Katie Galbraith and Karen MacDonald went from acquaintances who’d give each other a polite ‘hello’ in the street, to running a fitness business with a thriving community in Oban, Scotland. How? If you ask them, it’s down to sheer drive, passion and a couple of favours. The pair took an idea that blossomed during lockdown and made it real. We spoke to the pair to find out how they got to where they are, and where they’re going next.
Q: Tell us a little about yourselves
Katie: We’ve known each other since high school but were never really close, and after school we went down very different paths. Karen went away to build a career as an optician, while I became a fitness instructor for Les Mills and via my local GP worked with people who had long term health conditions.
Karen: When I had my two small children, I decided my job as an optician didn’t fit around my family life anymore. I wasn’t into fitness at the time, but I did care about health, nutrition, and general wellbeing. When lockdown hit, I decided to retrain as a health coach, touching on all types of health both physically and psychologically.
Katie: While she was retraining we ran into each other on the street and got chatting. As she knew I worked in health and fitness, she asked if I could help her get some work experience at the GP referral to see how they steered people towards healthier lifestyles. That’s how our journey together really started.
Q: So how did the idea for starting a fitness business together come about?
Karen: While we were working together at the GP referral we found we were often thinking of new ways to get people more physically active. We referred a lot of people to local community leisure centres, but once lockdown hit their doors closed and many people were stuck for options.
Katie: We were so full of ideas, and we thought: why don’t we just keep them moving and healthy? So we set up a Facebook group, inviting people to get active with us twice a day. It was meant to start as a two week “Lockdown with Katie and Karen” virtual fitness group, with mindfulness focused classes in the morning run by Karen, and yoga based body balance class in the evening with Katie.
The Facebook group grew to 300 members, and our activities grew from those two to more types of classes, cook alongs, and general ways people could socialise and keep in touch during those tough months.
Karen: When it became clear that the lockdown wouldn’t go away as quickly as we’d all hoped, some members of the group asked us to set up a membership they could pay for, and for us to continue doing what we were doing, expanding our offering, and keeping them moving with the friends they’d made over lockdown so far.
Over one single weekend we managed to set up a website, a membership structure, payment systems, branding…the whole nine yards. It was a rushed job, but it was the start of what we have today.
The Happy Wee Health Club, before the remodel
Q: To go from zoom classes to running a brick and mortar fitness facility is quite a jump - how did you manage to go from one to the other?
Katie: We started with absolutely no money and no know-how. We did a lot of reading and called in a lot of favours. As Oban is quite a rural town, we were able to secure a Digital Boost Grant from the Government Business Gateway to help us use technology to reach more people. That’s how we first started working with Hutchison Technologies - they came recommended by Les Mills as the people to go to for any tech or AV needs.
Karen: It was quite a hassle to find a physical location for us to set up shop, then once we managed to secure a studio space, we needed to set up a way to live stream classes. We wanted to do this via Zoom at a good quality while also interacting with people in-person at our location, so it was important to get both the digital and physical aspects running perfectly.
Katie: In the meantime, we were still teaching daily and had started travelling to various community centres to host live classes. But slowly our own studio started coming together. We got flooring, some equipment, all the required tech in order to reach our audience and most importantly; we had members excited to get going.
Throughout the process, we’d often need to think on our feet to resolve an issue. Some of our members have described us as ‘building a plane while in flight’, and that’s very much what it felt like! All in all, we’re proud of what we achieved. From securing our building in October to opening to members in December, a lot had to happen and we pulled it off.
The Happy Wee Health Club after the remodel
Q: What is it that makes The Happy Wee Health Club unique?
Katie: Like many fitness business owners, I’d say “our community”, but I like to think in our case it’s genuinely true. We know all our members by name, no matter if they join our classes in person or participate via the live stream. Most of our members are very “normal” people wanting to be a part of something. Many never liked fitness and would never have set foot in a gym; they come to us because they feel safe and know they’re going to have a fun time.
Karen: There’s a university nearby called the ‘Scottish Association for Marine Science’, where they have a lot of foreign students coming to do research. When they first move to Oban they don’t have any kind of support network, but recently we found out that a bunch of our members were working in the same building and didn’t even know it. Now they have a group of friends who share an interest.
Katie: Our continued focus on live streaming our classes also makes us unique in the area. Many of our members tune in online because they don’t have childcare, or are simply too remote to commute for a fitness class. We have members join from across the isles and spread out over the region. Our community really is unique in that respect, and everyone is active and supports each other.
For us it feels amazing to see people who might otherwise feel isolated, a bit bored, or suffer from poor health, now leading a healthier and happier life.
The Happy Wee Health Club in use
Q: What’s next for The Happy Wee Health Club?
Karen: We’re currently working on expanding our studio to offer gym facilities alongside our normal classes. We have the space already but need to secure the details to turn it into an actual gym.
If all goes according to plan, we hope to open the gym by the end of December 2022. We’re speaking to some investors and we have a crowdfunding campaign running to help us finance the project. As there’s nothing quite like what we’re offering in the local area, we’re very optimistic.
Katie: We’ve been doing MasterClass with Sir Richard Branson, which is absolutely amazing for anyone wanting to set up a business. We’d love to pick his brains in person though, so if anyone has his number, put us in touch!
Hutchison Technologies helping the Happy Wee Health club set up
Hutchison Technologies is proud to support independent businesses like The Happy Wee Health Club to make a difference for their local community.
For their studio we provided general advice on what they would need in order to achieve their goals and supplied their audio visual equipment, stereo systems with speakers, mic packs and belts, installation and ongoing support to make sure their classes keep running both online and in person.
If you want to know how technology can help you better achieve your goals, get in touch with our team today.