Sunday, September 17, 2006

Final Day of Grand Opening!

9-17-06 Sunday was the final day of our Grand Opening that started back on Thursday. And what a day it was! We counted 186 registration cards filled out--which represented mostly *families* and some individuals who filled that out. That puts an estimated number of visitors today at around 300+ people!!! In our health fair alone, which ran from 2-5 PM, we had about 130 people go through. So all in all, it was a very busy day for the staff of XRtainment Zone (as you will see!).

Greeting people outside was KOLA 99.1, doing a live on-site broadcast. Not only did they run several different spots throughout the preceding week about our Grand Opening, they also passed out flyers for us at Route 66 yesterday! Thanks KOLA!

Judy "SJ" Peterson (wife of COO Joel) manned the welcome/check-in table, and as those who met and know her, she has the energy for that job! She greeted, passed things out, and got them to fill out the check-in card for free drawings and prizes.

With this many people coming through today, all the games were in full use.

Today was the last day to sign up as a charter member. Based on some prelim. figures, we had 14 more members sign up today! Here is COO Joel answering questions of a potential member.

We had a lot of special visitors and friends check us out. Coach Jamie (RST) tries out the reaction game on Xavix and agreed that this would be good to help swimmers on their starts. Here he is getting ready to jump... And there he goes!

One of our equipment vendors reps, Cindy, from Sportwall, drove all the way out from Santa Barbara last night to make it to today's Grand Opening. Here we get a picture with Cindy and another associate from Sportwall, who spotted a cracked target and said they would send one to us first thing this week. What great customer service!

We also held a Pilates demo, led by Dulce.

All our Junior Staff were on hand to help others with the games. Here Cassie and Chloe help to put up a hula hoop back on the bouldering wall.

The health fair saw a steady stream of people going through the following stations. Charter Member Crystal invited and greeted visitors to step in and come through the health fair.The first stop was the BP station, manned by Charter Member Maria. Some almost fainted at this, including this Canadian Olympic team archer! That was followed by the Sit-n-Reach station, manned by Mike, a physical therapist. Next was the Grip Strength station, manned by PE teacher and Charter Member Marcus. He took turns with his fellow Canadian bud, Rob, who by weekday does root canals.Next was the Body Comp station, where Sandy ran the body fat machine


























and Charter Member Linda did waist/hip measurements.After body comp, visitors visited the Blood Sugar testing center, manned by two highly qualififed nurses, Dr. Keri Medina, DNSc (assoc. prof. at Loma Linda Univ. School of Nursing and wife of CEO Ernie) and Charter Member Conchita, a nurse practitioner at Arrowhead Regional. (Thanks to Charter Member David Clark, of Roche, for donating most of the supplies, including the meters.) As you can see, they did a fine job putting people at ease and controlling the wild onesThis visitor, Margaret, screams in agony because she's worried that her right hand will be injured. She uses it to pull back a bow string on her bow--she's training to be on the Canadian Olympic Archery team for 2008!Young kids, as well as "more seasoned" kids,
had their blood tested. To relieve them of the stress of getting stuck, the next stop was a free massage, compliments of International Skin and Body Care (located on Cajon, right across from Beaver Medical Group).The final stop was a Consult station, where results were interpreted and recommendations were made. Here is Dr. Olivia Moses counseling someonealong with MS Nutrition intern, John.All in all, a great job done by our volunteers to handle 130 people in 3 hours!!!

After 10+ hours of running the Open House, you can see the effect on the staff at the close of our Grand Opening weekend. I couldn't decide which picture best portrayed how we all felt, so I've included them both. (Not pictured is staff member Austin).

Great job to our staff and families for surviving this Grand Opening blitz! And welcome to all of our Charter Membership, which should number around 125 or so. Now as our kitchen gets finished, we'll soon shift into our next phase of starting up and running the various classes we said we would do. Let's get going!

Day 3 Grand Opening: Dedication & MPower Zone

9-16-06 As part of our ongoing Grand Opening events, Saturday was a special day (as it always is for some of us!). We held a special dedication for the Zone and all those involved. After that, we had our first MPower Zone seminar, and finally, had a short open house.

COO Joel welcomes the attendees to our dedication service.

Pastor John Brunt, senior pastor at Azure Hills Church (Grand Terrace), gave the dedication homily entitled, "The House that God Built". It was very inspiring to all of us. Many of our staff and investors are members of his church, which made it extra special. A couple of our other associate pastors were there: Pastor Carmen and Pastor Alex. We appreciate their participation and attendance at this special event.

To end our dedication service, we closed with a special song by a premiere women's singing group, Fusion Sounds, led by our the Zone's GM, Dr. Kim (end at left).

After the dedication service, we transitioned to our MPower Zone seminar. This featured Nutrapoints creater and author, Dr. Roy Vartabedian. He developed this unique and innovative nutrition program while the director of the Cooper Wellness Live-in program in Dallas, TX. This program allows you to monitor and control both calories and nutritional quality.

He also talked about supplements, highlighting his favoriet, Juice Plus. Then he ended on a note about pediatric obesity.

After his talk, people lined up to purchase his books and have him sign them.














One of the Zone's charter members, Conchita, really enjoyed the program and learned a lot. Her daughter, charter member Natalie, tends to be a "selective" eater so using the Nutripoints and Juice Plus's fruit and vegetable gummies will help ensure she is getting the best possible diet. (Juice Plus will be available for sale in the Zone's retail section. Charter members get 10% off all retail purchases!)


After Dr. Roy's presentation, the Zone opened up for a short open house. Here Jr. Staff Cameron gets the high score on the Jackie Chan Dash. He is the current high score holder on the Dash with a 129 step count! (The Dash is a race to see how many steps you can get in 10 seconds.)

Because of the increasingly high visibility the Zone has been getting, we decided to hire a top notch security night watchman to guard the premises after hours. This particular guard claims to have extra ninjitsu training so don't mess with him! Here he is at his post, ninja senses at high alert. No one can get in or out without his knowing it.

Friday, September 15, 2006

1st ever XRGames!

9-15-06 As part of our Grand Opening events, we held the first-ever XRGames! Between 1 PM and 5 PM, we featured contests at various games, keeping track of scores on the whiteboards. After which, highly coveted XRtainment Zone prizes were awarded to the top winners. Many kids really worked up a sweat repeating the games to improve their score or overtake a friend. Check out these serious competitors!

While not eligible for the prizes since he's a Junior Staff, Josh Knowlton gives it his best on the Makoto Challenge. We had it set at "Sudden Death - Accelerated, Level 2", which seemed to work well for this.

This participant keeps a close eye on the scoreboard as someone takes the Makoto challenge.

While kids won in various age groups, the overall top score was a tie at 75 between Robby Taylor and none other than moi, CEO Ernie! Since I was ineligible for a prize, we did not do a playoff. Here's Robby with his prize--a cool XRtZ water bottle! (Robby is also the brother-in-law if mine, but that did not factor into the tie--I was trying hard to beat his score! LOL!)

DDR, the most well-known of the exertaiment games, was a popular contest as well. We picked the song that everyone had to dance to. Here are two challengers battling away.

More kids taking the DDR challenge while the others look on.

Staff Alicia writes down the scores after each person was done.

The Junior Staff discuss the scores, wondering if they could beat it.

Gunnar and his mom battle it out on DDR.

Other games that were part of this 1st XRGames were....

the Sporwall...

Gamebike race...

and the Bouldering wall, where the kids chose a path and were timed on it.


































After each event, Alicia and Casey called the kids around to award their prizes.

"I won! Yeah!!!!!'

(L-R) Sam, Gunnar, and Gunner's mom all won prizes in more than one event. Congrat to them all!

And so ends our first XRGames. There will be many more in the future. While the XRGames were going on, the counter top finally arrived and will be fully installed on Mon. Joel can be seen cleaning it up so at least it would be presentable for the rest of this weekend's events.

Joel made this poster of some of the quotes in various publications were we or exertaiment was featured. The word is getting out there!