New Business Promotes Flirting AND Fitness!
Local entrepreneur and qualified fitness instructor, Erica French, has launched a new business that’s already making headlines for hooking up singles who like to keep fit.
The Drum
By Dave Keogh
Fit2date.com.au is the local version of a dating craze sweeping Australia. It’s all about outdoor group fitness training for singles. Erica and her team bring together eight members of the opposite sex, once a week for a four-week fitness course. Each week you’re put through a one-hour training session with the promise of “surprising twists and turns”! (Makes a man want to be single again… or fitter anyway.)
Already the site has been responsible for linking two future partners… and those who haven’t managed to ‘hook up’ have still benefited from an improved level of fitness. And at the end of the four-week course, everyone gets together for a few drinks to celebrate their efforts. (How hard can that be?)
There’s a group established right here in Manly, so anyone wanting to join in the fun (as long as you’re single) should contact Erica at hookmeup@fit2date.com.au
Locals clean up in NSW Corporate Games
The 2008 NSW Corporate Games attracted 292 companies and raised over $200,000 for Diabetes Australia-NSW… and a team of locals proudly flew the flag for Manly in an outstanding debut.
Representing Manly online sports community DoubleDrummer.com and led by former Olympian Elka Graham, the team of 31 locals performed superbly, finishing 39th overall and returning a terrific medal tally of 4 Gold, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze. They finished 5th in their division (containing over 40 organisations that submitted teams of 20 or more).
Sadly, star tennis player and Gold medal certainty, Cromer’s Lara Giltinan, was forced to withdraw due to illness at the last minute. However, her brother Robert Giltinan rose to the occasion by winning the Men’s Open Singles event and dropping only 1 game in the entire tournament! Rob amazingly won the gold medal event 6-0, 6-0. (A week later his opponent in that final won a major western suburbs tournament and $3,000 in prize money!).
Another standout for the local team was of course the beautiful Elka Graham who won Gold in both the 50m and 100m freestyle, (despite keeping plenty in reserve so as not to embarrass her opponents). North Balgowlah pair Denise Darby and Myra Swanson won Silver in the Ladies Open Doubles.
Former AFL Hawthorn Hawk, Mark Bunn (now living in Balgowlah) was another who took to the tennis court, winning two of his three preliminary matches and only just missing out on the medal rounds.
Fresh from this success, the Manly crew are now heading north to Brisbane for the QLD Corporate Games in mid-May, which will again raise much needed funds for diabetes research. While Elka is overseas, the Double Drummer team has reeled in another Olympian, ice skating gold medallist Steven Bradbury. As there are no winter sports on offer in Queensland, Steve will also take to the tennis court and hopes to be the last man serving when the medals are distributed. Former All American and NBL basketball player and Curl Curl resident, Eric Bailey will also represent in his favoured sport.
Anybody who wants to join the team and travel to Brisbane from May 16-18 with some fun-loving local athletes to help raise money for a great cause can contact Anna Cosio on 9474 1011.
The writer of The Drum, Dave Keogh, has been a professional writer for some 30 years, contributing to publications as broad as Modern Fishing and Outdoor, he honed a passion writing a regular column – Talking Tennis – for The Manly Daily. With a varied history including work as a music industry publicist, theatrical agent, band manager, poet, editor and tennis coach, he found his niche in advertising, and with loads of awards under his belt, Dave went into business on his own and now runs several very successful businesses, including an online community connecting sport-loving people – www.doubledrummer.com Most importantly, Dave loves sport, and is an avid supporter of The Manly Sea Eagles…