Fit for Social Change: Using Fitness to Build Strong Communities
Join us to hear from Grimsby based young social entrepreneur Bailey Greetham-Clarke, CEO Be Great Fitness who started his own business at just 17 years old.
More information about Be Great Fitness can be found here – https://www.begreatfitness.org/
The company – At Be Great Fitness, we are driven to make fitness accessible to all! We use the term accessibility in the broadest term possible by breaking the word down into specific categories: ability, cost, time and location. By working with a variety of people who may not be able to access guided fitness, we want to provide safe spaces for them to improve their wellbeing through exercise.
We work with specific groups ranging from people with additional needs to the elderly, and behavioural management as well as providing safe spaces for people to improve their wellbeing through exercise.
All of our sessions run out of a variety of multiple facilities, schools and community centres around the whole of Lincolnshire with our main aim to ensure all of our sessions cost little to nothing to join in.
Bailey – (Snippet from an interview with Grimbarians) At age 13, Bailey dropped out of school when he suffered from severe anxiety, calling
this quite a dark time in his life. Ultimately, he found the confidence to say ‘No, I’ve got to do something about this’ – and he went for a run. Bailey was in his jeans and a pair of old trainers, and managed short bursts of running and walking, but he did it and kept on going. He joined a gym and after sticking to a fitness routine that worked for him, he noticed a positive change in both his physical and mental health. He felt confident enough to return to school and take up a new sport, boxing. Bailey fought his way to become a northern champion and placed second in the England Boxing National Development Championships.
In 2019, Bailey was named the ‘Under 16 Student of the Year’ at the Grimsby Telegraph’s Golden Apple Awards, chosen by the judges for overcoming barriers and adversity. This helped Bailey to realise that “I can do good things, even if it’s not in the way society tells me.
“When I was leaving school, I was told to ‘get a trade’ but it didn’t feel right to me. I studied construction and had an apprenticeship with Anglian Water, but as Covid hit and we had to study at home, I knew it wasn’t right for me, so I quit.
“I saw how lockdown was affecting people and understood how quickly you can get into a bad state when you’re at home all the time, often alone. I wanted to develop something that could help. People need access to free fitness, and I had some business and marketing experience from working at Jazz Clothing in Abbeygate, so that’s when I started BeGreatFitness, in lockdown in 2020 when I was 17.”
BeGreatFitness provides people of all ages and abilities with access to a variety of exercise classes, all completely free of charge. In 2020, Bailey began working with local charity Flourish to provide online BoxFit classes for young adults with learning disabilities. Since then, Bailey, along with his team of coaches, is delivering Women’s BoxFit, Stroke Mobility
sessions, after school boxing, sports classes designed to engage children with behavioural challenges, and specialist projects with the students of Grimsby’s Cambridge Park. These sessions are taking place across Northern Lincolnshire and are being scaled up to help potentially thousands of people nationally. “There is no limit. I didn’t start this to help just a few people, I want to help a hell of a lot of people. So yes, this is a business, but it’s good for people, we’re a community.”
In 2022, Bailey and BeGreatFitness was a winner of the inaugural Mayor’s Civic Awards, which celebrates people doing positive work in and around Grimsby, taking home a trophy for the Healthy Living category. He has scored his first national award shortlisting as a Young Entrepreneur in the Start Up Awards, and will this week find out if he is a winner at the Northern Lincolnshire Business Awards 2022, where he is a finalist in the New Business and Young Business Person categories.
“It’s massively important for people to have some sort of hobby, to take the pressure off everyday life. And there are so many jobs now that have been made up in the last 10 to 20 years that no longer fit with a strict academic style. Kids need to go to a tech club to become the next great innovator, or to experiment with fashion to become a fashion designer, the next Dior, whatever it may be. It’s important for young people to have access to different hobbies and to have different aspirations.”
If you are interested in attending this event please see the link below.
