Saying Goodbye to our Class Director - Karen

August 3, 2022

Dear Members,

It’s time to say goodbye to our Class Director – Karen Gamble.

I have been the owner of Ballard Health Club since January 1, 2014.  I “inherited” the staff on that date and that included the Class Director of about 2 years which was Karen. At that time, we had about 40 classes a week all performed in Studio X that Karen managed. Prior to my owning BHC, my business experience was in running small software companies. So, buying and attempting to run a health club was a real trip! Thankfully, I had the guidance of Karen to help steer a lot of decisions that I had to make.  With Karen’s help, we added a 2nd studio in 2015 (Studio Y) and then a Cycling studio in 2018.  Prior to COVID, we had over 110 live classes a week and Karen was responsible for all of them.

When COVID happened and we had to abruptly stop all those classes and close our doors in March of 2020, Karen was instrumental in organizing and getting over 50 classes started and running online within a few weeks with instructors working from their homes.  This was no small task given that hardly any of our class instructions and/or staff were familiar with doing online “meetings” let alone dealing with music and other features that we needed to make the classes valuable to our members.

Offerings like Yoga in the Park are all Karen, my only part of it is to say “yes” and make sure the instructors get paid. Karen is the person that figures out the time, the location, the instructors, works with the city, gets the permits, and makes it all happen.

I could go on and on about how Karen has helped me, BHC and our community. She has been behind the scenes in lots of things that make BHC what it is today.

Karen, I want to express my most sincere THANK YOU for everything you have done for us! My best wishes with your next adventure of being a hypnotherapist and we are very blessed you will continue to be a class instructor for BHC.

With everything that Karen has done, she has also found a fantastic individual to take over her job as Class Director at BHC. That person is Marianne Clarke. Many of you know Marianne as a class instructor at BHC for many years and I very much look forward to working with her to continue the role that Karen has done a great job preparing for her.

Stay Cool and Stay Safe,

Pat Gilbrough
Owner, General Manager
pat@ballardhealthclub.com