is Game Day?

For those that remember our class structure pre-covid shutdowns, classes were 55 minutes long and those extra 10 minutes usually went to structured games with the kids classes. While covid forced us to adjust our class length to accommodate other tasks, we have decided that the benefits of this shorter class length, and the extra time allotted in between class services, makes for a much better service. Instructors can actually talk to parents now in between classes and have much more time to field questions and set up for their next class. This also meant that games have slowly been shunted away, as many kids remind us on a weekly basis.

Kids and Youth Game Day is an experiment we’re going to run to see if games can be utilized as its own standalone service as a supplement to our Kids and Youth Programs. Some days will only have one game be a focus while others might have multiple smaller games structured during the 45 minute service. Games to expect: every version of tag known and unknown, co-operative exploration games, challenge games such as Parkour TicTacToe or Parkour Golf, and many others.

Restrictions! Seeing as this new service allows for more open ended movement and elements of free exploration, participants of this class cannot use it as their only experience with us for safety reasons. $20 Drop Ins will not available and no one without an active membership will be permitted to enroll. Participants must be students in other classes and attend them regularly. As such, entrance into this class is only available to All Access Members or Kids/Youth Members.

Participants with a Kids/Youth Membership will be given free access to this service for 4 weeks, starting on January 14th, that will allow them pre-enroll for these time slots and experience what it’s like to be an All Access Member. Should you love how much fun your kids will have during this time block, upgrading from a Kids/Youth to an All Access is just $30.

If you want to get your kids enrolled early, please contact us either through the Momence app or rochesterparkour@gmail.com and we can add this promo membership onto your account so that you may enroll your kids at your own convenience starting as soon as you’re done reading this post.

Schedule Interruptions for Parental Leave – Closed on SUNDAYS

Josh, Jonathan, and Teaghan are rock stars and we’ve formulated a schedule that will see very few interruptions of service once Charlie and Nicole’s baby is born. The ONLY day that will be affected by parental leave will be SUNDAYS which will be cancelled. Sundays will be back on the schedule once Charlie is off parental leave and back in the gym.

Questions? Comments? You can actually reply directly to this post if you wish. You may also email us at rochesterparkour@gmail.com or send us a message through the Momence App.

-RocPK

By |2022-12-30T17:12:59-05:00December 30th, 2022|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Schedule Changes for 2023
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The Return of Adult Nerf Nights!

OVERVIEW

2 hours on Fridays 6-8pm
$15/person
Restricted to fully vaccinated adults only
Blaster and shoe rentals available for $5
Online pre-enrollment mandatory
No walk ins accepted
Indoor shoes required
Ammo provided

The first Adult Nerf Night since March 2020 is now on the schedule for July 30th! Reserve a spot using this link. 


DETAILS

Geetings RocPK Nerfers!

At long last, we are excited to finally be prepared to get Nerf back on the schedule! It’s been a long time and the gym is in a completely different place than we were prior to shutdowns. We hope to be as accommodating as possible and appreciate whatever courtesy you can give us as we do our best to try and offer this amazing event as best as we are able.

The biggest new changes that you’ll notice are the price, the vaccination requirement, and the pre-enrollment policy.

As much as we wanted to keep things the same, our rent has increased, insurance costs have increased, payroll wages have increased, and taxes have increased (not to mention the exorbitant losses from last year). We still believe that $15 is highly competitive to the prices you see for other fun amusements you might choose on a Friday night. We hope that you agree.

The vaccination requirement was a decision we did not make lightly. Our parkour classes, for example, can operate with both vaccinated and unvaccinated participants. The only difference when it comes to nerf is that nerf requires eye protection and eye protection plus masks makes fogged glasses. While there are many clever solutions to get around the fogging, the chance that a solution proves inadequate and results in someone running into an object, tripping over an object, or otherwise injuring another participant is too great.

Given these challenges, all participants must be prepared to prove their fully vaccinated status on arrival to their first nerf night. Once status is approved, you will never have to prove it again. This will ensure that nerf can operate as similarly as it did to the before times when the world was magical.

Finally, in order to ensure seamless arrival and ensure that we start the event on time, we are no longer accepting walk ins to nerf nights. Participants must pre-enroll ahead of time and pay with a credit card. This one new change should drastically improve event start time and maximize the total nerf game play experience.

We know that many of our past attendees would often times pay for each other or cover each other by paying in cash at the door. As much as we wish we could continue that, the limitations of our registration system will make this practice impossible.

It’s been over a year and a half since we’ve last had a nerf night. The hobby has changed since then and we’ll be looking to make adjustments with it to match. Some of those changes include the plethora of new printed blasters and new ammo types, such as nerf hyper. RocPK will be adding hyper into the ammo types provided. The new full list of provided ammo is:

Full-length darts
Half-length darts
Rival rounds
Hyper rounds

Vortex and Mega will continue to be allowed in play, but will not be provided. Feel free to bring your own to an event, but be prepared to lose them. 

By |2021-07-22T17:01:23-04:00July 22nd, 2021|Uncategorized|Comments Off on The Return of Adult Nerf Nights!
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Phases continue with Youth Classes

This week brought a slow stream of Adult members back into the gym and we had so much fun moving together. We are continuing our internal phases of Re-Opening by incorporating Youth Level 1 classes back on the schedule, as well as changes to our Training Time service! Continue reading to learn more.

Training Time changes:

  • Available to all Members ages 15+
  • Online advanced reservation required
  • Minors must be walked in by parent or legal guardian
  • Health Screen must be completed and passed before walking in the door on the day of your reservation

Service participation is being limited to new members or members who have not altered their payments. This now includes Adult Open Gym Memberships! If you have an active membership that applies, we have added Training Time access and you are now able to pre-enroll. Online reservations are required and no walk-ins will be permitted. Contact us if you’d like to re-activate your membership to access Training Time.

Youth Level 1 Classes:

  • Ages 10+
  • Available for members or $20 single visit Drop-Ins
  • Online advanced reservation required. No walk ins permitted at this time.
  • Classes capped at 5 students for now while we get our bearings. We will expand to 10 spaces in the future.
  • Minors must be walked in by parent or legal guardian each day
  • All forms and Health Screen must be completed and passed before walking in the door on the day of your reservation, otherwise class participation will not be permitted.
  • Please limit family members present during student drop off/pick up. Loitering in our lobby/lounge during class is not an option at this time due to occupancy limitations put on by our health department.

Phase 2 Reopening Schedule changes:

Still in flux. Note that Youth class attendance will be capped at 5 slots temporarily while we get our bearings. We will be expanding the class size over time:

Monday

  • CLOSED

Tuesday

  • 5-6pm Training Time
  • 6-6:45pm Youth Level 1 class
  • 6-6:45pm Adult Level 1 class
  • 7-7:45pm Adult Level 2 class
  • 8-8:45pm Mobility class
  • 7-8:45pm Training Time

Wednesday

  • 5-6pm Training Time
  • 6-6:45pm Youth Level 1 class
  • 6-6:45pm Adult Level 1 class
  • 7-7:45pm Movement Circuits class
  • 8-8:45pm Mobility class
  • 7-8:45pm Training Time

Thursday

  • 5-6pm Training Time
  • 6-6:45pm Youth Level 1 class
  • 6-6:45pm Adult Level 2 class
  • 7-7:45pm Strength class
  • 8-8:45pm Mobility class
  • 7-8:45pm Training Time

Friday

  • CLOSED

Saturday

  • 1-1:45pm Adult Level 1 class
  • 2-2:45pm Strength class
  • 3-3:45pm Mobility class
  • 1-4pm Training Time

Sunday

  • CLOSED

What is Training Time?

Given the complications that surround movement based indoor activities and social distancing requirements, we’ve created something like what Open Gym was, but with more structure. We want to bring Open Gym back as quickly as possible, but since we don’t have a time frame as to when that will be, we’re excited to introduce Training Time!

During Training Time hours, members may sign up for available spots in hour long brackets. Due to space restrictions, we are asking members to only sign up for a maximum of 2 back-to-back slots per day to ensure access to as many other members as possible.

The gym will be segmented into 5 movement zones, each with their own borders, movement obstacles, and participant volumes. Zones will be assigned on a first come, first served basis. Travel between zones will be overseen by the gym supervisor, and at times, not permitted.

See you soon!

We are re-evaluating, planning, and implementing each and every day. Operating a business through Covid times is an always developing challenge. Thanks for sticking with us as we continue to navigate and adapt.

<3 RocPK

By |2020-09-06T15:28:27-04:00September 6th, 2020|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Phases continue with Youth Classes
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Re-Opening Update

To the Rochester Parkour Community

Dear RocPK Community,

After a very long hibernation, we are excited to share that RocPK will be reopening its doors soon!  Full credit of this accomplishment goes to the members and families that have chosen to maintain either partial or full monthly payments during this crisis. Quite literally, we would not be able to issue this statement today without them and we are forever grateful.

With that said, after parsing through the data and guidelines presented to us by NYS and Monroe County, the gym will be targeting a tentative reopening on August 1st. This date is still subject to change based on information provided to us from NYS. Still, we’ve been hard at work during this pause investing back into the space. You will be walking into a wonderfully updated gym when you and your family return! We’ll be sharing pictures of the new space soon!

This is exciting for sure, but there are still many new policies and procedures that must be followed in order to ensure that our reopening is responsible and calculated. As we are writing this press release, our parkour colleagues and other gym owners in California are drafting their notices to their members about their second mandated shut down. We are heavily invested in ensuring that their experience does not become ours.

New Policies

Our new policies are in the process of being finalized. We will be sending out that information once it is complete. Keep an eye on your inbox and our social media pages for updates! In the meantime, here are some answers to the most frequently asked questions we’ve received in the last couple of weeks:

  • Masks will be required by all persons within the RocPK Gym at all times until further notice
  • Classes will be shortened to 45 minutes to allow for a 15 minute intermission
  • Hand washing will be required prior to entry and periodically throughout services
  • Class participants or their parents will be required to complete a short screening survey before attending each class
  • There will be a limit of 1 parent or supervisor allowed in the lounge during a class service.  All other family members will be required to wait outside

Many of these policies have been mandated by NYS and Monroe County and adherence to them will be required in order to participate in any RocPK service.

Re-Opening Survey

Additionally, your voice can help ensure that our re-opening serves you and your family better by answering our short survey found here. Your answers to these questions will be used to nail down what classes fall on what days, how many classes we initially offer, what times fit your schedules best, as well as helping us ensure that our new policies are working to make you and your family feel safe. We cannot express enough how valuable your participation in this survey is!

Re-Opening Phases

The gym’s re-opening will be undergoing its own phased process. Initially, we are looking at starting back up our Adult and Youth programs, followed by our Kids program, and then finally our Tinies. The time-table of these phases has not been solidified, but is being implemented to ensure that our re-opening complies with local and State mandated procedures. We are waiting, in particular, on the scheduled release of school guidance in late July/ early August to develop our Kids and Tinies phase-in.

Our Summer Camps are still in flux. At the time of this writing, we’re looking at the possibility of offering at least one week of camp (or not at all) depending on the information we receive from the above survey. If you would value a camp offering, please let us know in the survey so we can solidify this asap!

We know that this is a lot to take in. We also know that it feels a little anticlimactic to have to do our own phased re-opening within a phased re-opening, but the outpouring of information we’ve received (especially in the last two weeks) is proving that this crisis is still serious and must be treated seriously. Despite the Governor’s phrasing of “New York on Pause”, it’s been made plainly obvious by our colleagues in California and elsewhere that we cannot just “push play” and resume like nothing happened. You, your family’s, and our community’s safety is our top-priority.

See You Soon!

To wrap this letter up, as we’ve said before: none of this could be done without you and none of this is worth it without you. We cannot wait to have you all back in the gym, moving your bodies, bettering your health and fitness, and playing again!

If you have any further questions about the information in this letter, please reach out to us and we will get back to you as quickly as we are able.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for your continued and ongoing support!

– The RocPK Team

Our google Form Survey: https://forms.gle/DMHjSDUbxQJLJSiz9

By |2020-07-14T17:14:28-04:00July 14th, 2020|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Re-Opening Update
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Important Changes to RocPK Memberships 2020

Dearest RocPK Members,

I’ll cut right to it: It’s been almost 5 years since we last made changes to our pricing structure. Much has changed in that time frame, from doubling our staff, expanding our service offerings, investing in some incredible new equipment, and obviously, moving into our amazing new location. 

In the same way, our expenses have also changed. Minimum wage, for example, was still $9.25/hour when we last changed prices and just underwent a final annual increase to $12.50. Our health insurance premiums have increased nearly 35%, liability insurance premiums have risen 31%, and our rent has increased 58%. Inflation is also a reality that we are all subject to. Through all of that, we’ve managed to grow without upping our prices. 

There’s really no easy way to write letters like this, so let me just say, I think we’ve come up with a win-win for all of us in the Rochester Parkour community. With these price increases, we’ll also be initiating some updates on how memberships function to improve usability. These changes will be initiated on February 1st 2020.

We’ve learned a lot about ourselves and our community in the last 5 years and we think there’s some simple changes that can be made to make the Rochester Parkour Gym more affordable and accessible to all use-cases. 

First, some of you may have noticed we no longer advertise “Upgraded Memberships”. Part of our pricing changes means making our available options more streamlined and less confusing. We now only offer three types of monthly membership plans: Open Gym, Basic, and All Access Membership.

2020 Membership prices are as follows:

Open Gym Membership

$40monthly

Basic Membership

$90monthly

All Access Membership

$120monthly

Drop in prices and packages will see no change.

Open Gym Drop In

$10Daily

Class Drop In

$20Each

10 Class Package

$180Once

Rather than just increase prices with no change in membership function, we’ve decided to revise the membership experience and make it more adaptable to varying schedules. 

Notable Usability Changes:

Open Gym Member Benefits

Open Gym Plan members will now be considered as full-fledged members and will gain access to Member discounts on events and services. Additionally, Open Gym Memberships will now qualify for Family Member Discounts**.

**Please note: Open Gym Memberships are designed for adult use. We will continue to deny access to an Open Gym Membership to anyone under the age of 18 who has not been an active enrollee into class based services.

50% Discount on Additional Drop In Classes for Members

All Members will now be given the option to join additional classes for just $10 rather than the $20 that it was previously. An Open Gym Member can join any class service for just $10. A Basic Member could join a 6th class for just $10. 

Strength and Mobility Class Changes

Strength and Mobility Classes will still be classified as “Fitness Classes” and will be subject to the original Drop In class rate ($20/each). However, Open Gym Members will be able to attend for the new 50% off rate of $10/each.

Basic and All Access Members will gain access to all Strength and Mobility classes for free. Basic Members will no longer use one of their five classes by enrolling into any Fitness class.

Zen Planner App Benefits

The Zen Planner mobile app was recently updated to make the workouts function of the software easier to access. All members are now able to use the ZP mobile app to search through our database of exercises, skills, techniques, and gym challenges. Additionally, links to videos for each exercise, skill, technique, and gym challenge have been fixed and are now clickable through the app.

Over the next couple months, RocPK Staff will be at work updating and creating our ZP Workouts database to include nearly everything that is possible in the gym with a corresponding video. We believe these changes will help our members feel more empowered and feel less aimless during their open time at the gym.

Although membership prices are increasing, the value proposition and benefits are still clear. Basic tier members who come to 5 classes and 4 open gyms per month are still accessing a value of $140/month for only $90. All Access Members who come to 8 classes and 4 open gyms per month are accessing a value of $200/month for only $120 (and some members are even getting more value!).

Additionally – and maybe even more importantly – we want to acknowledge the fact that ever since the beginning of Rochester Parkour, anytime we’ve implemented pricing changes, we’ve offered our current enrollees the benefit of grandfathered rates. As a thanks for your continued patronage, whatever price you were paying before the price jump would stay so long as you kept your membership active. Some of you have quite literally maintained your original membership for over 7 years!

We think it’s high time to just codify these benefits in stone and call it what it is:

The RocPK Loyalty Program

Membership is a partnership between us as a business and you as the community it serves. Discounts are a way for us to say, “Thanks for making our lives easier when we buy equipment, sign lease contracts, or hire employees.” Memberships are what gives us a small glimmer of stability in an unstable world. 

Most businesses in the fitness industry force that stability with annual contracts. Our approach is to earn that stability with our amazing service and environment. We refuse the practice of these legally binding annual contracts. 

Instead, we’re going to start granting discounts to any member who chooses to maintain their membership payments for extended periods of time. Here’s what it looks like:

New Member

$0Monthly discount
1-12 months

RocPK Select Member

$5Monthly discount
13-24 months

RocPK Sustaining Member

$20Monthly discount
25+ months

There are some limitations that need to exist in order for us to offer these discounts. As a rule, we only allow one discount to be applied per membership, which is to say, these loyalty discounts can only be applied on full priced memberships. Add-On Memberships for families don’t apply, but will still receive our incredible 25%, 50%, and 75% discounts. Placing your membership on hold or cancelling for any reason will reset your loyalty status back to 0. More information on how this program will operate is set to come out in an upcoming blog post, so be on the lookout for that. 

To finish up this long-winded letter, as a show of gratitude for all of you current RocPK Members, we’ve decided to initiate this new Loyalty Program retroactively. Anyone who has a current membership by January 31st, 2020 will automatically be bumped into the RocPK Select tier and receive their $5/month discount. Any member who has been on membership for 2+ years (by January 31st)  will automatically be placed into the RocPK Sustaining Member tier.

If you have any questions or concerns about the information provided in this post, you can call us at 585.204.7537, write to us at info@rochesterparkour.com, or you can find us in the gym and ask in person. 

Operating the Rochester Parkour Gym has been a huge honor for all of us who work here. We want you to know that this gym can only brag about being one of the longest running Parkour gyms in the nation because of the amazing community here.

None of this would be possible without you. 

None of this would be worth it without you. 

Thanks. 

By |2020-01-09T16:04:24-05:00January 4th, 2020|News, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Important Changes to RocPK Memberships 2020
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Weekly Curriculum – May 13 to 19

Monday

  • 6pm Level 1 Movement Circuits: Perpetual Vaults
  • 8pm Level 2 Acro: Flips Off Objects

Tuesday

  • 5:30pm Level 2 Skill: Laches
  • 6:30pm Level 2 Time Trials: Gates

Wednesday

  • 5:30pm Level 1 Movement Circuits: Constant Motion
  • 7:30pm Level 1 Skill: Bilateral Vaults

Thursday

  • 5:30pm Level 1 Skill: Bars
  • 5:30pm Level 2 Skill: Ascents/Descents
  • 6:30pm Strength: 4 to 6 Circuit
  • 7:30pm Mobility: Posture Intensive

Saturday

  • 11am Level 1 Skill: Climbing
  • 1pm Level 2 Skill: Bar Skills

Sunday

  • 1Pm Level 1 Skill: Climbing – Cat Leaps
  • 2pm Strength: 3-5 Round Intensity Circuit
  • 3pm Mobility: Shoulders
By |2019-05-13T15:09:05-04:00May 13th, 2019|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Weekly Curriculum – May 13 to 19
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Introducing – Family Plans!

The Background

Of our ~250 families, more than half are currently on one of our membership plans. We see this as huge win for us not only as a community, but also as a small business. The membership tiers give our students the best value for their budget and also make our job scheduling, coordinating, and offering classes and services easier. It’s a win-win.

Additionally, ever since we introduced the membership plans nearly 7 years ago, the “Family Discount” of 25% off each additional plan has afforded even more savings to most families. Most, not all.

This Fall, RocPK is looking to change that and make it even easier for families to choose Rochester Parkour as one of their main fitness and recreational outlets by making it way more affordable!

New Family Plans!

Starting September 1st, 2018, Rochester Parkour will be adding in additional discounted memberships for families looking to add 3 or more people to a membership. These discounts could mean $20/month savings, but could also be upwards of hundreds of dollars for some of our larger families!

The discount tiers couldn’t be more simple:

  • 1st Membership – Full Price (no change from current membership plans)
  • 2nd Membership – 25% Off (no change from current membership plans)
  • 3rd Membership – 50% Off
  • 4th+ Membership(s) – 75% Off

These new memberships are just additions to our Membership program, they are NOT replacing them. If you are currently on membership, nothing is going to change. If you have less than 2 people in your family and are interested in membership, nothing is going change, either. You will continue to be able to set up membership plans on your own through our Zen Planner site and will be able to add on additional memberships at the 25% off tier.

Examples

5 Person Family w/ Everyone on 5x/Month

5 Person Family Old Price New Price
Person 1 $80 – 5x/month  $80 – 5x/month
Person 2  $60 – 5x/month  $60 – 5x/month
Person 3  $60 – 5x/month  $40 – 5x/month
Person 4  $60 – 5x/month  $20 – 5x/month
Person 5  $60 – 5x/month  $20 – 5x/month
Total  $320  $220 ($100 Savings!)

Mix & Match! 5 Person Family on Different Membership Tiers

5 Person Family Old Price New Price
Person 1 $115 – All Access  $115 – All Access
Person 2  $71.25 – 8x/month  $71.25 – 8x/month
Person 3  $71.25 – 8x/month  $47.50 – 8x/month
Person 4  $60 – 5x/month  $20 – 5x/month
Person 5  $60 – 5x/month  $20 – 5x/month
Total  $377.50  $273.75 ($103.75 Savings)

5 Person Family on All Access Plans

5 Person Family Old Price New Price
Person 1 $115 – All Access  $115 – All Access
Person 2  $86.25 – All Access  $86.25 – All Access
Person 3 $86.25 – All Access  $57.50 – All Access
Person 4 $86.25 – All Access  $28.75 – All Access
Person 5 $86.25 – All Access  $28.75 – All Access
Total  $460  $316.25 ($143.75 Savings!)

Plan Features/Requirements

In order for us to offer these new Family Plans, we’ve had to make some changes regarding the user experience in order to ensure that everything is set up correctly. One of these compromises is that in order to create your family’s plan, you must have a RocPK Staff Member set it up for you either in person at the front desk, over the phone, or through email. Besides that here’s a brief overview of how these plans functions:

  • Every 3+ person Family Plan must be set up by a RocPK Staff Member
  • Every Family Plan is set to auto-renew on the 1st of every month
  • Families can set up their plan at any time and our system will prorate the memberships based on when they begin. After that, the total amount will always be billed on the 1st of the month.
  • Each family member can have their choice between a 5x, 8x, or All Access Plan
  • The highest tiered plans will always be set up ahead of lower tier plans
  • Families can upgrade or downgrade individual plans at any time during a month by RocPK Staff
  • Minimum 1 full monthly cycle – RocPK cannot set up a prorated plan and cancel it before the next bill goes through.
  • As usual, there is no set up fee, no contracts to sign, and no termination fees. Retroactive cancellations and refunds are subject to a 20% refund fee.

Fill out the form below to request more information on setting up your customized plan!

By |2018-11-21T23:32:14-05:00August 10th, 2018|Featured, News, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Introducing – Family Plans!
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A New Adventure Begins for Instructor Devin!

We’d like to take a moment today to wish our Instructor Devin a safe journey as he packs up and moves to the Mid-West to start a new career!

For those of you who didn’t know, Devin began his parkour journey right here with us something like 5 or 6 years ago as a student. He was energetic, quirky, and super talented. He brightened up any class he was in and his movement creativity inspired and awed others.

When he approached us to say that he was interested in the pursuit of becoming an instructor, we couldn’t have been more thrilled! Becoming an instructor is really challenging, arguably more so for someone who can literally just see something done and almost instantly perform it themselves, but Devin’s prowess was so quickly adapted to it. His ability to make curriculum fun but also attainable for a variety of age groups and athletic backgrounds was exceptional, to say the least. The loss of these talents will leave a void for sure.

We’re sad to see this journey come to an end, but we’re just the same proud for what he’s accomplished as a representative of Rochester Parkour. Thanks for being awesome!

Safe travels,

Charles and Nicole

By |2018-11-21T23:32:14-05:00June 2nd, 2018|Uncategorized|Comments Off on A New Adventure Begins for Instructor Devin!
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We’re Changing our Registration Software for 2018!

Dear community members,

Only a small handful of you have been around long enough to remember our first registration system, Mindbody, and all the complications that came with it. For the rest of you, your relationship with us has also required your relationship with our registration software, Frontdesk (more recently known as Pike 13). This relationship has lasted almost 5 years and began out of a request from our members for a system that was simpler to use and could more easily be integrated with the way they wished to use the system – mainly through smartphones.

The simplicity and ease of access with its responsive design came with limitations, which we accepted under the promise of its developers that updates would continue to roll out to expand its abilities and fix its bugs. We are writing now to inform you that Pike 13 has stagnated for too long and this month, we will be making the switch to a new company.

What’s going to change?

The new software is not yet live. We’re hoping to flip the switch either this week or next week, but we wanted to give you a heads up. Here’s a brief overview of everything that will change:

  • Zen Planner (new software) is fully embedded into our www.rocpk.com website (no more remembering different url’s!)
  • Interactive schedule that lets you more easily find the services you’re looking for
  • Better level system and skill tracking for all our members
  • Simpler check out procedures
  • Fully functioning Google Play Store and Apple App Store App
  • Rollover visits can no longer be a benefit of membership (new software doesn’t have it as a feature)
  • Memberships can no longer be shared (memberships must be bought separately for each person on a family account, but the prices are remaining the same)
  • Class packages can still be shared among family members, but this must be manually done by RocPK Staff

For everyone who currently has an active membership or a pass or plan, you should expect to just log in to the new system and see that nothing is different except for the Zen Planner name. Billing information will remain the same, prices remain the same, and expiration dates for previous purchases will remain the same.

What you need to do

Nothing yet.

Our TENTATIVE flip date is scheduled for this Thursday, February 1st, but there’s still some back end work that may push us back. When the change does happen, you will receive an email from Zen Planner with an automatically generated password for your new account. All you need to do is login using that password, change your password, and double check that all of our data transferred from Pike 13 correctly.

Feel free to continue reading for more specific details on these changes and to see how cool the new software is!

Meet Zen Planner

We settled on Zen Planner after months of searching and several demos from a handful of other companies in the industry because of its features, its ease of use for our customers, and the reputation of the company. It first sprouted out to serve the needs of martial arts studios which lends itself nicely for our industry as well. The dev team is not only attentive, but responsive, and we’re excited to see where they go in the future.

Details on all these Changes

Fully embedded into our website

Unlike Pike 13 which required you, our members, to leave our website or bookmark their url to be able to login to your account to enroll for classes or purchase classes, Zen Planner is completely embeddable into our www.rochesterparkour.com website. The schedule is interactive and you can pre-enroll for classes or login to your account directly from our website without ever leaving our url!

Interactive schedule view

We offer a lot of different classes, services, and events over the course of a week and it can sometimes be overwhelming to try and find the right class you’re looking for to pre-enroll into. Zen Planner makes this easier by allowing you to filter out categories of classes that you’re not interested in seeing. For example, if you were only interested in enrolling your 7 year old, you can filter out all other services except for the Kids Classes to more easily see when the classes are offered and better locate the exact one you want.

Better Level System Structure

Up until now, for our Youth and Adult members, we’ve needed to have anyone who would like to move up to Level 2 classes prove that they have learned or acquired the necessary skills and strength required for those classes by submitting a video. Given that Zen Planner grew out of the martial arts world, they have developed a back end system of skills and techniques that can be updated on every student’s profile by their instructors as they see the student make progress. When that student enrolls into a class with a different instructor, the instructor can simply click on their profile and see what the student knows already and can plan their curriculum accordingly with full clarity.

This also means that we will be removing the requirement of our current students to submit level test videos in order to move up. Students can either ask their instructor for an update on their progress or login to their account and look at their progress themselves. Level Test Video Submissions will remain in effect only for new incoming students who believe that their talents warrant them instant access into the Level 2 classes.

Simpler Checkout Procedures

Compared to the store in Pike 13, Zen Planner makes it significantly easier for our clients to understand what package or drop in passes are options for the available class service they’re trying to enroll into. Once again, this can all take place on our website every time you go to enroll into a class.

Zen Planner Smartphone App

Pike 13 was a separate url that could only be accessed by visiting it through a desktop or mobile browser. If you didn’t know the url, you needed to travel to our website first, then click through to get to the Pike 13 site. The mobile browser, while revolutionary when we saw it in 2013, is now a pain in the butt. Features and buttons periodically disappear when viewed on a mobile browser and requires an excessive amount of button clicking to do something as simple as enroll yourself or your son or daughter into a class.

Zen Planner has an extremely simple app, found on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store, that simply requires you to sign in with your account email and your (soon to be created) account password. From there, you can easily enroll for classes, update your profile information, purchase items, and create new accounts for family members.

Everything is a compromise

If you’ve ever heard the phrase, “Cheap. Fast. High Quality. Choose two.” then you know that the perfect solution we’re looking for, either doesn’t exist yet, or may never exist. This is still true with our decision to move to Zen Planner and we’d like you all to be aware of certain things that will need to change about some of our policies and procedures and understand why.

Rollover visits for Memberships: We’re listing this one first because it’s the one we’re most upset about losing. Currently, Zen Planner does not have a system in place to automatically roll over unused visits into the next month. We’ve created a feature request ticket for this feature with them and have pleaded our case as to why this is an important tool for businesses, but there is no guarantee that they will enable this feature or that they will ever begin development on it. Given our great number of people on memberships, it would be unwise for us to initiate a manual system to keep this feature, so we are regretfully going to remove this feature as a benefit of membership.

Despite this change, please remember that our facility has created our systems and policies specifically in contrast to the way big box gyms have – hiding behind mountains of paperwork, contracts, and hidden fees. No matter who you are, all RocPK clients can enter membership without signing a contract, without a registration fee, and can also cancel their membership at any time prior to their next billing date for no cancellation fee. If losing roll over visits is important enough for you to drop your monthly membership, please let us know and we can find the next best solution for you and your family.

No Shared Memberships: We’re conflicted by this change partly because the feature seems like it would be very useful, but it’s also been the source for a number of back end issues with account members who accidentally purchased memberships with the wrong people linked, or clients who purchased multiple memberships at full cost because they didn’t know to look harder at the confusing store system to see that family memberships came at a discount.

Zen Planner does not have this system in place, meaning it will both no longer be a feature nor will it be a nuisance to our members. Discounted add on memberships for families will now be listed as separate membership offerings. Additionally, Zen Planner does not have a system in place like we’ve had in the past, where some purchasable items will only be shown to current members. Rather than remove this benefit, we’ve decided to keep these membership offerings publicly available so you all can purchase them for your family members at any time and at your own convenience. This also means that it will be shown to people who do not currently have a membership plan. We’ve created some triggers in the back end of the system to alert us whenever someone purchases these add on memberships to not only double check your work and make sure the membership is set up correctly, but to also ensure that no one is scamming our system and getting a discount reserved for our amazing families.

Manually Shared Class Packages: This change is not as direct as the shared membership plans are. Instead, class packages can continue to be shared among family members, however, the linked accounts must be completed by a staff member. To help ease this process, we’ve created an automation whenever a class package is purchased to alert you all that if you would like to have multiple family members share one class package, to reply to that email with the names of the linked accounts, and one of our staff members will create the links as soon as possible.

When does this change happen?

Nicole and Charles have been working overtime on this change since mid-November! They’ve manually checked every one of our 5,000+ accounts in our database to try and make this transition as seamless as possible for you all. Ideally, when we flip the switch, all you will need to do is open the email that Zen Planner will send you (not sent yet), and log into your account with their auto-generated password for the first time, and then change your password. Downloading the Zen Planner app is not required (although it’s so amazingly easy why wouldn’t you!?). We’ve also worked diligently with our payment processors to securely transfer (through encrypted portals) everyone’s payment information. Again, ideally, all you have to do is log into your new account with Zen Planner and see that you do not have to update anything!

Our TENTATIVE flip date is scheduled for THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1ST!

There’s still some things we need to fine tune until then that may push this date back. We’ll keep everyone updated once we have a confirmed flip date.

PLEASE NOTE!

5,000+ accounts is CRAZY! It’s simultaneously so incredible to see that we’ve serviced that many people in our short 7 year life span and also super overwhelming when you look at 5,000+ lines in a spreadsheet filled with numbers and letters! We’ve really worked hard to ensure that no one’s account got mixed up in the data transfer, but it is possible. Once you log in to your account, please look through your profile and double check everything in it to make sure it looks correct. If something is out of place, shoot us an email to let us know and we’ll take care of it as quickly as we can to ensure nothing affects your ability to pre-enroll for the classes you want.

By |2018-11-21T23:32:14-05:00January 29th, 2018|Uncategorized|Comments Off on We’re Changing our Registration Software for 2018!
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