At the Affiliate Lounge, the stories flow.
There are pictures of box dogs, babies, family events; and reports of athletes eliminating medications, coaches starting special classes for autistic children and everything in between.
“I can’t tell you how many more people I follow on Instagram,” said a smiling Paula Gravatt, CrossFit Inc. Director of Affiliate Events.
She added: “It’s really all the good things about their box they want to share with us.”
After its debut at last year’s CrossFit Games in Madison, Wisconsin, the Affiliate Lounge has been at all nine Regionals this year to wonderful effect.
“Knowing that people from HQ and the U.S. are asking what they need … is super cool,” said Natalia Diez, CrossFit’s Spain liaison. “It’s one more step (for them) to feel how much we love them.”
Diez is also a member of CrossFit Seminar Staff.
“It makes a huge difference when you can interact, when you can speak” to someone in person, noted Matteo Pozzati, CrossFit’s Italy liaison. Pozzati, also on CrossFit Seminar Staff, opened CrossFit Venezia in 2010 in Italy.
For Gravatt and Kathy Glassman, Head of the Affiliate Department, the Affiliate Lounge provides opportunities to meet more of CrossFit’s 15,000 affiliate owners.
“It facilitates communication not just between staff and affiliates but affiliate to affiliate,” Gravatt said.
Both Glassman and Gravatt were at the Europe Regional in Berlin, Germany, and at the Latin America Regional in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They will spend the next three days at the Meridian Regional at La Caja Mágica in Madrid, Spain.
Ahead of the Regionals, the Affiliate Department sent affiliate owners invitations to a Saturday-night reception adjacent to the lounge. In both Berlin and Rio de Janeiro, the receptions each hosted 1,000 people. In Madrid, all the RSVPs had yet to be tallied as of Friday morning.
At the lounge, affiliate owners and representatives not only share stories but also ask about such best practices as membership rates and improving coaching.
In Italy, specifically, affiliate owners are concerned with intellectual-property theft, as well as ways to improve their businesses, Pozzati said. In Spain, affiliate owners have similar concerns and also are seeking more translated content, Diez said.
The Affiliate Lounge, staffed with country liaisons and longtime HQ employees, helps affiliate owners feel more supported, the liaisons said.
The lounges at each Regional offer an opportunity for Affiliate Department staff to make face-to-face connections with dozens of affiliate representatives they might not have met otherwise, said Glassman, noting there are CrossFit gyms in more than 150 countries.
“It’s important for us to go outside our borders,” she noted.
Glassman continued: “When you’re behind a computer on email all day, you could walk by someone on the street and not know they’re your friend.”
This might be especially true outside the U.S. where the number of affiliates recently outgrew American ones. Italy, for example, has surpassed Australia and Canada with the third most affiliates in the world behind the U.S. and Brazil.
“Europe is catching up,” Glassman said.
As of Friday morning, representatives from 30 French affiliates had already visited the lounge—all before 10 a.m.; the competition started at 9 a.m.
“The number of affiliates from France has never been that high,” said Daniel Chaffey, CrossFit’s France liaison. Chaffey opened Reebok CrossFit Louvre in 2012 in Paris.
For affiliate owners to be able to walk in and talk to well-known HQ employees—such as Glassman, Gravatt or Director of Business Development Jimi Letchford—affords a sense of belonging, he continued.
“I don’t know what the cost is of running the Affiliate Lounge … but I know the value,” Chaffey said. “It just shows that we care. So, things are moving in the right direction.”
Glassman, meanwhile, described the lounge as a way of “puttin’ the love on our affiliates.”
“It’s a natural coming together of affiliates,” she said. “It’s super cool.”
Pictured in cover photo (left to right): Kathy Glassman, Matteo Pozzati, Daniel Chaffey, Natalia Diez, Paula Gravatt and Jimi Letchford
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