Dear Customers,
Through this newsletter I would like to share a personal message with you, because the current situation affects me very personally. In my 35 years of entrepreneurship I have never experienced such an extreme situation! And many of you, who may be entrepreneurs or zzz-p, will feel the same way! Therefore I want to do everything "within my power" to guide Piazza Sports through these difficult times and therefore take responsibility towards my suppliers and above all my staff!
Many of you have many questions about the subscription you have with us. As you may know, we are in this situation because of the "imposition of the Government". Since Piazza Sports is a stand-alone club and certainly not a chain, we unfortunately do not have a financial buffer of millions, as some chains do.
The €. 4000,- that one could possibly receive from the Government together with the possible supplement of a piece of salary costs, which are all still unclear at the moment, might come to a payment in due time, but then we are talking about summer months or even later ! Until then I cannot wait.
Of course, I too am looking at the situation now and what is to come. With today's knowledge it is assumed that we have to remain closed until April 6, along with the schools and sports clubs where one also pays or has paid dues ......... Therefore, on April 1 I just want to collect, unfortunately this is not an April 1 joke.
Why collect, you ask ? Well for the following reasons; my fixed costs such as Energy (gas, water, electricity and taxes) continue as well as the licenses of things like Les Mills etc. costs for the cleaning company and lease contracts and rent and "last but not least" the responsibility for keeping the salary costs of the staff running. For example, we have 10 part-timers and 10 full-timers. Their salaries I just want to keep paying for the coming time !
And what do you get in return? Last 2 weeks and the coming period, our permanent team of staff members, such as Louise, Lisanne, Jessie and Jemy, Diny, Donnée, Robin, Wim, Patrick and myself, have been busy every day with things like Facebook, Youtube and other channels in order to create programs for you that allow you to keep moving, albeit in a different environment. So we start this week with Live lessons led by our "bright minds" .....
In addition, we now have all the time to completely refurbish the Club. This was planned for the summer anyway, but now is the perfect time to do it right away. The entire top floor will be taken care of by some painters and of course by ourselves, as you can see from the pictures in our newsletter.....so plenty of work for us !
In conclusion, in summary;
Given the current situation and knowledge that I have today, i.e. that we will be closed anyway until April 6 next and possibly longer, because I am also taking that into account, we will simply collect on April 1 next , so that we can continue to meet all costs in the coming period and keep our staff going so that they can continue to teach all kinds of classes now and in the future !
Of course you as a customer keep the right to this missed period whether it's a few weeks or longer, you keep the right to this period to catch up! These are also statements that we have made together with the Consumers and what they also told last week on the program Kassa on NPO 1. Because I can and may 'stick' these weeks behind your subscription period, I can spread the risk over a longer period and therefore Piazza Sports has a great chance of 'survival' and we can continue to offer the quality you are accustomed to from us.
On behalf of all my co-workers, zzp-ers and 'so the whole team, I hope for your understanding and that you will allow us to get through in this exceptional situation and thank you in advance from the bottom of my heart !
I wish you all the best and especially GOOD health for the period ahead !!!
THANK YOU!!!
Ted van Hees
Owner/director Piazza Sports