A long (by internet standards) review of Ground Zero's History:

In the Fall of 2007, I and my wife invited a family from church into our garage to receive CrossFit training and to workout with us. Convinced that we could make a difference in people's lives with CrossFit, we affiliated and rolled up the doors of our two car garage and began our endeavor to grow a CrossFit box out of a credit card swipe and off hours training sessions. With help, we moved from the garage to an 1100 square foot warehouse bay and then, in 2011, to a 4000 square foot retail space on Main Street. This year was the first year I was "employed" full-time by the my little CrossFit box, leaving the world of engineering. At the beginning of the year, I was very optimistic that I could clean up the neglected bookkeeping, neglected back office, and day-to-day paperwork fairly quickly (a couple of months) and get to the business of making Ground Zero the premier strength and conditioning facility of Oklahoma. Heck! I now had at least 40 hours per week suddenly available, why the heck not!? In my exuberance I e-mailed the membership the following:

You probably do not know I now work full-time for Ground Zero. You are probably wondering what will happen next. More class times? More programs? What?

Well, there won't be a lot of new things happening in a tangible sense from a gym members point of view. I will be busy, but I will be doing a lot of learning, and a lot of goal setting, and a lot of planning,. While I was a structural engineer, I was simply stabbing at whatever moved. There was no planning and no evaluating. There was no relationship building within Norman's athletic community let alone among the nearby CrossFit gyms. There were a lot of projects started and not finished… like the floor mats, like painting the gym, like turning the women's restroom into a restroom instead of Frankensteins lair… (Did Frankenstein have a lair… if he did, it would look like the women's bathroom.) Even the website became an afterthought. I am excited to get those things shored up!

My highest priority is getting the things in place that help us help you succeed. In particular some way to keep track of attendance and your fitness progress. So the first quarter may be pretty dull. But I will be busy in the background cleaning up the business systems, and getting finished the projects and tasks around the gym that are left undone.

So I am really excited! Because last year was incredible and we didn't even get to do everything we could have done!

Ground Zero is gonna crush in 2012. We are going to be doing more and we are going to be doing things so much better. I am elated that you are going to be a part!

That being said, I would like your feedback.  What do you thing should be a priority for GZCF in the first three months of 2012?  Any ideas?

While my goal(s) have not changed, my timeline was indeed proven to be very optimistic! I had several unanticipated issues that sucked a lot of time and energy out of the day. One of the issues that sucked up a lot of time and energy was our noise conflict with Brown Shoe Fit. This inevitably blew up into protracted discussions with the owner of Brown's and eventually Hobby Lobby (landlord).  Additionally, we spent a large amount of time looking for a new space, negotiating with potential landlords, and planning how to move the box again.  This is still not entirely resolved by the way, and still takes up time and energy as we continue to "hunt" for a resolution. We also found that moving to Main Street somehow put us on the radar with the government. Local, state and federal. Some of you may remember my ranting about being considered a "spa". Well, that is just the beginning (did you know the sheriff actually came by with a love note at one point)! Also, my wife and I didn't anticipate the death of her father.

Why am I telling you all this?

If you've been with us since January of 2012, I think you deserve to know why, instead of three months, it was seven months before things started moving forward again at Ground Zero. However, this year, the most difficult of years, has been the most successful of years at Ground Zero. THE MOST SUCCESSFUL. The chief indication of this is the number of contestants and teams we sent to competitions/benefits WODs this year. We cannot even compare what has happened this year to last year.  We had one person enter the CrossFit Open. This year 13 people entered the CFOpen. As a gym we came in 111th out of 8000+ teams. The "hunger" is upon us as more and more people sign up for more and more competitions and DEMAND better training.  We have more and more people from other gyms rating us A+ as far as coaching on the floor and facility accommodations. Finally, we have volunteers.  People are stepping up because they want to see the gym become more people who see the potential of Ground Zero, and they are stepping up to help and volunteer to make our box great. Something profound is happening at Ground Zero.

Surveys:

We have a lot of momentum as we come into the last quarter of the year. Over the next few weeks, we will be releasing questionnaires and surveys to solicit your opinion. We want to get a handle on the needs of the people of Ground Zero. What do you want from Ground Zero? What do you like about Ground Zero, and what don't you like about Ground Zero? Be warned, if you don't fill out these surveys, your opinion will probably go un-noticed. Please don't walk up to one of the coaches in the middle of class and tell them your thoughts. It goes in one ear and out the other, at least I hope it does. Not because we don't care but because we are in the middle of COACHING! And even if your idea/opinion gets to the "top of the chain" it can easily get lost in the shuffle. So PLEASE fill out the survey!