Ollie: Hello, and it's a real treat today. I'm joined by Ivo Gormley, someone who we at Peak Health Coaching have really admired and the energy he puts into the things he does is absolutely fantastic. So Ivo is a UK social entrepreneur, an anthropologist and filmmaker by background, but really well known for being founder of ⁓ Good Gym, ⁓ which now has 26,000 members, operates from close to 70 sites across the UK and England. So welcome. I want to start this week with a brief apology. Those regular listeners may have noticed that our initial episode 17 was actually a repeat of episode 16 and not the excellent chat with Joanne Smith. We've rectified that now and we'd highly recommend hearing Joanne's incredible story from chronic pain to ultra runner with chronic pain to ultra runner now without chronic pain and much insight learning along the way. It's a truly inspiring personal journey. Ivo: great ⁓ be here speaking to you, Ollie. Ollie: But onto this week's interview. So this week, I speak to Ivo Gormley, founder of Gym. ⁓ Ivo one of those rare who not reflects deeply on the issues in life, but then takes action. What we would call a truly compassionate approach. Gym, as you hear, is Ivo's idea combine being and moving ⁓ with doing good, exercise with a purpose. I've ⁓ taken part in some Good Gym missions ⁓ but ⁓ our audience love to hear a little bit more from the founder. ⁓ us a little bit about Good Gym why set it up. sees it as part of the antidote to modern city living where you can be surrounded by people and yet feel totally alone. Ivo: suppose, like many ⁓ entrepreneurs in general, it began as a solution to my own ⁓ problem. ⁓ used play basketball, and that was a big ⁓ part of life, and having that kind of social context and being ⁓ part of a group of people who did that thing was important. And ⁓ when I ⁓ didn't have team anymore, ⁓ wasn't ⁓ playing, ⁓ friends saying I should go to the gym. And I didn't like that idea ⁓ of just quite isolated ⁓ Ollie: Imaginative and creative ways to generate opportunities to address these wider determinants of health are central to what we believe at peak health coaching. And we hope as always this conversation gets you thinking. Ivo: form of exercise where you're doing something just for yourself And so I started running to deliver the newspaper to an older neighbour basically and it was I knew about him through a friend he was ⁓ pretty much housebound at that stage he had various ⁓ long-term conditions and so I ⁓ run ⁓ and bring in the newspaper which go around and drop it off and we'd have a bit of a chat. And over years, that was a really positive part of my life. was doing that bit of exercise to get there. He was always very encouraging and told me to run further and faster. Ollie: Yeah. Ivo: And for him, it was someone visiting him on a day where he wouldn't otherwise see any other people. And it just seemed to make sense. And it also seemed to tap into something that humans have always done. It's only in the 20th century that we sort of invented this idea of exercise for its own sake. It would have been the case that just to exist, we would have had to, you know... Ollie: Yeah. Yeah. Ivo: do some farming or climb up trees to get honey or your life just to exist, there would be a significant amount of physical exertion that would ⁓ keep us in good shape and we've of ironed that out of our lives now. So suppose Good Gym is trying to recreate that aspect of our exercise being ⁓ literally functional. It achieves a goal that is bigger and we're particularly focused on achieving some kind of community outcome or something that helps us. Ollie: Yeah. Ivo: people. Since then, I suppose around 15 years ago, I've just been trying to make it easier for people to combine their exercise with helping their community. So now we continue to support isolated older people with deliveries or basic household and garden tasks. And we also support community organizations with any kind of unskilled practical work. So a lot of shifting food at food banks, pay Ollie: Yeah. Ivo: paths, shifting earth around for community gardens, anything that is for the good of the public we approach it as if it's a workout. Ollie: love that, it's brilliant. I love the fact you started with a personal problem yourself. Did you start out, you know, when you were delivering the newspaper to this gentleman, did the idea come to you gradually or had you already had bit of an idea this is something you wanted to do? Ivo: ⁓ it was just for me and then after a couple of years I was thinking this has actually really got me to start enjoying and running. It's got me to look forward to it as a sort of really great part of my week. So if it's worked for me maybe it could work for other people too and then slowly just in my spare time and weekend started trying to get other people to do the same thing and then I think around 2013 I was a Ollie: brilliant. Ivo: to then sort of take the plunge and it felt more important than anything else I was working on and so I started doing it full-time. Ollie: Brilliant and this is now your main job running good gym and growing it and seeing how far you can extend it. Ivo: 10 years now I have been ⁓ doing ⁓ just ⁓ focusing this, to it and now lucky to work with 10 or so ⁓ colleagues and then lots of ⁓ people ⁓ in cities ⁓ over UK ⁓ help make it think we're trying to be ⁓ as ⁓ efficient as ⁓ we trying really what are the barriers people doing this. think people generally would like to do a bit more exercise. They would generally like to do a little bit more to help your community where you live. And so how do we make this, you know, this sort of a really prominent, easy to get involved with ⁓ activity? And I think we're not just, you know, I think it's very interesting with sports participation at the moment, or physical activity participation, that it's not Ollie: Yeah. Thank Ivo: doesn't seem to be growing, but we do have, I think, actually quite good provision these days with things like the brilliant expansion of Parkrun and various other ⁓ free to access ⁓ activities, but yet we're still not at the levels that we want to be in terms of physical activity. So think there is some really bigger picture. Ollie: Mmm. Ivo: factors that are going on that are preventing us from being as active as we want to be. Ollie: Yeah, yeah. Well, and I love that bit. You've written about that. I've heard you talk about that sort of sense of purpose bit, which you're talking about there, that actually that's often for many people, that's more of a motivator than just getting fit. did that sort of evolve for you or did you discover that through seeing how it worked well for other people? Because that's such a powerful sort of shift in the dynamic of why you're doing your exercise, isn't it? Ivo: it is about me, might learn, but I find it ⁓ much easier ⁓ commit to if there is ⁓ something else going on ⁓ around it. I think generally we find that ⁓ if people going to notice ⁓ if you up or not, your motivation ⁓ decreases massively. Whereas if like 10 of us thinking, ⁓ I'm really forward to seeing ⁓ Ollie on ⁓ more likely to be there and I think that was you know the big sort of clicking point if there was one with Good Gym was when we started doing weekly sessions started seeing really lovely ⁓ community ⁓ form around it where people ⁓ were know catching up with each other a that you you might at pub ⁓ and it's very simple thing and happens in loads of other know sort of ⁓ Ollie: Yeah. Ivo: types of organisation as well, but you've built these positive relationships with people and then you catch up with other people quite often, go and do other things like that, they'll all sign up to a race together or ⁓ walk up Snowdon or go and do other nice ⁓ things, celebrate each other's birthdays, etc. Ollie: Yeah, I Ivo: But I think ⁓ the more that you can connect your physical activity to ⁓ some kind of positive social context, I'm sure that that's going to increase the likelihood that you'll stick at it. Ollie: Yeah. Ivo: ⁓ people ⁓ noticing that you're doing this ⁓ this ⁓ great thing ⁓ and ⁓ I think you see that all sorts of different contexts in ⁓ sports and think you have now ⁓ and ⁓ think work why high rocks is at moment is ⁓ was really no bigger picture, sort of social context for people who go to the gym. And so it was quite an internal thing. And High Rocks was this thing where you could potentially tell your friends that you're training for this thing. And then you can invite your friends to come and watch you. And there'll be other people that you're going with. And so I think we're seeing it emerge in different ways. And obviously there's a massive boom in running, which is explicitly social. And I think a really exciting development. explicitly social this is like, you this is a you are doing this to enjoy it not because one day you qualify for the regional heats of the something or other, you know, it's like this is it's I think it's that they're exciting things changing slightly as people are trying to address that kind of Yes, actually, it doesn't matter if you shave five seconds off your time. Ollie: Yay. Yeah. Ivo: The important thing is the ⁓ Ollie: Hmm. Ivo: patient and the connection. Ollie: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I feel that someone getting older and all my times are getting slower anyway. I know if I do anything timed, but yeah, I'm a runner myself and I know that accountability of having a running partner and the conversations you have and the connections you make are fantastic. I love the way you've sort of you've really thought about building that into what you do. And the other thing I really love is the fact you call the older people when people do visit them, you call them the coaches. Tell me a bit about that. What's underlying that? Ivo: Yeah. I mean, that came from my original ⁓ relationship with Terry and trying to acknowledge, I suppose, that this is ⁓ good for both of us. isn't this, ⁓ how the charity sector works is you have volunteers and beneficiaries, you have, the beneficiary needs the help and they are the vulnerable person and they need an intervention and someone Ollie: Yeah. Ivo: comes and delivers an intervention. In this case, a volunteer comes in who is extremely capable and their life is perfect. There's obviously a characterisation of it. They go and deliver an intervention and then go off again. And I think so much of the best stuff that happens is kind of limited by that model. And it doesn't acknowledge that contribution Ollie: Yes. Yeah. Ivo: is one of the best things that you can do for your own wellbeing. at times, yes, you're going to be supporting that older person and the way that you listen and the way that you ask questions and the way that you tell stories is going to help that older person. But it's very likely that in doing that, that's also helping. Ollie: Yeah. Ivo: helping you. So I think we're really trying to slightly disrupt that and to say actually this is a like any human relationship it's mutually beneficial and it's really important to recognise that. Ollie: Yeah, look. I think that's super savvy. Yeah, love that. I really love that. I love the fact that it's recognising the value of feeling you can participate. ⁓ I think there's so much overlap with what we with peer support NHS, think, recognising the value of able to participate, not always feeling like things are being done to you or, ⁓ you know, like you say, you're a passive recipient of somebody else's, ⁓ you know, some benevolence, like you but actually to be able to have a part to play and be able to contribute something back, ⁓ that's really clever, I think. Ivo: Hmm. Yeah. explain that to the older people that it is their responsibility to help keep that person motivated. They don't necessarily need to have any particular qualifications. I it'd be great if they did do some coaching in how to coach. But I think we do get that they've got a part to play in keeping that person encouraged and motivated and sort of sharing their wisdom. And I think that Ollie: Yes. Yes. I'm fascinated by that. How do do that? Sorry, I've interrupted. How do you do that? That's so fascinating. I know about recruiting the members and the runners and, like you say, doing the safety checks so that the intervention is all safe. But I knew less about how you encourage people being visited to play a part as well. Tell me bit more about that. Ivo: Yeah. Yeah. all of other people that we work with will be referred to us ⁓ an organization ⁓ that works with them it's ⁓ Social Care, AGK, ⁓ and Red and lots of brilliant smaller local organizations who will refer to And we'll have varying levels of understanding of what it is that we're providing. So some people will just be ⁓ like, ⁓ yeah, someone's going to come ⁓ actually quite excited about that idea of helping someone else. And we talk them through on the phone the idea of what this is all about. And they will agree to behaving, I suppose, to our code of conduct. And we'll also send them a ⁓ certificate that says they are the coach of the good gimmer that is visiting them. Ollie: course. They're a certified good gym coach. Ivo: Yeah, and some people are really into that. And in some places, it's not something that ends up being ⁓ part of how they consider the relationship. And I think hopefully in all cases, it at least sets up that this ⁓ is not that sort of recipient beneficiary thing, that there are some expectations. But yeah, definitely, like it's Ollie: Yes. Ivo: experiencing quite a varied way. Ollie: Yeah, that's great. That was really great. And because I mean, you you've also talked a lot about how loneliness is such an important health factor as well. and particularly in cities, I know you're a London resident and you're particularly interested in how we can reverse the kind of isolation that people feel even though they're living in a busy city very often. So many of us are just completely isolated with people around us. Ivo: Yeah. there just is a huge opportunity to build a more participatory... culture and I think that there's also that kind of bystander effect of as soon as the person in front of you ignores something, you ignore it too and how we might be able to shift that a little bit. think that, yeah, the big shift that's happened in the last 15 years is there was so much about loneliness and isolation of older people when I started working on this and now it's all about the under 25s. So 16 to 25 is most likely to be lonely, about a third of them feeling lonely often. So it's a really ⁓ big... Ollie: Yeah. Ivo: shift in where the problem is. I think what's so particularly terrifying is that that period of life, 16 to 25, is likely to be the period where it's least possible to avoid ⁓ interacting with other people. You're likely to be in a first job, in some kind of education. You're likely to be living in a flat share. You're likely to be... many factors of course there are still people that are living alone or living at home and but even then right it's unlike older age where it's possible that you're living on your own and are quite disconnected and don't have that you know daily interaction at that age you're just so you're so likely to be interacting with people and yet you're the most likely to be lonely and I think this is just a real warning sign about what are the factors that have enabled that to be possible when we are so innately social, when we know that interacting with other human beings in a positive and meaningful way is the... likely to make us happy and even we think about our aspirations, we think about what we want to spend our time on and if we had all the time in the world ⁓ we are so likely to answer that you want to be with friends, with family, doing something, experiencing some sort of positive shared experience and yet we are just choosing not to do that. Ollie: Yeah. Yeah. Ivo: we are choosing to do these isolating activities and I think it's a major societal shift. Ollie: So we'll see what happens. Ivo: if you look at data ⁓ on loneliness, ⁓ it's actually showing that it's getting worse. So if you look at ⁓ Pamela ⁓ research which is excellent. ⁓ She's actually very unalarmist. says, is actually, people have worried about this for a long time and the evidence doesn't show that it's getting a lot worse. However, I think we are going to see a fundamental... ⁓ change if the current lack of interaction and increased screen time continues to stay the same. Ollie: So we're sort of, if I got you right, we're sort of unlearning the skills of being social with each other at that formative stage. So you're, and I know this is an area you're really interested in, good Jim, isn't it, is around how do you, I guess, teach people those social skills, how do you engage people? Is is it a big drive for you at that younger age now, 16 to 25, is that right? Ivo: Yeah, 18 to 25 for us in that we are still, we don't have, yeah, are under 18s involved just because of the various risks involved in a lot of the projects that we're working on. But yes, I think it's interesting because, I mean, I think these are inbuilt. Ollie: 1825. Gotcha, gotcha. Ivo: skills that we have. Like we are, if you watch kids playing, we have incredible ability to build those connections and to enjoy each other's company contribution. And so I think it's more ⁓ maintaining those rather than sort of teaching those skills. I think what's good about Good Gym. Ollie: Gotcha. So creating the opportunity for it to happen, Ivo: Yeah, exactly. And it's also the little bit, dealing with a slightly messy, slightly tricky situation together. me and you in Sheffield had to pull down some dead hops from the roof of a port cabin in a community garden. It was this unusual task to do. We met at a conference, and then when we went for a run, pulled some dead hops from the roof of a port cabin in a community garden in Leeds. And it was that, I think... Ollie: Yeah. Yes. I remember it well, I remember it well, yeah. Amazing. Ivo: It wasn't perfect. It wasn't particularly obvious what we needed to do. But we needed to work out how to do it together. think that a small challenge like that is such an amazing opportunity for us to build trust and connection. Someone's got to hold the ladder while the other person climbs up here. Someone's got to find out where a rake or something that would help us to get there. So you've got this kind of because we are collaborating on something that we both think is generally a good idea, we've got this amazing opportunity to build trust and connection. And I think as work becomes increasingly abstract or disconnected from the output or the outcome... we are losing that opportunity to build that connection and trust in our workplaces often. And then in our leisure time, are, with increasing screen time and increasingly sort of individualized activity, we are losing opportunities to sort of tackle those challenges together. And then across the we sort generally design out any kind of friction the processes we deal with, ⁓ are losing these micro opportunities for connections, such as just saying hello to the person behind you in the supermarket queue when you pass them that triangle thing that you put behind your food before the next person comes along or whatever. Where you might say hello, right? You might, and it's going to change the world, but it's like ⁓ we're getting rid so many those little interactions that you get rid of the ticket office at the train station. ⁓ You get rid of the person who checks your ticket, who you might you know, when are we going to... Ollie: Yeah, yeah. Ivo: wherever, wherever. We're removing so many of these micro opportunities for just a positive human interaction. Ollie: Yeah. Yes. So I love that. So that's what you're, I guess, an essence of what you're doing. You're creating opportunities, not necessarily formally teaching people anything new. You're assuming that it'll happen if the opportunities are there and these interactions that... apps, you know, because we're working alone, we're exercising alone, we're doing everything very individually, we're maybe worried about how many followers and likes we've got, but it's all very, you know, sort of boundary and discreet. I think there's a lot of overlaps actually, what we're trying to do, I think, generally with health coaching actually, because it's, I guess we are to some degree teaching people purposefully some skills about how do you inquire about how someone's going with their health, whether it's a NHS setting or a workplace, but I really appreciate how Ivo: Yeah. Ollie: what you're setting up is just a very simple return to a more socialised context, isn't it? Ivo: Yeah, and I think this happens in loads of contexts. It's not like we're completely unique. I think you just give people some of those. Ollie: Yes. Ivo: conditions and people make it happen, right? It's what we do. We make the best of a situation and we work out how to do it and we develop that meaningful shared purpose. so, yeah, I think like so many... Running groups or ⁓ things like ⁓ Parkrun, they enable people to make that connection and then quite often take some initiative like organizing an extra session or a trip or whatever. need to really at that on bigger picture when we're ⁓ designing ⁓ any kind of service. ⁓ In the way, we think about efficiency, are we actually designing out the sort of and the opportunity ⁓ for ⁓ the development ⁓ of community? ⁓ Ollie: Yeah, and I'll get that. So I'm fascinated by that because I am interested in whether this should be the role of some, should this be just what governments do? Should it be what the NHS does? You're an organisation, you're an entrepreneur, you've seen an idea, you're making it happen, you've got energy and drive. Should this be more core, a core part of what the kind of official statutory bodies do, do think? Ivo: It's interesting. mean, yes, short answer. I mean, think that anyone, I mean, think it should be a key component of any commercial or ⁓ government service delivery. You know, is that the... Ollie: Yeah. Ivo: from a library to the NHS. there are really exciting things such as, I don't know, the expert patient type programs or where people are able to... Social prescribing, yes. But where as a patient or a kind of recipient of the service, you are recognized as someone who also has some kind of value to provide to improving that service or supporting the next person. Ollie: Yeah, and social prescribing, I guess, is a great example of that. That's key. think that often gets lost actually, doesn't it? The value of giving people the opportunity to play a role. I think that's really important. Ivo: Exactly. like, would you like, if every person who goes through that thing is offered the opportunity, would you like to write a personal welcome to the next person who's going to do it with a bit of your advice? Would you like to, they can be quite small things and they might lead to nothing or they might lead to brilliant friendships. But if you were to go through a, I don't know, think a good example, Ollie: Yes. Yes. Thanks. Ivo: of something, like, if you design in five opportunities where it would just set up an expectation that me and you would have a conversation because we're going through the same service. the example I quite often use is the... ⁓ Ollie: Yeah. Ivo: ⁓ having kids, did both the NHS antenatal classes and I did the NCT ones, are National Child Birth Trust, which is a private and expensive service. And they both had the same sort of information, but the main difference was with the NCT one was that you had to basically opt out of being in a WhatsApp group. Ollie: Yes, yeah, yeah, I remember that as well. Yes. Yeah. Ivo: and it very strongly set up the idea that the people in that group would support each other through the process of childbirth and you would have to be very much sort of opt out of being included in lots of messages about this. And you know it works, amazing work, NHS one did not do that, it was probably much better at respecting and know privacy and GDPR stuff. Ollie: Yes. Yeah. Yes. Ivo: there were no details shared between anyone. But there was also such a brilliant range of people in there. NHS antenatal glasses in Whitechapel. was, know, obviously, you know, it was really wide ranging demographics and an amazing opportunity from the government's point of view or, you know, local authorities point of view of creating a really diverse mutual support group. so that was that feels like such a big opportunity to create these, to share Ollie: Yeah. Ivo: knowledge between this group of people and to invite everyone into supporting each other through this process and that it could have been very powerful. So very long-winded way of saying but basically like you know just just set up that expectation in your design of the service that people it will be okay for people to share their contact details and to do it on their own terms is good but do set that expectation you've got the power and the design of it to say hey now Ollie: Bye-bye. Well, no, it's interesting that you've come here. Yeah. Yes. Ivo: you're going to meet this person who's just found out that they are potentially got this condition or potentially going to be having a baby or potentially going to be getting a library book for the first time. What would you say to that person? And you may get on like a house on fire, nothing might happen. But if we build in those opportunities in every service, I think that would significantly change the world. Ollie: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love that different shift of mindset, isn't it? It's purposely looking for it. And there's a lot of overlap in health coaching, actually. I think one of the core principles is that you believe that people are resourceful and you look for them to have an opportunity to play more of a role in their own health, I guess. then there's also peer support, I think, which is growing a lot in the NHS. And where you, you I particularly know in the areas of type 2 diabetes and chronic pain, where you have peers, you know, who may be a little bit further down the line helping people to sort of find their own journey. But again, with that context of not telling them what they should do or be like me, but just, have you thought about this? How's that going? A bit of encouragement, maybe a bit of advice here and there. But yeah, I like that dynamic. But yeah, was interesting what you said about the privacy bit, though, because I do worry about whether we've got a little bit overly paranoid about privacy and GDPR and so on. I mean have you ever seen it go wrong? You you have these DBS safety checks, know. it ever worry you that perhaps by, you know, creating these contexts that sometimes there could be something that would go wrong? Have you ever had stuff go wrong in Goodchimp? Ivo: Yeah. Touchwood, haven't had anything that has been a major incident. We do have minor... issues often and they will be potentially just ⁓ different social norms, people not adhering to the code of conduct on both sides. We will have issues around gender. Ollie: got you. Ivo: Yeah, people having different ideas of, I suppose, and, you know, or... Ollie: Yeah, yeah. Ivo: using gender stereotypes in ways that people don't feel comfortable with, it's essentially coming from intergenerational, just different experiences and different education. But generally, think people work it out. think that's what we try to rely on, suppose, we do the background checks and then we have the code of conduct which helps us to be able to say, Ollie: Yeah. Yeah. Ivo: to investigate when things, when there is a sort of misunderstanding. Ollie: That in itself is probably quite a good indicator of how... let how low the risk actually is in reality, isn't it? You've got 26,000 members. I mean, I know it probably tends to be people who want to contribute anyway. like you say, some of these things come up and maybe it's, you know, in talking through these issues and understanding different perspectives that we develop toleration. Like you say, intergenerational tolerance, know, that people have different mindsets for very good reasons for different, they come from different backgrounds and different times and different, you know, that there are differences between people out there and actually being able to be tolerable. Ivo: Mm. Ollie: of each other even when people don't have exactly the same views as you is probably again an important part of being social isn't it? Ivo: Yeah, and I think there's a... I did some work maybe 15 years ago with a... I think making a short documentary about a juvenile detention centre, I think. And there was this just incredibly inspiring... Ollie: ⁓ yes, you're filming this, was this your... Yeah. Ivo: education leader and he took the young people ⁓ surfing and ⁓ climbing and lots of things that were ⁓ high ⁓ risk ostensibly. And his argument was always, what's the risk of us not doing these things? And I think it was just... Ollie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's the key question, isn't it? Don't ask ourselves that enough, do we? Ivo: extremely powerful. It's like, you know, you've got high risk of reoffending, you've got high risk of lots of things going wrong. So it just slightly shifts your thinking. This might shake that up, right? If we give people these extraordinary and different experiences, it might shake things up. But in the Good Gym context, what it makes me think is this has got to be proportional, right? With the ⁓ older people, particularly that we're supporting, it's likely that they're in a ⁓ really difficult position where they are likely mobile and not able to their home independently. ⁓ is extremely risky situation ⁓ to be in. So will our best to sure that it is... ⁓ Ollie: Yeah. Yeah. Ivo: ⁓ safe and that the person that we send around understands and is a really great person. But there also is a situation on its own is risky and you need to keep that in proportion. And I also think similarly with our work if we've got a thousand people going out. ⁓ this week with spades and the chances that something bad happens with a spade is quite high and that doesn't necessarily mean that... ⁓ Ollie: Yeah. I do really appreciate that, Ivar. I think there's a bravery in entrepreneurs like yourself that is balancing up that risk that sometimes we're not so good at doing. And I do really appreciate that people like you stick your neck out and go, well, actually, there's more of a risk if some of us don't do things like that. We don't create opportunities for people to be social and mixed together. And let's hold that risk. There is a risk, but let's hold it. Ivo: I mean, I think we've got good. Ollie: We're coming towards the end of time actually, because it's amazing how quickly it goes, but I wanted to make sure you've got opportunities to of, A, perhaps just tell us where the direction of Good Gym is going, and maybe if there's anything you'd like people to know about how they could join in, or, you know. Ivo: Yeah. We would love, mean, so, you know, we want this to be a kind of default alternative to the gym and to be a brilliantly supportive, I suppose, fitness ⁓ community. We would love more social prescribing referrals. We are... Ollie: Yeah. Ivo: It should be a really positive and inclusive ⁓ welcome. We ⁓ run walk-in cycles, so we're trying to focus on active travel and making it easy for people to get involved at the level that they feel comfortable in doing so. So it's not just running. Yeah, you're very welcome to walk. We do want it to be sort of local, so we don't want people having to be going a long way or driving, but we're most of the Ollie: So it's not just running out. Ivo: ⁓ areas in England shortly and we'll be starting in Scotland which is exciting. But so yeah, if we exist in your area we'd love that sort of, yeah, that referral to happen. We also like, I think ⁓ these things work best when is that kind of ⁓ connection ⁓ that someone understands it think and so ⁓ and that feel like you are sort of passed. ⁓ over to the group in a way that's not just go and look up this website. If you have ideas about how we can improve that connection and relationship and make sure that it does really feel like you are being personally invited to join your first session, then we'd love to do that. think Good Jim is also very happy to support someone specifically with their first session, making sure that you get someone who's going to say, Olly, welcome, and make sure that you are looked after. Ollie: Got you. See you on the Ivo: in that first session. Ollie: And so that's as a participant doing the exercise, if you like, but also then as one of the coaches, you'd be looking for people to identify people who would benefit from that. Or do you have a waiting list of people that are waiting for runners or walkers or cyclists to come to them? Ivo: Yes. And yeah, we generally are looking for those referrals to, if you go to our website, can send you the link if it's helpful, put it in the notes. But you can then check if we're operating in your area and how many people that we have verified and ready to go so that you're not filling in the information if nothing's gonna happen. Ollie: 100%. Yeah, yeah, we'll put it. Yeah, no, I love that. you're in 68 areas across England and Wales now, so it's quite likely there'll be a good gym near you somewhere. Ivo: Yeah, hope so. yeah, it's still urban areas. it's not everywhere. But hopefully, one not too far from you. Ollie: Yeah, I certainly see lots of red Good Jim T-shirts around Sheffield and certainly throughout cities I've seen in South Yorkshire. Fantastic. Well, thank you, Ivo, for sharing your insights and thank you for your energy and your enthusiasm and your bravery to do what you do. I just think I love the way you are shifting. You're reframing exercise, aren't you, from a sort of isolated, self-improvement thing to more community contribution with a purpose. You're participating, whether you're... Ivo: Good. Ollie: exercising or whether you're the coach that's also encouraging someone along and ⁓ know and equally you're part of a group of people that hold each other accountable and sharing the social side it's fantastic. Any last things you want to say before we wrap up? Ivo: Yeah. No, yeah, we'd also love anyone listening to come and have a go and everyone is welcome and hopefully you'll have, yeah, meet some great people, ⁓ have a lot of fun and also get something really positive done for a brilliant ⁓ community project in your area. Ollie: Fabulous, lovely. Well, we'll certainly put the link to the website in the Good Gym in our show notes. But like you say, actually, maybe the best thing to do is look out for someone that's doing it and talk to people who's out there doing Good Gym, how's it going, what are you enjoying about it. It's that word of mouth that's often as strong as directing you to digital resources, isn't it? But Ivo, thanks so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to chat. Really appreciate that. Ivo: Yeah. No pop's really, really great to speak, Oli, and I you have an amazing rest of your time in Sri Lanka and Lantim with very exciting new moves. Ollie: Yeah, yeah, I'll be calling down in a minute. Thanks, Ivo.