Bellingham Athletic Club

Bellingham Athletic Club Logo
(360) 676-1800
JOIN NOW
MEMBER LOGIN

News

Inclement Weather Policy

by

For the safety and well-being of all those concerned, our weather policy is as follows:

When the Bellingham Public Schools are closed due to weather, BAC will be open with a skeleton staff, but there will be no classes or appointments.

When the Bellingham Public Schools are delayed, BAC will be open, but there will be no A.M. classes or appointments.

In the event of extreme weather, we may find it necessary to close the club. Please check the website, social media, call in, or listen to your local radio station for information. This is a very rare occurrence but is sometimes necessary for the safety of our members and employees.

During the Bellingham Public School weekends training days and Holiday break: December 21st-January 5th, you will need to go to our website to get the updates.  In general, we start checking the weather at about 4:00 am and make the call by 4:30 am.  We make every effort to get staff in to open the clubs on time, but please be patient.  Brian Porter and Cathy Buckley usually are making the rounds picking staff up and transporting them into the clubs.  The purpose of our policy is to not put staff in danger and to keep unnecessary cars off the roads until the snowplows and sanders can make the rounds.  Thanks for your patience during weather events.

Annual Club Closure Information

by

We hope you are enjoying your final weeks of summer, but please be aware that our annual club closure is approaching.

Sunday, August 28th the whole club will be closed just for one day.

Sunday, August 28th through Monday, September 5th the pool will be closed for refinishing. Look for the pool to reopen after Labor Day on Tuesday, September 6th. Remember the pool can tend to be a bit cooler on the first days of reopening.

I think we are getting our feet under us, as we have better learned our way around our new Antaris software, we will also have some updates from them that will enable us to better serve you.

Swim Lessons will start up again following our pool shutdown on September 6th. Signups for those in lessons begin on August 18th, and open to the public on August 23. Call the Front Desk to enroll.

Thanks to everyone for your patience with our software conversion, we are glad to be past the hardest part of the learning curve!

New Club Management Software

by

As if we didn’t have enough change this Spring, our Club management system is migrating from CSI to a company called Antaris beginning May 1st.  So be patient with us as we all get trained on the new software.  For members it will mean you will need to book swim lanes through the Front desk for the next few days.  CSI will no longer support any online payments or bookings.  Look for new online credentials to be emailed to all members next week.

Please be kind and patient with our Front Desk staff as we navigate our way through closing the Downtown Club and learning to use our new software.

We are glad to welcome all the Downtown members to Cordata, we are working on getting everything arranged–so bear with us as we move things around a bit.  New carpet is coming for the upstairs next week Wednesday, so be prepared to access the upstairs through the cardio room instead of the main staircase.

Bittersweet News for Downtown

by

Here’s hoping Covid is waning and we can get some semblance of our lives back.  As many of you know we have been in protracted negotiations on the lease for the Downtown Club.  The building is changing hands and getting answers has been very difficult.  There are a variety of problems beside the terms and the cost of the lease:  The homeless who are lingering, sleeping, and etc. all around the exterior walls of 1616 Cornwall ever since the Base Camp went in across the street have been a big problem.  We have been unable to get any solutions out of the city.  Also many will remember the floods of the Fall, which have been a repeated problem over time.  And of course Covid — 19,20,21,  and 22 has depleted our Downtown membership.

All this by way of expressing that the era of the Downtown Club is coming to an end, we will be closing the Downtown facility on March 31st.  All equipment will be auctioned off through James G Murphy Co.   They are well known in the area and respected.  The auction will be held the first part of April.  If you are interested in purchasing any equipment that is where it will be available.  We would love all of you to transition back out to the Meridian location, but understand that is not convenient for everyone.  Please let membership know as soon as possible what your intentions are.  There will be no 30-day notice to cancel.  But be sure to contact us, as we can’t guess what you might like to do.  The best way is to email memberservices@bellinghamathleticclub.com with your intentions.

The good news is that we have been working on the Cordata facility and will continue to do so.  We have shower dividers coming for the men’s locker rooms.  We are adding weight equipment to the back of the cardio room, and plan on using the proceeds from the Downtown auction to purchase some new equipment for Cordata.  The women’s main locker room is having a facelift, installing wood lockers and adding a lounge area complete with couch, chairs and TV.  We will be expanding floor areas upstairs for more small group training and stretching areas.

We are very excited to be focusing our attention back at Cordata where everything began in 1975.  Cordata has always been the driver of business here at BAC; with the pool and the courts providing a variety of options for adults and families alike.  We will be expanding hours and programming soon at Cordata, we are looking to a more robust Group Ex schedule of classes, and adding more Kids Club hours (as long as we can find staff), as well as more Family Swim times.  Stay tuned for all the great happenings here at BAC –Cordata!  Looking forward to seeing you all here at the club!

Respectfully,
Cathy

Current Covid Guidelines & Summer Updates

by

Well here we are entering the second summer of COVID.  Though things are looking up, we are awaiting moving to the lifting of all restrictions.  As we have been gathering information from our membership, we are comfortable in saying that 80% of our membership currently using the club has been fully vaccinated!  That is absolutely great news.  We feel a little like a bear coming out of hibernation; in that we are slowly adding more and more exercise options. 

Current COVID policies:  Fully vaccinated members do not need to wear masks at all, if you are unvaccinated please mask up on the way in; reservations are still required for class participation and pool lanes. 

Racquetball

6/14/21                Beginner Racquetball Clinic @ 6:15 pm

6/23/21                Summer Racquetball League starts—call the Front Desk to sign up

In the Pool

6/16/21                Wednesday 8:30 am Water Aerobics with Tish

6/17/21                Thursday 9:00 am Aqua Zumba with Cindy

Kids Club

We are currently awaiting guidance from the Governor on drop-in daycare rules.  We are planning on opening Kids Club with reservations Monday, July 12th.  If you are interested in using Kids Club, let us know what times would be the best.  We generally plan KC hours around Group Ex classes.  As we add more classes we will add more Kids Club hours. 

Group Exercise Classes

6/14/21                Monday 5:30pm Power Pump with Heather

We will add classes as the existing classes fill up, let us know if there is an offering you would like. 

Downtown

For our Downtown members, we are so sorry to be experiencing the closure of our locker rooms due to a failure of our sewer system.  Supply chain issues have impacted our ability to replace a pump required to pump up to the city sewer line.  We have had 4 different plumbing outfits in to help, to no avail.  Please understand we are working on it.  We are mortified at having to close the locker rooms again!  Thank you for your patience.

Anxious to get your game on?

by

Hope this finds you well and anxious to get your game on!

We are still in the stranglehold of COVID, but we’ve seen some improvement and light at the end of the tunnel!

People are coming back to BAC to get in shape and ready to hit the courts again.  Policy at this point is that you have to wear your mask into the club, while you’re in the hallway, but not while you’re playing (unless you’d like to).  Bring your own towels.

We have people that have come back to the courts – there are some playing on Mon/Wed/Fri mornings again as well as some on Tues/Thurs evenings and various other pockets of times and days.  I want to facilitate in any way possible for those who need to find a playing partner, so if you’d like to play some singles, but don’t know who to contact, reply to this email and I’ll try to match you up with others.

I have a couple of other ideas in the works, and would like your feedback on them.  Please let me know what you think, and if you have any other ideas for me!

1.  SHORT SUMMER LEAGUE

For those who feel safe to do so, I’m contemplating having a little mini-league in May and June (or June and July).  8 or 9 weeks of playing singles matches.  Matches could be 2 out of 3 to 11 points, to ease people back into shape.  Would you be interested?

2.  BEGINNER CLINIC

To bring new players to our sport, I will reinstate the free beginner clinic for those who’d like to learn the game and participate on our courts. Sign-ups will be limited! First one will be in mid-May.

3.  GET IN SHAPE FOR RACQUETBALL CLASS

A lot of you have not been exercising that much during COVID.  This would be a chance to get yourself safely back into playing shape.  It would be a combination of drills on the court with me and a workout upstairs with a trainer to get your body in better shape for the game.  Would you be interested?

Let me know your thoughts!  You can email us at racquetball@bellinghamathleticclub.com

Downtown Club Opens

by

Good News!  With infection rates still declining and vaccination rates increasing it looks like we will be able to stay in Phase 2 for an extended period of time. That allows us to open up the Downtown Club effective TODAY!  We are so excited to be able to open the doors of the Downtown Club for our member’s workouts.

We will start with modified hours:  Monday through Friday 8:00am-12:00pm and 3:00pm-7pm.  Masks will be mandatory at all times during the morning hours (even when working out).  Masks will be required in all common areas and when not vigorously exercising, during the afternoon session (just like the policy at Cordata). Though we are able to open the exercise floor for member use, it appears from all of our research that we will still have to keep the locker rooms closed until we get further guidance from the Governor.  We will expand hours as the demand arises.

For right now the only In-person Class will be Lesley’s Strong and Stable which will require prior registration. We want to thank all of you members who have supported us throughout this past year, it has been so important to us.  We do foresee a time when we will have both clubs back in full swing in the not too distant future.  We are hoping that more and more of you are able to get the vaccine.   We can’t wait to see you back in the club!