Going on the road

Aug 5 2008 by Sue Scott, Evening Gazette

INTREPID business entrepreneur Matt Stirland, the Gazette sponsored winner in the If We Can, You Can campaign to find the best business idea in Tees Valley, has hit on a new angle to promote his health clubs for kids.

He’s planning to take his Playhouse concept on the road later this year, delivering curriculum-linked fitness sessions to Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 pupils.

Matt, a full-time fireman and fitness instructor, said he’d scaled back on plans for a nationwide network of permanent health clubs following a series of meetings with some of the North-east’s most successful entrepreneurs, organised as part of his winning package with the Entrepreneurs Forum. They included a face-to-face pitch to Sir Peter Vardy, who built his fortune on the back of the Vardy motor group.

“I think perhaps I was a little too ambitious,” says Matt. “I’m now looking for £50-60,000 to get this started, as opposed to the quarter of a million needed for the permanent clubs.”

He believes schools and primary health trusts could help unlock the business’s potential.

“I’m going on the road with a branded van carrying interactive fitness equipment to deliver sessions that are built into the national curriculum. I’ll start with one van, but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t eventually run a whole fleet.”

Of his meeting with Sir Peter, Matt says: “It was my first meeting with someone like that and it was nerve-wracking, although he was such a lovely man that in the end it was quite relaxed.

“He gave me determination and energy to keep going.”