I caught an episode of a documentary last week on ABC about the People’s Supermarket. This is a London based food cooperative that aims to provide fresh seasonal food, at good prices and with minimal food waste.
Today I was reading Springwise.com and saw an overview of the concept. Only members can shop at the People’s Supermarket, but they all get a 10 percent discount on prices as well as a say in how the store is run. In exchange, members pay an annual membership fee of GBP 25, and they also pledge to volunteer four hours of their time per month working as store staff. Because the supermarket’s workforce is nearly all volunteers, staff costs are kept low this way — an advantage that can be passed on in lower prices. Any profits that are earned, meanwhile, get put back into the store to bring down prices even further.
Why not a cooperative fitness club? Same concept but fitness club not supermarket. You would still need to sell memberships but each member would be an owner. Each member would need to donate some time to working in the club for x hours per month.
“Fitness For the People By the People” – a fitness club owned and managed by its members. Is this the future of fitness?
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I think the concept could work, if we were not reliant upon qualifications for training. I am also not sure of the profitability. Interesting concept though.