Ive added an audio message from me.
I sincerely apologise for the disruption for you working at the Academy. Unfortunately, the whole situation was heading in a spiralling complex set of events. I have not physically coped and my mental wellness has been hammered. I need to admit I have struggled to keep in control. As you know, this has cause my marriage to break and financially,
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.
For those who are still owed money, I guarantee I will get these to you as soon as I can. It wasn’t until the last day of the term I was able to get our equipment from the studio. Everyday from week 3 was such a challenge and everyday, I was hoping for a positive result. 7 weeks of hell!! Financially I was screwed as we could not resume lessons without equipment.
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.
I am aware some of you are not happy with the way events have progressed but I do need to know if you wish not to continue. The positive out of all this is that I do not have the major overhead of the studio in my cashflow, so there will be definite improvements in that side.
There were a few contributing factors and I would like to show you these.
- The escalating sickness of staff and students – On average, between 6-7 thousand dollars in 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 from $2200 per month to $3650 per month from January. This made the cost running the studio to more than $5000 per month with all the operating costs
- 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.