On a national basis, only 8.8%* of disabled people are regularly physically active and Freedom Leisure and its partners are actively working to encourage more local people with disabilities to participate in sport and exercise. In order for the centre to receive the award, Freedom Leisure has ensured that there is equipment in the gym to allow disabled members to enjoy a work out. There are sufficient and accessible parking bays and toilet and changing facilities. There are further improvements planned between now and the end of the year, including £12,000 worth of new fitness equipment. To enable as many people as possible to be able to participate in exercise the centre offers a range of pricing options..

Having a disability should not be a barrier to keeping fit and being able to enjoy exercise. With easy disabled access, trained staff and the right equipment, Freedom Leisure aims to make using the gym a trouble-free and a fun experience. Freedom Leisure’s friendly and fully trained staff can help to create exercise programmes that will increase physical activity at a level that suits the individual, they are also there to support, motivate and help people to achieve their personal goals. All this helps make the change to a more physically active lifestyle as easy as possible which can reduce the risk of some cancers, cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes and obesity.

Chris Lovelock Centre Manager at K2 Crawley commented, ‘The increased investment in the centre has made a tangible difference to our disabled customers’ experience here at K2 Crawley. It is important to the whole Freedom Leisure team that we provide accessible facilities and a wide variety of activities for all members of the local community. These improvements and those set for the future are great steps forward in providing more fitness activities for all who wish to use K2 Crawley.’

Councillor Lenny Walker, Cabinet member for Leisure and Cultural Services at Crawley Borough Council, said: “This is great news for Freedom Leisure, Crawley Wellbeing and the council. We try very hard to make our services accessible to all and K2 Crawley is no exception. The fact that it is the only approved 2012 Paralympic training camp in Sussex proves this.”

For more information on the new autumn timetable please visit www.freedom-leisure.co.uk or call 01293 585 300.

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Media contacts

Tanya Hillman or Kylie Rathbone at KBC PR on 01825 76 36 36 kylie.rathbone@kbc-pr.com or Karen Burrell, Freedom Leisure’s Head of Sales & Marketing on 01825 747710 Karen.Burrell@freedom-leisure.co.uk

Notes to Editors:

Freedom Leisure is the leading not-for-profit leisure trust in the South East managing 21 leisure and fitness centres across Sussex and Kent, including K2 Crawley, one of the country’s flagship leisure centres.  Freedom Leisure is committed to the provision and development of inclusive leisure and fitness facilities. Through continued investment, Freedom Leisure strives to provide a wide range of opportunities for improving health and wellbeing for all its communities.

* Sport England Active People Survey 2006.

Since the age of 12 Dudley Tredger, has been training with the Crawley Sword Club at K2 Crawley. Now 29 years old, this is the second time that Dudley has qualified for the games and he is due to compete in the Men’s Epee event. Dudley is looking to improve on his previous bronze and silver medals from eight years ago and bring home a gold medal for the Crawley Sword Club. The games which are held every four years will run between 29 September and 7 October, 2010.

Chris Lovelock, K2 Crawley centre manager commented, ‘K2 Crawley is one of the UK’s flagship fitness and leisure centres, featuring state-of-the-art facilities that are ideal for club’s like the Crawley Sword Club and provide an excellent training environment for athletes like Dudley. We are delighted that Dudley has made it to the Commonwealth Fencing Championships – which is a fantastic achievement.  Everyone at K2 will be rooting for Dudley and wish him the best of luck in Melbourne.” 

For more information on the K2 Crawley, the facilities available and regular club activities please visit     www.freedom-leisure.co.uk or call 01293 585 300. 

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Media contacts:

Tanya Hillman or Kylie Rathbone at KBC PR on 01825 76 36 36 kylie.rathbone@kbc-pr.com or Karen Burrell, Freedom Leisure’s Head of Sales & Marketing on 01825 747710 Karen.Burrell@freedom-leisure.co.uk

Notes to Editors:

Freedom Leisure is the leading not-for-profit leisure trust in the South East managing 21 leisure and fitness centres across Sussex and Kent, including K2 Crawley, one of the country’s flagship leisure centres.  Freedom Leisure is committed to the provision and development of inclusive leisure and fitness facilities. Through continued investment, Freedom Leisure strives to provide a wide range of opportunities for improving health and wellbeing for all its communities.

Fredericton comes alive for six days each September for the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival as hundreds of world class performers appear on dozens of stages, all conveniently located in Fredericton’s beautiful and historic downtown.  Whether you want to dance all night at a spicy Cajun party, listen to the raw sounds of electric blues, sway to some smooth jazz or just get your funk on, you’ll find something to tempt every musical taste – all at a price that’s easy on the wallet. The festival takes place from 14^th – 19^th September. See www.harvestjazzandblues.com for more information.

The capital city of Fredericton is perfect for an Autumn escape. The cycling trails along the St. John River are a great way to meander through the city, just as the leaves are starting to change.  Cool evenings and pleasantly warm days, make it the perfect time of year for discovering this East Coast gem. The Boyce Farmers Market on Saturdays is an abundance of fresh, local harvest produce and a colourful place to explore. A wide range of restaurants throughout Fredericton offer a taste of Autumn using an array of local ingredients.

Music and menus, what a heavenly combination!

Try the “Delicious Delights of Dildo” this Autumn in Newfoundland and Labrador

September and October on the Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland and Labrador offers stunning coastlines, migrating birds, lighthouses and quaint harbour towns to explore. The beautiful scenery makes the province the perfect outdoor lover’s paradise, great for pulling on your hiking boots and hitting the trails. In the evening, sit back, relax, and enjoy some local theatre where actors whisk you away to another place and time, or experience local traditions at one of many vibrant autumn festivals.

The Inn by the Bay is a Canada Select Country Inn, located in Dildo, a traditional Newfoundland outport. The ‘Delicious Delights In Dildo’ package includes 1 nights’ accommodation in the Postage Room, Smith Room or Reid’s Room, dinner for 2 at a local restaurant and a welcome food themed gift basket as well as 15% discount at the Dildo Trading Post. All this for just $179/£115 per couple.  Inn by the Bay is conveniently located on the Baccalieu Trail, a quick 50 minutes from St. John’s and directly on the oceanfront.

Celebrate vibrant colours and Celtic music in Nova Scotia

The Celtic Colours International Festival takes place from 8-16 October. The nine day festival on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, is home to a unique celebration of music and culture.  Celtic Colours International Festival presents over 200 musicians, dancers, singers and storytellers in concerts and workshops in communities around Cape Breton. Experience the Celtic culture when the fall leaves are at their most brilliant and travelling around offers one spectacular view after another. www.celtic-colours.com

Nova Scotia becomes even more vibrant with the changing colours of the fall leaves.  The spectacular Cabot Trail, on Cape Breton Island, is considered one of the world’s most scenic drives and is truly breathtaking during Mother Nature’s display of fall foliage. Drive this magnificent highway carved into the edge of ancient highlands ascending to the incredible plateaus of Cape Breton Highlands National Park.  To fully enjoy this beautiful area, explore the charming communities around the Cabot Trail, hike highland trails, golf, sea-kayak, and listen to the local Celtic music. The Cabot Trail is awe-inspiring in all seasons. www.novascotia.com

Escape this Autumn and sample the flavour of Prince Edward Island

Autumn in Prince Edward Island, Canada’s smallest province, offers picture perfect weather, blue skies, beautiful seas and gently changing colours. It can also be a great time of year to get a deal as the Island’s hotels and cottages offer unbeatable packages to extend the season. Enjoy a culinary masterpiece, unforgettable golf, first-rate theatre, plenty of shopping, and accommodations to match every taste – all at special autumn rates that will keep you smiling long after you’ve returned home. Discover your Fall Escape to Prince Edward Island.

The Fall Flavours event takes place from 3^rd – 30^th September and is the perfect way to discover the source of local foods and to see how they’re prepared and served. Choose from more than 130 events, including Farm Day in the City, Organic Harvest Meal, and the Handcrafted Ales & Wine Festival. Take part in interactive workshops to learn about pickling and preserves, or the art of cheese-and-wine pairing. Join PEI’s renowned chef, Michael Smith for the ‘Taste Our Island Roving Feast’.  

Flights to the region of Atlantic Canada are available with Canadian Affair. Return Economy Class flights from London Gatwick to Halifax from £326 per person including taxes.  Based on travel dates 14-21 October 2010. For further information or to make a reservation please call 020 7616 9933 or visit www.canadianaffair.com

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For media enquiries, images or to arrange a press trip to Atlantic Canada contact Tanya Hillman or Kylie Rathbone at KBC Public Relations and Marketing: Telephone: 01825 76 36 36 Email – tanya.hillman@kbc-pr.com

Editors Notes:

The Atlantic Canada region is coastal Canada on our doorstep.  Just five hours away from the UK, the provinces of New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island have all the perfect elements for an interesting and inspiring escape.  Each province has its own character but all are renowned for their outstanding natural beauty, stunning coastline, friendly people, incredible seafood, UNESCO World Heritage sites and National Parks. This region really is Canada’s best-kept secret.

To discover more about Atlantic Canada visit www.AtlanticCanadaHoliday.ca. or take a tour.

 September 2010

If you want to get physically fit, experts say you have to both exercise and eat properly. Similarly, in business, if you want to have productive relationships, they need to be “exercised” properly, or their health will suffer …and of course, this can also involve eating – sensibly or not!

Take a moment to ask yourself: when you aim to stay fit, combining exercise for Cardio-vascular, strength, and suppleness, which approach works?

Do you:

1. go crazy when you can find the time, and take a sprint on the treadmill at 5 minutes’ notice, then collapse, exhausted, until the next time?
2. never leave home, watch sport on TV or perhaps do a so-called ‘work-out’ on the Wii Fit?
   or
3. find a good Gym, and with help of a Personal Trainer, plan a personalised training programme, using the correct equipment for you?

Thinking again about your approach to Business-Travel, would you choose to commit yourself to a crazy, intensive schedule every so often, that will simply exhaust you? Or plan to invest your time in a sustainable routine that will result in sustainable, long-term benefits without causing injury?
And would you combine your chosen (travel) activity with lots of rich food, or stick to a healthy-eating plan?

We all know what would work best… so let’s apply what we’ve understood.

Here, we analyse and compare the Relationship-Health benefits across three styles of Business Travel:

(Default) Option One: Single-Focus Short, Ad-hoc Business-Trip (Hotel)

• Cost-intensive, rushed, de-humanising and Carbon-laden sprint to put a face to the name and establish a bare minimum relationship – to be able to say “I’ve met him/her”.
• Better than “No Contact”.
• Does at least allow all five senses to be exercised, not just Vision and Hearing.
• Limited scope for deepening relationships, combined with adverse effect on home relationships, if done excessively.

Option Two: Video-Conference (A/V Web Meeting)

• A cost-effective alternative to Flying? That’s too simplistic…after all, do you persevere with the Wii Fit
• Essentially an economy-measure, exchanging a lower-quality of practical and emotional contact, for cost benefits, particularly where relationships are already sufficiently established.
• Better than “No Contact”.
• Only Audio-Visual.
• Useful to “top-up” a strong and key long-distance relationship which does not generate enough value to support the Carbon-inclusive costs of travel alternative.
• Some exercise is better than no exercise, but it’s not going to make you a Champion..

Option Three: Strategic Business Mission (Serviced Apartment)

• Planned, cost effective investment in key Business Relationships.
• Total cultural experience is available, combined with a schedule of other meetings and experiences. Allows “Total Immersion” in local culture, including “normal” time.
• Accessing the wider health benefits: Stress is reduced, productivity is improved, by the provision of a “home” territory, meaning that lifestyle and a healthy diet is less affected by the need to “exercise relationships”, and therefore more likely to be maintained.
• Accommodation comes with its own meeting room.
• Intensity can be regulated – excellent scope for integrating Work-Life balance into Global Business.
• Flexible to allow for team-building, intensive training and development of key personnel, rehabilitation and preparation for a life-long, healthy business partnership.

Conclusions:  Thinking outside the default option is essential, and pays dividends.

There are potential Carbon-savings from cutting the number of trips, but some travel is going to continue to be highly valuable.

Productivity and Key Staff retention is improved if Business Travel (and regular exercise!) is incorporated into a balanced plan for more organic itineraries, which allow the Executives to develop relationships which can be sustained without flight-intensive ping-pong lifestyles.

Key Staff can become part of the culture in which they need to be engaged, and Video-conferencing can be used cost and carbon-effectively, to support an integrated programme of both Relationship-growth and personal development.

So get fit and stay fit for Winning Business Relationships!

Make the smart-choice to exercise your long-distance relationships sustainably, in every sense of that word: Consult Select Apartments, the ‘Personal Trainers’ of the serviced apartment world.

Select Apartments are able to create a personalised accommodation ‘fitness’ plan for your Executives, featuring the widest choice of apartment rentals on short and extended durations to meet your specific business travel requirements.

For further information on how to book a serviced apartment in London, the UK or worldwide with Select Apartments visit www.selectapartments.co.uk call 0845 055 6352.

To see more videos like these, go to www.floridababy.co.uk

All the videos are hosted on YouTube and feature within the relevant sections of the FloridaBaby.co.uk website which is also packed with further information about travelling with babies and toddlers, and includes its own forum for visitors to share their own tips and advice.  All the videos can be shared with friends, and there are facilities to leave comments and video responses via YouTube.

The media event was sponsored by Orlando CVB and many of the major national press and parenting titles joined us at the launch, including The Sun, Sunday Mirror, The People and Junior magazine, along with representatives from Disney, SeaWorld, Orlando CVB and, of course, our friends at Travel City Direct.  Following the drinks reception, we all moved into the screening room to watch a presentation by Helena Beard from KBC PR & Marketing about the customer insight which led to the development of the idea for Florida Baby, the unveiling of the site itself, and a selection of videos from the site.  To see the videos and visit the site, go to www.floridababy.co.uk

Lisa Minot, The Sun and James Ellis, Express, Sun & Metro talk to Lucy Quilliam, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment

Helena Beard, KBC PR & Marketing, unveils FloridaBaby.co.uk to the media

www.floridababy.co.uk home page

For junior members, aged between 11-18 years old, the already popular Monday evening Junior Spin class is being complemented by a new energetic Junior Circuit Class on Wednesday evenings. Both classes are a great way to boost energy, stay fit and also relieve some of those term time stresses.

Brand new to K2 Crawley on Sundays and Fridays is Zumba. This latest fitness craze, is a hip swivelling combination of African, Caribbean and Latin dance moves and aerobics. It is fun, easy to do and helps to tone and sculpt the body through fast and slow routines. No dancing experience is needed, just lots of energy!

Whether training for a charity run next year or just running for the pure enjoyment, K2 Crawley has a Beginners Run Club which will take place every Tuesday evening at 5:30pm on the athletics track until 31 October.

Now there is a great excuse to get out of the office at lunchtime. Due to customer demand, you can now take a Body Balance class on Friday lunchtimes. This class is incorporates Pilates, Yoga and Tai Chi and is a fantastic way to start the weekend.

For more information on the new autumn timetable please visit www.freedom-leisure.co.uk or call 01293 585 300.

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Media contacts:

Tanya Hillman or Kylie Rathbone at KBC PR on 01825 76 36 36 kylie.rathbone@kbc-pr.com or Karen Burrell, Freedom Leisure’s Head of Sales & Marketing on 01825 747710 Karen.Burrell@freedom-leisure.co.uk

Notes to Editors:

Freedom Leisure is the leading not-for-profit leisure trust in the South East managing 21 leisure and fitness centres across Sussex and Kent, including K2 Crawley, one of the country’s flagship leisure centres.  Freedom Leisure is committed to the provision and development of inclusive leisure and fitness facilities. Through continued investment, Freedom Leisure strives to provide a wide range of opportunities for improving health and wellbeing for all its communities.

Florida Baby homepage

Travel City Direct launches FloridaBaby.co.uk; a brand new website to help parents navigate their way to the perfect Florida holiday 

Today sees the launch of a brand new website designed to answer the many questions posed by parents planning holidays to Florida and Walt Disney World with babies and toddlers.  FloridaBaby.co.uk has been developed by Travel City Direct, the Florida family holiday specialists, and contains dozens of hints and travel tips, an interactive customer forum, and seven entertaining information videos. 

The videos cover the entire journey from the UK to Florida, including a short animation about getting ready to go, with documentary-style films about flying with a baby, Orlando International Airport, car rental, and the facilities and rides suitable for toddlers and babies at Walt Disney World. 

The site is also introduced with a three minute comedy about Travel City Direct’s own ‘Florida Baby’, Max, and his family travelling to Orlando.  Filmed from his perspective, in a ‘Look Who’s Talking’ style, it was directed by one of London’s hottest young filmmakers, Robert Hindle.

The videos and the site seek to answer questions such as ‘Can you buy nappies on International Drive?’, ‘Is it safe to take my baby out in the Florida sunshine’, ‘Can I buy baby food at the Magic Kingdom?’ and ‘What sort of car seat should I book for my two year old?’ – all of which are real life queries posted by parents on the many online message boards that currently exist.

Although the site focuses on holidays to Florida, much of the advice and information will be useful for anyone flying with young children and babies.

More films will be posted tomorrow!

The main aim of Exercise4Life is to get the UK moving and ultimately improve the nation’s health through exercise. To take part participants just need to sign up at www.exercise4life.org and select their challenges. Each challenge can be tailored i.e. runners, cyclists and swimmers can all choose to cover 1, 5 or 10 miles. Whilst sponsorship is not required to enter, sports enthusiasts can sign up to support the WRIGHT Foundation Research, which carries out continued research into the prevention and improvement of chronic medical conditions through activity and exercise. This includes research into cancer, heart and lung disease. All fundraisers will receive a certificate of achievement, whilst top fund-raisers have the chance to win a prize, such as a luxury weekend break for two to a Marriott Hotel.

Jeff Hart, Managing Director, Freedom Leisure said “We see it as a key priority to support these national health initiatives.  Many of our staff have signed up for the challenge and we hope that Freedom Leisure members and non-members alike will make September a month to focus on health and fitness.  Not only will this challenge personally benefit participants, but if you sign up to raise money for the WRIGHT Foundation Research we can learn more about how exercise can potentially combat these life limiting diseases”. 

To find out more about Freedom Leisure visit www.freedom-leisure.co.uk

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Media contacts:

Tanya Hillman or Kylie Rathbone at KBC PR on 01825 76 36 36 kylie.rathbone@kbc-pr.com or Karen Burrell, Freedom Leisure’s Head of Sales & Marketing on 01825 747710 Karen.Burrell@freedom-leisure.co.uk

Notes to Editors:

Participating Freedom Leisure Centres include:

Freedom Leisure is the leading not-for-profit leisure trust in the South East managing 21 leisure and fitness centres across Sussex and Kent, including K2 Crawley, one of the country’s flagship leisure centres.  Freedom Leisure is committed to the provision and development of inclusive leisure and fitness facilities. Through continued investment, Freedom Leisure strives to provide a wide range of opportunities for improving health and wellbeing for all its communities.