Great service and assistance from employees

Good day,

I wish to complement two employees especially (Dudu Sishima & Victor Sithole) from Virgin Active Carlswald in Midrand for greatly assisting me with the paraplegic parking issue that had started to develop just outside of the gym.

I am a wheelchair user who likes to keep fit because it helps me with doing a whole lot of things independently and because keeping fit is great for my general well-being, physically and mentally. I transferred my membership from Vodaworld Virgin Active to Carlswald Virgin Active on May 1, 2015, because Vodaworld Virgin does not have a lift and I always needed assistance to get upstairs in order to exercise.

From the time I joined Carlswald Virgin Active, I had never experienced any parking issues until this year when the Carlswald Shopping Centre changed the security company (which was Fidelity Security). Some able-bodied members of the gym felt that it’s okay to park on the parkings reserved for members with disabilities and the security guards were not doing anything about it. This led me to miss some of my sessions at times, especially in the July and August months.

When I returned mid-August, I made Dudu aware of this parking issue that I was experiencing when she asked me why I had not been frequently coming to the gym as I used to. Herself and Victor took it upon themselves to speak to the security guards and educate them on the importance of reserving those parking bays, i.e., they are wider than normal parking bays because a wheelchair user has to have space to open their door wide and also to have space to place their wheelchair next to the car door. Since then, the problem has been minimal. I had initially felt that it wasn’t up to them to talk to the security guards about this as I believed it was the Carlswald Shopping Centre management who had hired this security company and that they were the ones who had hired this security company and they should have emphasized that the parking rules should be enforced by them. Therefore, for Dudu Sishima and Victor Sithole to act on the spot was above and beyond. There are still a few members who still feel entitled and perhaps arrogantly use this parking and causing an inconvenience. The result may be that they may set a precedent for other members who may think that it’s still a free for all and when they face consequences of their actions (e.g., get wheel clamped, which I hope they do), they have difficulty with taking accountability for their actions.

I just wish everyone understood why some facilities are reserved for people with disabilities because the abuse of them, in this case, leads to an inconvenience like missing out on reaching my fitness goals.

Many thanks.