About Us
Our mission
To improve the health and fitness of workplace staff.
Our priorities
- Developing resources that are unique and fill gaps in the wellness jigsaw of workplaces.
- Resources that are easy to roll out and mostly don’t require apps, computers or extra staff training.
- Resources that are based on solid research,
- That are extremely well priced, and
- Great for businesses looking to get the wellness ball rolling.
Our location
Our programmes are created in Australia and New Zealand and would suit most English speaking countries. Some of the resources feature a little Noongar (First Nation people from Western Australia) and te reo Māori (New Zealand/Aotearoa).
History of Success
Our previous challenge was rolled out to some 3000 people. In post-challenge feedback, 99% of entrant feedback recommended the challenge.
Below are some of the results entrants showing; for example, 80% of entrant feedback showed improvements in energy, 57% in sleep and 54% in stress levels!
About the lead developer
That would be me. Broni Mac, officially Bronwyn McSweeney
- After working as a lawyer in outback Australia, I shifted gears and embarked on a career in recreation and fitness.
- I have been honoured to receive the Fitness NZ Award for outstanding contribution to the industry at the NZ Exercise Industry Awards, named Educator of the Year and finalist of the Mentor Award.
- Catch Fitness is my business via which we have organised 300+ educational workshops as well as numerous national fitness challenges for 1000s of New Zealanders.
- Educator roles: Lecturer AUT (Auckland University of Technology), tutor ARA (The Ara Institute of Technology), tutor NZ Institute of Sport’s Sportzone.
- Conference presenter at GetActiveNZ, FitEx, Tonic, YMCA and Exercise Association Business Grow.
- Advisory roles with NZ Qualification Authority – TRoQ (Targeted Review of Qualifications) board and Active Canterbury Network.
- A reviewer of industry courses with REPs (The Register of Exercise Professionals).
- A Judge at the New Zealand Exercise Industry Awards.
- 100s of reviews about myself and Catch Fitness can be found here.
The workplace story
From day one of my fitness career, I was helping to deliver workplace wellness programmes for Russell Graham. Russell also headed up the Fitness Industry Training course at Ara. I learnt an incredible amount from Russell over several years before going on to run my own. One of my programmes was for Pauline Rice’s company, Sole Survival, which then produced Macpac gear. Her insurance company had originally recommended me to her. I ran the programme for her crew until she sold the business. In 2016, Pauline called me. She was with another NZ clothing design company and asked if I could help them out with a workplace programme. I hadn’t been doing workplace programmes for a few years and was now travelling a lot but offered to do short weekly videos for eight weeks, from where-ever I was in the world.
While rolling these videos out, I looked at what else was now available to businesses in the hope to be able to recommend them another option to them when I finished up. Mainly I found a proliferation of step type challenges and 100s of ‘health’ apps. Much of it didn’t require people to do anything hands-on, relied on out of date research and used inappropriate markers to assess people’s health and fitness. There are exceptions for sure. Having listened to Paul Taylor talk at conferences, I would say his Ritualize would likely be one of them.
Survive is born
This compilation of 50 survival-themed activities was born as a result, albeit it was also prompted by my experience of the Christchurch Earthquake and a heap of other natural disasters. The aim of Survive was to improve people’s functional fitness levels and all-round ‘strength’ of self and their community.
ME Time
Quick to follow Survive was ME Time. It aim is to get people moving in a variety of ways for 30 seconds every 30 minutes and help others around them to do the same. Even if you never buy the programme, which you don’t need to roll it out, I believe it’s one of the most bang for your buck thing we can encourage.
Then what?
I’ve gone on to put together a few other programmes and resources. While I’d be the first to say none of this stuff is perfect, I’m sure you’ll find really useful things amongst it if healthy staff is on your agenda.
Special thanks
So many people who have contributed to the success of Catch Fitness, but in regards specifically to the running of workplace programmes, a special thanks go to the award winning Russell Graham and also to Dr Bill Sukala, without whose assistance I’d never know how to drive a website and be able to offer these resources