![\"Tony](\"http:\/\/www.clubinsideronline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tony-de-Leede-300x360.jpg\")
Tony de Leede<\/p>\nTony de Leede<\/p>\n
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA<\/strong> – Fitness industry innovator Tony de Leede has launched an all-new wellness concept for women, Club W, a boutique fitness and lifestyle space designed to provide an intimate, social \u2018third place\u2019 beyond home and work.<\/p>\n The newly opened club, located in the southern Sydney suburb of Caringbah, is according to de Leede, “part community teahouse, part social club, part wellness education centre and part fitness\/movement studio – specifically designed for older Baby Boomer women who crave community and conversation in a space where they can also immerse themselves in wellness.”<\/p>\n It combines virtual studios that serve up unintimidating and “smaller bite” virtual group exercise classes (from yoga, Pilates, stretch, strength, dance, fight, cardio and meditation) and virtual education on everything from nutrition to relationships. Sourced from de Leede\u2019s co-owned Mind123 and Move123 virtual content library, the facility offers over 200 classes, with content delivered in five, 10, 20 and 30 minute classes across Club W\u2019s four studio rooms.<\/p>\n De Leede comments, \u201cwe do far more classes per day than even bigger clubs do per week.\u201d<\/p>\n The 400 metre\u00b2 space also offers a massage room, plus three consultation pods where local lifestyle businesses \u2013 offering services ranging from nutrition to naturopathy, life coaching to manicures \u2013 can come in and offer complimentary 20-minute appointments for members. A Somadome meditation pods is to be added in the near future.<\/p>\n While content is delivered virtually, employed hosts and volunteer \u2018club ambassadors\u2019 are on site to make members feel welcome and provide assistance where necessary.<\/p>\n Beyond its fitness component, Club W aims to offer more than a boutique fitness space, but to be a place where women can just come and \u2018be\u2019 and connect, a place to spend hours.<\/p>\n With a capacity of 1,000 members and priced at a competitive $19.50 a week, de Leede is confident that virtual is appropriate for Club W\u2019s target market, explaining \u201cin the US alone, over 30 million women aged 50 years and older are online, and 59% of them think they\u2019re just as tech-savvy as their children and grandchildren.\u201d<\/p>\n Developed at a cost of $650,000, the first Club W will have a maximum membership of 1,000 and is priced at a competitive $19.50 a week.<\/p>\n However, the \u2018third space\u2019 would appear to have enormous potential in large retails environments and shopping malls, where owners are looking to drive visitation against a backdrop of declining retail sales.<\/p>\n de Leede is already in conversation with \u201ca number of major department stores\u201d about introducing the Club Ws within their retail space, explaining \u201cAmazon is the enemy for these retailers. They have to look at ways to make going in-store an experience again, and that can\u2019t rely on anything people can buy online.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t have a haircut online, or go to the cinema, or go to Club W. This is the sort of thing they\u2019re now actively looking at.\u201d<\/p>\n Similar discussions with Weight Watchers \u2013 whose focus has recently broadened to include movement and mindset as well as nutrition \u2013 may see small, Club W-branded virtual studios set up inside Weight Watchers shop fronts in the USA, while de Leede is also exploring offering Club W locations as site for meetings of Weight Watchers\u2019 Australian division.<\/p>\n De Leede adds \u201cI wanted to create somewhere I could imagine my mum or my sister coming to get out of the house – a place that offers not only movement, but also community.<\/p>\n \u201cClub W isn\u2019t about being fit. It\u2019s about living longer, well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA<\/strong> – Fitness industry innovator Tony de Leede has launched an all-new wellness concept for women, Club W, a boutique fitness and lifestyle space designed to provide an intimate, social \u2018third place\u2019 beyond home and work.<\/p>\n The newly opened club, located in the southern Sydney suburb of Caringbah, is according to de Leede, “part community teahouse, part social club, part wellness education centre and part fitness\/movement studio – specifically designed for older Baby Boomer women who crave community and conversation in a space where they can also immerse themselves in wellness.” It combines virtual studios that serve up unintimidating and “smaller bite” virtual group exercise classes (from yoga, Pilates, stretch, strength, dance, fight, cardio and meditation) and virtual education on everything from nutrition to relationships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[355,224],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.clubinsideronline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3418"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.clubinsideronline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.clubinsideronline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.clubinsideronline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.clubinsideronline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.clubinsideronline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3420,"href":"http:\/\/www.clubinsideronline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3418\/revisions\/3420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.clubinsideronline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.clubinsideronline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.clubinsideronline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.clubinsideronline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}