A Message from Master Bailey…
Wow! As with all of us, 2020 has been a crazy, but incredible ride! I personally choose to be grateful for each and every blessing & precious moment 2020 has brought to us, while continuing to look forward to 2021. As fatigue from the Covid-19 pandemic begins to settle in, I urge each of our families to be resilient, to demonstrate compassion to others, and to choose to live in the “now” because the “now” is time we will never get back (however that may look for each of our families).
As I have spent the last quarter of 2020 preparing for 2021, we have some awesome announcements for all of our P3 families. However, before we get to these spectacular announcements, I felt it was important to define our vision, mission, and core values of P3 as a company, for our families, and our students as we head into 2021. When I launched P3 back in 2015, my vision was simple…to create an amazing martial arts company. Obviously as the years progressed, our company expanded & grew at speeds producing year over year double & triple digit growth. Such a blessing, right! I hired an amazing staff of young people that just wanted to give back to our community, that loved what they do, and man do I love each one of their hearts. They all have turned out to be incredible young men and women with amazing skill sets & the brightest of futures ahead of them.
So many of you are already saying “get on with it, we want to know the good stuff now.” Well…what is our vision now? The vision of P3 is to continue to be a student centered facility where everyone feels welcomed. We want to be the place that everyone, no matter their background, religion, ethnicity, or issues, feels valued, feels loved, and experiences growth.
How do we do that? We do it through our mission statement. Our mission statement is to train & equip our students to make a positive difference in their world. Kids especially are not equipped with these tools to make a positive difference in their world, and instead these tools have to be instilled into them through modeling or learned behavior. A good example right now is that you see a LOT of angry adults, and the kids are building up a lot of extra anxiety…more anxiety than they ever had. I’ve told my staff several times over the past few months, that we are currently fighting to demonstrate how to make a positive difference in their own life even if other forces are trying to create havoc.
Finally, our core values are how we behave to achieve our mission statement and vision. We have developed 5, very succinct and specific core values, that will drive our mission & vision.
1.) Project Positivity.
We want our students, employees, and company to be a beacon in such a negative world. It is easy to be sickle and angry…to feel defeated. We want other people to look at our students & employees and just FEEL like they are a positive force, and so much fun to be around.
2.) Create Excitement
We want students to feel a buzz when they walk into our facility. We want it to feel electric. We have the music playing, our voice inflections and vocal tones as instructors are engaging, everything looks good, feels good, smells good, and we create excitement.
3.) Igniting Passion
This is the “Why am I still doing this?” piece. We want our students to look forward to training for a long period of time, and obtaining their 4th Degree Black Belt, maybe becoming a Master at 6th degree. It is very important to remind our students (and honestly ourselves) the “why” they love us, why they love their training, and more importantly why we love them.
4.) Embracing Resilience
Honestly, resilience is one of those qualities that I believe right now is extraordinarily important because it seems like we keep getting hit by stuff, here and there…this, this, and this keeps coming at me. Without resilience, you get bitter. It is a slow trend to becoming bitter, but as you get bitter more things negatively happen to you. We want to teach our students that making small decisions now, in the face of negativity, can lead to a future that makes a difference in their world.
5.) Fostering Friendships
We want to foster an environment among our students that continues to foster friendships. We want to continue to teach the students to encourage each other through any struggles and to embrace their victories. We want each student to be surrounded by a support system of love, and compassion.
Now onto the good stuff…
One of the biggest announcements going into 2021 is that we ARE EXPANDING AGAIN….which is amazing as vaccines are forthcoming in the final months of the pandemic. If you haven’t noticed, our programs have begun rebranding across social media channels & online. The new brand will better align the company with our future goals & endeavors.
In the near future, contingent on construction, we will be moving both our Martial Art Program & After School Program under one, 9000+ brand new square foot facility!!! When I say brand new, literally everything from the lights, to A/C units, bathrooms, and more will be brand new.
Here is some of the very exciting features of our new facility:
-A new 2,500 square foot Martial Art Training Area complete with new heavy bags & equipment
-An Olympic size spring floor with carpet bonded foam.
-A 1,000 square foot multi-functional mat space.
-An 8 X 10 foot air bag for tumbling techniques (much like a foam pit, but hygienic)
-A steel 10 X 12 foot trampoline with safety netting to perfect tumbling techniques
-Four separate classrooms for our after school & summer camp program. Our 4th and 5th grade classroom will be designed as a lounge which parents will be able to utilize after the program closes each day.
-Four changing rooms & two brand new bathrooms.
-A video game wall with the latest consoles.
-We negotiated to utilize a 25,000 square foot outdoor space (almost the size of a high school football field) behind our facility.
-A drive thru pickup for our After School & Summer Camp Program directly behind our facility.
Here is the layout of the new facility:
As with 2020, change is in the air…
Most parents do not know, but Mr. Robbie will sadly be leaving our company on Friday, December 11th. Mr. Robbie has literally been with us since the birth of P3, when we had 20 students, and he worked for free for the first 6 months teaching amazing classes until the company could afford to pay him. In February of this year, Mr. Robbie approached me and began discussing a career change to another location in the United States. We worked diligently to prepare for his departure…and then Covid-19 hit. He has continued to give his time towards the growth of each and every one of our students, helping guide a growing company though the pandemic. To say losing him is going to hurt is an understatement. However, the great news is that Mr. Robbie will remain in Knoxville with his new career, and we are so very excited for him that he has taken this new opportunity. As I told him back in February, to keep an employee in a global economy for 5+ years is amazing, but what is more amazing….and that I am truly thankful for…is Mr. Robbie has trained an incredible replacement for his position during those 5 years. An excellent teacher, an incredible role model, and a fantastic martial artist:
Mr. Peter Goodacre will (and has been interim position since April) officially become the Director of our Martial Arts program.
Mr. Robbie…we all love you so much…you have touched so many hearts…and we can’t wait to see you come train with us as your new job allows. I am forever grateful for our time & life experiences together over the past 5+ years!
We will be doing a parade of P3 love in front of the studio on Friday, December 11th in celebration of Mr. Robbie!
Bring your ugly Christmas sweaters, wear your favorite Santa hats, take Mr. Robbie’s last class, and lets pack out the parking lot for his last day. The drive thru parade will start at 7:30pm on Friday.
We will be making Mr. Robbie a slideshow for his last day. If you have a few of your favorite pictures, please upload them to the link below:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14hOLWHgrI82i0Q4OZI2QZNgDkOWigrln?usp=sharing
As a finale to this novel, we would like to welcome our newest team members to the P3 team.
Ms. Samantha Slater
-Samantha comes to us with a background in competitive cheerleading and both national and world titles. She currently attends the University of Tennessee Knoxville, majoring in business marketing.
Ms. Selina Harb
-Selina comes to us after receiving her original black belt from Master Bailey many years ago. She is currently a 3rd Degree Black Belt, and will begin assisting & leading martial art classes.
Ms. Lauren Graves
-Lauren comes to us with 5 years of teaching experience in preschool & music. She currently attends the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga and is a member of the Brock Scholars Program within the honors college. Lauren will be assisting in our After School & Summer Camp Program.
Ms. Anna Wells
-Anna has been with us for a few months now, and is doing an incredible job. Anna is currently attending the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and majoring in molecular biochemistry. Anna assists in our After School & Summer Camp Program.
Ms. Olivia Henderson
-Olivia comes to us after receiving her original black belt from Master Bailey many years ago as well. She is also a 3rd Degree Black Belt. She currently leads teams in our after school program, and will work towards assisting & leading martial art classes.
Mr. Daniel Rivera
-Daniel attends the University of Tennessee, Knoxville majoring with a communications degree with a concentration in video marketing. Daniel has several years of experience in other camp & after school programs. Daniel has expressed interest in pursuing his black belt as well.
Mr. Noah Cooper
-Noah attends the University of Tennessee, Knoxville as well, and is majoring in statistics with a minor in computer science. Noah has over 4 years teaching experience as a child mentor and tutor.
We always say we are the best & these new team members are going to be incredible additions to the P3 team.