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Zac Ziegler: I'm Zac Ziegler, and you're listening to Oregon Rainmakers from KLCC. On this edition, I head to the Eugene Family YMCA to talk about the business of New Year's resolutions.
A quirk of our modern society is that we often see the start of the calendar year as a time to try and change things we don't like about ourselves. A Pew Research Center study found that nearly one third of participants make New Year's resolutions. Of those who do make resolutions, four out of five base at least one around health, exercise or diet. So how do places like gyms handle the sudden rush that comes to start the year? To find out, I headed to the Eugene Family YMCA to talk with Vice President of Community Engagement Beth Casper, and then to get a tour with Health and Wellness Director Kim Miller to see how the new year's resolutions rush is going. Beth starts by giving us a breakdown of what happens to the number of people walking in the door each day at the Y come January.
Beth Casper: So as you might have expected, we see increase in numbers come January, and it comes with all sorts of incredible energy, because people are really excited, right? They have made some resolutions, and they are ready to complete them. So whether that is because they want to get more physically fit and they're going up to the Health and Wellness Center, or because they've made a commitment to meet people here or engage their kids in some of our great youth programming. So for example, we track our number of visits every single day for all across, for years and years we've been doing this. So for January 2026, so far, we've had eight days where we've had over 3,000 visits to our Y so if you look across months, January is almost always our highest month, compared to something like August, where we have no days that are over 3,000 visits. Or, you know, in May, we had one day that was over 3,000 visits. A couple of other things are drop in child care rooms like Play Zone and Kid Zone, where parents can drop their kids off for two hours of free childcare and then go take a class or get some work done in our community room, those have been at capacity at least once every day so far this year.
Ziegler: And so what does it mean for the bottom line? We always hear talk of December is the month that retailers really start making their money. They move into the black. So to say, y'all are a nonprofit moving into the black may not be the best term, but is this a time of year where it's like, oh yeah, we get that nice membership bump. Maybe there's a project where we're hoping to pay for and we know we're going to get a nice chunk of change coming our direction, come January?
Casper: To be totally honest, we're not doing new member drives or anything like that. What we're really hoping to do is hold on to the members who we currently have, and we will always welcome new members in. We do see people will let their membership go if they find another place that better fits their needs, or once the weather gets nice and they're outside doing exercise outside, or something like that. But what we really focus on is keeping the member satisfaction for the people who are here very elevated. We want them to feel good about the programs we have, the spaces we have, and the staff that they're interacting with. I think that we definitely see a bump in membership in January, and we also have what happens in January is insurance renewals, where people's insurance, where they have the Y as a membership on their insurance, those change over, and we're kind of cleaning up data, so I don't have good, hard numbers for you right now for this January about new memberships, but we do see that bump in this month. And it doesn't necessarily translate to, 'oh, now we get to complete a fun project' or anything like that, because we we're really focused on retention of our members and making sure that they're having that elevated experience.
Ziegler: That covers a lot of the questions I have. How about we start doing a little walking around here? And we can hear a bit more about the space from from Kim too.
Now, Health and Wellness Director Kim Miller shows us around the facility, with Vice President of Community Engagement Beth Casper heading along and occasionally chiming in.
Kim Miller: So we are in our main lobby area. This is open up to all of our members and our community members as a launching pad for the rest of the facility. So you'll see lots of nice seating and televisions, places to connect to meet up, free library, our membership services desk, where folks can get all their answers and questions and look for help for whatever they need. Here with us, we've got our youth part of our youth development, our early learning hallway over that way for our preschool kiddos, and that's secured for them so that it's just staff, kiddos and parents who are coming that way.
Casper: You know, part of our protection to youth is to have everyone who goes through these doors right here have their ID checked at the desk. It gets scanned similarly to how you would if you're a volunteer in a school so that they're checked against the National Sex Offender list, and again, it's our commitment to youth protection. We would love to invite you to scan in through that way as well.
Ziegler: Sure thing, I get it. No exceptions for reporters, we are very we're very big on this- we as in our industry.
Miller: So we are heading down first. This is our youth hallway and our locker rooms. We're passing some admins and private locker rooms that are going to give families and individuals and private access to our aquatic center, we're passing by our Play Zone, which houses our littles, while parents and adults are in the Y facility doing classes or taking care of themselves in other ways. So our littles to our biggers, and then we just keep getting older as we head down the hallway to Creation Station, which in about an hour is probably gonna be pretty packed with our middle schoolers who come right across from Roosevelt and some who make it down the hill from other middle schools. So they're going to find staff in there that are going to help get them doing activities and games and socializing and being a safe, supportive place for after school.
Ziegler: Yes, I've dropped my daughter off there on days off from school while I go to work.
Miller: Does she have fun stories when she comes home?
Ziegler: Usually, yes
Miller: And crafts?
Ziegler: Yes
Miller: She enjoys it?
Ziegler: Oh yes, yes.
Miller: Then we have our quarter hut, and then our basketball gym, which is just now wrapping up some pickleball play. So we had some mixers happening here in the gym. They also often happen over at our tennis and pickleball center. So staff are putting away equipment, members are lacing up those shoes and getting ready to head out. Looks like we've got some basketball players getting ready to take over the gym for after school and open gym time.
Ziegler: I just missed out on that nat sound of pickleball bouncing.
Casper: I guess Creation Station at about 4:00 every day has been at our program capacity, because so many kiddos are coming over after school, which is amazing. So they're all doing arts and crafts, robotics. We have Legos in there. They're just getting all creative in that space.
Miller: So right now, we have the start of our youth coming in, those that get out of school a little earlier. So we're starting to pick up out here. And whenever we have capacity, or we have things being full, we really try to put a spin on it, as this is an opportunity to connect. This is an opportunity to support each other, to show up as our best selves and really lean into the community atmosphere, because we're all here trying to do the same thing: take care of ourselves, get exercise in, get movement in and that's not a limited resource. That's something that should be shared.
Ziegler: What are some of the tricks to helping people get past those first couple of weeks? How do you get people past the excuse making phase? We'll be honest.
Miller: Well, first we always want to welcome and harness any motivation that brings people in, but then layered on top of that, we really want to help them find something that they enjoy, that works for them, offering variety if they want some more accountability and supports. Personal training is always an option for folks. Group fitness classes are always great. Staff are here to help navigate any registration or app usage. They're here to help show how to start and stop equipment like there, you will see there are staff, and no matter what their department or what their role is, they are usually always welcoming and helpful and willing to stop and get a button pressed or explain something that's happening in the facility. So we try to let that natural motivation get them started, and then if we can create a positive, welcoming experience, we know they'll come back, because most folks are looking for somewhere just to run on a treadmill or somewhere just to lift something heavy, because there's lots of those options. I think people choose the Y, because it is a community, it is supportive, and that's going to be happening every day that we're here.
Casper: I think the other thing that we know is that when people build relationships, they continue their health journey. So if they build those relationships in a group fitness class with the fellow participants or with a staff member, they'll continue to come back. And so we really try to foster environments where they're making friends, right? We want it to be open and welcoming and inclusive and a place where they feel very connected to each other.
Ziegler: Yeah, yeah. Those new friends can also become your accountability buddies. And when they don't see in class, one day, you get a text message that says, 'Hey, where were you today?'
Casper: Absolutely, absolutely.
Ziegler: So I look over and one of the stair treadmills I see, you've got a crew member working hard to get it fixed. I guess, how do you cope with the added wear and tear of all of these extra visitors? Because this equipment, it's not going to run forever.
Miller: It is not. We really have a strategic plan set to always be renewing and updating our equipment on a pretty aggressive rotation so that we can keep top of the line things that are going to serve our members. But with all of this, prevention is key. It's just like servicing your car. You don't go for the max miles or the max time. You go for whichever comes first. We want prevention with all of it, so we work with our vendors and providers and our staff to really just try to stay ahead of everything with preventative maintenance, as well as really having a dialed in system to respond to anything that's out of order as quickly as we can. So we can head out to our Spencer Terrace. Now, this time of year, it might be not quite as utilized as often, since it's a nice, secure outdoor space. But on a tour I was giving yesterday with a youth member, and we were talking about it, he was saying, it's kind of cold out here. I'm like, 'Yeah, but if you're working hard, it's gonna feel good.'
Ziegler: There's been plenty of times that after work I just go stand outside and go, ahhhhh...
Miller: Well, this is an "ahhh" place that includes an "ahhh" view, and so it's a great place for folks to expand, and that's part of education with our members too. Is that the floor seems busy, but we have this great open space right out here if you need it. We utilize some of our studios when they're not filled with classes that we keep it as an open, safe space for members to use. So we're always happy to answer those questions and help folks find spaces to take care of themselves.
Casper: And we've tucked some equipment on the edges of the indoor track too, so people can go do rowing back there, there's a bicycle. So we definitely have utilized all of the open areas to make sure that people can find areas for equipment that maybe isn't easy to get on, on the health and wellness floor.
Ziegler: Oh yeah, yeah, take advantage of those little corners, because it's a square room and a round track, right?
Miller: So more things when we're talking about the space age and the usage that we do always track numbers. We do our head counts. We try to just do the most good and serve the most folks with the space we have, and balancing that with really things that are mission driven, that are kind of the things we think are the right things to do in the community. So spaces sometimes do get reserved and used for other options. We are just starting a new Livestrong at the YMCA program, and so that indoor track that we have was reserved for about an hour so they could do their pre testing for their program series. And then that'll happen again at the end. And so we do allow for flex and specific usage. We just try to have as much forewarning to prepare people and let them know that it's for a good cause.
Ziegler: Well, yeah, thanks for taking me on a tour and helping folks understand a little more about how we keep that- how those New Year's resolutions come into effect,
Miller: Finding definitely those communities, that motivation, finding the reason behind what you're doing, and hopefully the Y is going to be a great place for that to happen.
Ziegler: That was Eugene Family YMCA’s Kim Miller and Beth Casper. This has been Oregon Rainmakers from KLCC. I'm Zac Ziegler. Thanks for listening.
