Ive added an audio message from me.
I sincerely apologise for the disruption learning at the Academy. Unfortunately, the whole situation was heading in a spiralling complex set of events.
Ive never experienced such a negative time in any professional life. Recovering as a performing arts business was always going to be challenging since COVID.
I am rebooting the Academy for term 3. We will be running our classes and lessons from the Thirroul Library and the Bulli Senior Citizens Centre.
There were a few contributing factors and I would like to show you these.
- The escalating sickness of staff and students. Credits and/or refunds per term that made it difficult to sustain such losses and there was no solution in the immediate.
- The studio rent was raised 40% from January. Together with fixed costs, this made the cost running the studio to double.
- I had been waiting for a lease from January and when it finally arrived in May, the conditions were unsustainable for a small business such as mine which led to a breakdown in negotiations and the property manager forcing a closure which led to 7 weeks of no access to academy equipment.
- A major downturn in enrolments in term 2 that many families are experiencing cost of living pressures and as music lessons are a luxury, these are always the first to go. Enrolments dropped 40%!
I am still committed to get the Academy up and running and as a leading performing arts school.