The Inclusive Fitness Initiative (IFI) staged its highly successful Fit For Inclusion? national conference on 13 December 2006 at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, Westminster, attracting more than 250 delegates.
The event was an opportunity for fitness industry senior managers and practitioners to learn how to implement or further develop the principles of inclusive fitness and to realise the commercial benefits this brings.
The event also attracted a healthy spread of fitness equipment suppliers and manufacturers who have worked with the IFI. Unusual among the exhibitors however was Craftsman Quality Lockers (CQL) who have established a close working relationship with IFI over the last three years, even though they do not manufacture fitness equipment.
The IFI was farsighted enough to respond to an approach by CQL Managing Director John Gibbs to attend one of the IFI’s accreditation forums to unveil a locker specifically developed for disabled people.
From that approach has sprung a complete range for this target group, including units for people with a visual impairment, featuring tactile features such as tactile numbering, and signage systems and, for those with manual difficulties, lockers with pistol grips to aid easy of opening.
Marketed under the Equalizer registered design, the range has enjoyed strong sales throughout the UK as leisure and fitness centres strive to become fully inclusive meeting the requirements of the DDA.
Key installations for the Equalizer range include Hollywood Golf Club in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where CQL has completed a unique project in which the club received grant aid to upgrade its changing facilities on the condition that it included provision for lockers catering for disabled people.
Earlier in 2006, CQL chalked up another key installation when it supplied Equaliser lockers to the prestigious fitness facility at Bedworth & Nuneaton Swimming Pool. Under a project to extend fitness at the site, which involved converting existing squash courts, the work received Government sponsored funding to upgrade changing on condition that 10% of all lockers at the site catered for disabled people.
Commenting on the IFI’ s enduring relationship with CQL, Sue Catton of the IFI commented: “The disability market has an annual spending power in excess of £80bn, and a significantly higher rate of inactivity than the population as a whole. Yet for many years the fitness industry has not attracted participation by disabled people.
“We have welcomed the partnership with CQL in what is a farsighted initiative to meet the needs of disabled people in changing facilities and we have no hesitation in recommending their product.”
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