Reflections and Learnings from our Member Survey
Blog post by Brit Guerin, MS, M.Ed, LCMHC
This past December, we sent out a survey to our community. We learned a lot and are so very grateful to each and every one of you who took the time to share your feedback. While we were happy to hear about a lot of positive feedback, we also learned some areas where we need to improve.
Our mission at Current Wellness is to activate inclusive wellness for mind, body, and community in Raleigh and beyond. We take full accountability that our efforts sometimes fall short. Even with the best intentions and educating ourselves on inclusive efforts, we have blind spots and we make mistakes. We want to apologize for the harm that has taken place in this process of learning.
We hear you and we see you, and we are committed to learning and improving.
To all of you who completed the survey, as well as participated in follow-up conversations, we cannot thank you enough for your labor that went into this.
Here are the themes of constructive feedback that have emerged from our December 2024 survey and conversations.
- Our seating is not comfortable for larger bodies.
- Specifically, the folding chairs and the bar stools.
- Our merch is not size inclusive.
- Specifically, we need our branded clothing to go up to at least 5x (the higher the better). Our belt bag that was part of our Current Rewards was also not size inclusive.
- We need to improve the representation of people on staff, including those who identify as larger-bodied; Black, Indigenous, and People of Color; and people with intersectional identities in these communities.
- Some language in classes are not inclusive for size and ability
- Specifically, sometimes there are movements that need more preemptive options for larger bodies.
From these themes, we wanted to share some initial ideas on improvement for the future. This is a starting place, but will evolve as we continue to collaborate with staff and community partners.
- We are currently researching folding chairs and bar stool options that will be better suited for folks in larger bodies. For our larger-bodied members who find the bar stools comfortable, don’t worry, they won’t go away! Our goal is to have another option that is available.
- We are researching size inclusive options for branded clothing for the Spring. This has historically been a frustrating limitation of the clothing industry, so if anyone knows of good options, please share.
- We are currently hiring instructors with more intentional efforts to recruit underrepresented identities amongst our staff. We also recently established a partnership with Wake Tech and will be an official internship site for their Health and Fitness Science program as another recruiting source.
- We are working towards ongoing resource sharing and education on size inclusive and accessibility teaching practices for ourselves and our staff. We will prioritize educators who hold marginalized identities because lived experience is incredibly important in this work.
To conclude, we are listening and acting on your feedback. We are always open to feedback and learning. A space grounded in liberation requires that we evolve and grow together.
Thank you for reading and for being a part of our community. We appreciate you and hope to share space with you soon.
In kindness,
Brit Guerin
