By Miyuki Sese
Antioch College has a gym called “Curl Gymnasium”, which is located behind the McGregor building. 14 students as a part time job, and Judy Kintner who is a director and has been working at Antioch for 9 years, run the gym. Usually their tasks are customer service like renting something for playing sports and a lot of cleaning, including sweeping the basketball courts and vacuuming the pool. They are working for 5 hours a day with a shift system. According to gym staff member Michelle Wall, they are enjoying their work at gym; however they also have some troubles. As for the first problem, they are busy and have a lot of work to do because not only Antioch students but also people from town come to the gym. According to the staff, business depends on the day and especially the beginning of the semester seems hard to work. They want to share their tasks with their members efficiently in order to decrease their hardship. They also need the housekeeper to clean up the gym for sake of their focusing on more important works. “We balance chlorine and Ph levels in the pool 4 times everyday. It is difficult for us to control these levels”, said one of the gym staff, Derrick Lane.
Another point of trouble is occasional devastation in the gym. Recently Antioch College had a big party called “Black and Tan”. Sadly, someone sneaked into the gym and threw some beer bottles into the pool after the party. What’s more, someone even broke into the moneybox and stole money from the gym. Unfortunately, some racket balls were also stolen by someone in daily life. “We had 15 or 10 racket balls before, but there are only 3 racket balls now,” said gym staff, Aimee Keener. According to her, someone also stole a basketball. “The door of the pool is broken because it’s old. Even though we use a key, it sometimes does not open,” said Aimee.
The budget is also an important issue for them. Their budget is so small that they are limited to support their service for Antioch College. The budget that they can spend on any equipment is $ 2,000 for a year. Thus, even though they want to buy and provide new things, they can not do that sufficiently because of a lack of money. Judy is worried about keeping Antioch College open because the future of the gym depends on the existence of Antioch College. She does not know whether they can keep the gym open or not for the moment.
The weather in summer is also an enemy of the staff because the gym does not have any air conditioner. They use only fun in order to endure the effect of the hot weather.
Finally, “Now is an especially stressful time for Antioch students, so come on and use the gym for your healthy way.” said Judy.