The Civitas Newsletter and MOTM - October 2025

It's spooky season and we've got our hands full at Civitas with a move to our new space pending and a lot to get sorted and organised moving through the autumn and into Christmas!

First off, some member shoutouts. Congratulations to Jacob Emery on the safe arrival of his daughter last month. Im sure she's perfect 🥰 and we hope you're all doing well as a family.

Another congratulations to Simon Payne who very recently climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest point in Africa. It's so good seeing you use your fitness outside of the gym.

In terms of fitness and racing, some big achievements and especially the runners as we saw Civi's cruise through the Chippenham half, Royal parks half and the Bournemouth half. #LetTheRunnersRun

Save the date/s below ⬇️ :

Parents! Halloween is coming and our parent and child workout is on October 25th at 8am. We want to see you and your kids in fancy dress in true halloween spirit. This will be an inclusive workout and a great bit of fun for you and the kids to burn off some energy and if you haven't signed up already just click this link to do so: https://forms.wix.com/f/7378378328048140733

Then! the big one. My favourite day of the year, The Civitas Winter throwdown. This year is going to be better than ever. Of course the obvious is going to be the new space but secondly. We are hoping to have a new event 👀 . We are currently talking to Erg Shoot about the possibility of coming down. For those who don't know, here's their instagram (yes, its shooting!) https://www.instagram.com/ergshoot/ . This could be a real leaderboard leveller to test your shooting accuracy under fatigue and also is just a great bit of fun (I was awful at it) and gives you a new test that you probably won't have done before. In previous years we have held the Throwdown in December, near to Christmas which can be a hurdle for a lot of you trying to juggle around work and family time so this year, we are planning on a same sex pairs event on Sunday November 30th. Tickets will go on sale very soon so start planting a few seeds for your partners. This will be, like last time, a comp that we welcome all abilities with scaling options for each workout. We want everyone to feel welcome to compete and we urge all of you to give it a go!

After the Throwdown. We want to see out the year in style with our Christmas party and social. Things will be slightly different this year as we aren't holding the social in the gym (😢 ) but we are heading up to Melksham Town Football Club on Saturday December 13th. Just like last year we will hold end of year awards where we celebrate members and their achievements and then have a few drinks and a dance to see out the evening. For those who enjoy letting their hair down, please remember we are out and ultimately representing the gym so maybe go slightly less than "full tilt" like last year 🤣 . As Neil Warnock would say, "Enjoy it, but enjoy it by being disciplined"

Our new space:

As you all know we are moving. We are moving out of our current unit on Halloween and into our new unit over that weekend.

We have loved our time on Avonside but we feel we have outgrown our space and an opportunity came up which we have decided to take to try and grow Civitas and help more people around Melksham get into fitness and improve their lives through what we believe is the best way to train.

Our moving out, and moving in dates are so close that we will have a few days of being closed to get set up and ready to go the following week. We will be closed on Thursday 30th, Friday 31st, Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd (cardio club will run, but it will be a run 🏃 ) Classes will resume as normal on Monday 3rd November. Sorry for any inconvenience that this may cause.

Please be patient with us as we navigate the move. The gym at times may look like a sort of building site until everything is built and finalised however it will all be worth it and classes will run as normal with no disruptions. Please note that we may not have a shower for a week or so until it is fitted but we will have a functioning toilet and running water. We're excited to get you all in there for a workout and to chill out in our new community area and we hope you love it (as we're not planning on moving again 🤦‍♂️ ).

As we approach the dreaded clocks going back, It's been great to see the classes so busy even as the weather slowly starts to turn and in a time of year where motivation usually suffers, you guys continue to keep showing up in pursuit of your goals. In the New Year we want to sit down with you and review your goals and what really matters to you in terms of your training. We want to help you more. We'll provide you with what we believe is the perfect space and we also want to provide you with additional services to help you get results! Ultimately, that's why you join a gym. Accountability! The committed club numbers that go out every month in this newsletter help to keep you accountable. We realise however, that this is just names on a table and we want to help more! From the new year all platinum committed club members will be put into a hat! At the start of each month we'll have a prize that will be announced and at the end of the month we'll randomly select a winner. It's a win win for you! you show up to train more, you get better results from your consistency AND you get the chance to win a decent prize! More on this as we approach Christmas and New Year.

For those who purchased our latest merch, we are hoping to have it all delivered very soon. For those who missed the merch drop.... As the colder weather comes in the next drop may be a bit sooner than you think. Keep your eyes peeled.

Member of the month and committed club 👇 .

MEMBER OF THE MONTH

Timmy Waylen

Congrats to long serving member Timmy! A huge part of the morning crew at Civitas and one of the most consistent trainers in the gym. Timmy is an ever present in our Platinum committed club and this commitment shows in his fitness. You'll regularly see Timmy taking one for the team when all the bike ergs are taken, slogging away on the assault bikes early doors. He doesn't shirk hard work no matter what the workout throws at him and he always brings a positive attitude into the early morning classes. Congrats mate.