Charity Update

Seeing as it is the end of term and the season to be charitable let's have a look at what you guys achieved for Yoga Quota as a charity this term! I'll give you a clue- it has been epic!

Last year (Yoga Quota years go September to September) Yoga Quota had just begun and we were making maybe a quota a week on the busy weeks. A quota being 50 people at the studio and therefore one charity class pledged, organised and in the diary. We had an ace year- delivering 40 charity classes, and this year we are targeting doubling that to 80!  

This term right from the off we have been making quota upon quota! It has been far busier. Mondays have been insane with three full classes (24 people) and a class for New College (24 people at least) so we'd pretty much make a quota in just one evening!!

This has been awesome! Now pair this awesome success and demand for charity classes to being heavily pregnant then giving birth to a bouncing baby chap (who also needs feeding every 1.5 hours!) I had my work cut out for me to organise and deliver all these Charity classes!! Indeed, this is what targets are for... to drive us to get as much Charity work done as possible!

So looking at the piano (our new tally board for quotas using the random piano in the studio!) thank you every for coming and helping us make:

• 4 classes for Mind (I'm doing these in Jan with Alison a Yoga Quota teacher and hoping to make this a weekly class)
• 2 for Oxford Rape Crisis (I'm doing these in Jan with Cassie and again we want this to be weekly)
• 7 for Autism Family Support (I've actually organised to do these every week during term time next year which makes 39!!)
• 3 for National Autism Society in Enfield (Gabi did one of these in November but I hope that this will become a series too)

To keep up, I had to drag 'process-Engineer-Anne' from the closet. I have made the process for organising charity classes slicker. I have set up a 'Client Relationship Management System' to track and organise the contacts and teachers (granted it's only in Excel but it doesn't need to be too fancy!) And I have focused on organising series. All of the classes above are either a weekly series or are a pilot for a weekly series.

Whereas last year, we didn't make the quotas for all of the classes I did for my two fortnightly series for Restore and Steppin Stones. This year we NEED series in order to meet the quotas. Happy reverse situation.

Now, the value of doing a series is two fold- yes it is easier to organise for me. But secondly, and much more importantly, it is more valuable for the people who come to the yoga classes. Yoga is at it's best when you can set up a regular practice, regular could mean daily, weekly or at a push monthly. So a series allows people to get stuck into that regularity.

As we take a mini breather for the Christmas break and 'hibernate' I look forward to a busy year in the new year with all of you. Thanks to you we are well on track to do 80 charity classes next year which is the Yoga Quota target and of course even though we are very goal centred here we are enjoying the journey like a true yogi!