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Post by diva49 on May 16, 2020 12:46:29 GMT
I found what I had read - in the WW Earnings Call on 4/28 (Nick Hotchkin, CFO, Operating Officer-North America and President, Emerging Markets, speaking):
Our operating and financial objectives for 2020 are, maximize recruitment and retention with a focus on subscription lifetime value, ensure we continue to deliver a high-quality and engaging member experience across all platforms, strategically reposition our studio business to have a smaller real estate footprint continuing to offer virtual workshops to maximize retention among studio subscribers, continue to focus on ecommerce given last consumer product sales while studios closed, implement a $100 million of cost savings initiative, continue to invest in our products and tech capabilities to take advantage of future opportunities, and finally, maintain strong liquidity.
As I mentioned, we are implementing a cost savings initiative of $100 million, versus our initial 2020 annual operating plan. We've taken these cost actions to maintain our flexibility to respond to evolving business and consumer conditions, while at the same time, ensuring our ability to continue to invest in innovating our program and experience to position the company for future growth. The $100 million reduction in expenses will come from cost of revenues, marketing, and G&A.
In marketing, we will continue to be agile and in best behind those initiatives that are producing results. On G&A expense, we are taking a number of actions to reduce corporate overhead. As you will have seen in our 8-K filed today, Mindy, myself and the Executive Committee and our Board of Directors will be taking reductions in compensation. Additional cost reduction actions, including temporary salary reductions for corporate employees, and lower contributions to employee benefit programs vary by country. As we make these decisions, we are carefully focused on maintaining an efficient and effective organizational structure to drive our key business priorities.
In our cost of services for the year will reflect a smaller studio business footprint and associated labor savings. We expect a phased reopening of our in-person workshops globally, with no studio reopening prior to May 30th. Health and safety will come first in the decision making before any individual studio location reopens. While we don't know how the macro environment and the impacts on our business will play out in the coming months, we believe this cost plan provides protection in a challenging environment.
<I can hear Mike>
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Post by DebDoesWW on May 16, 2020 14:37:23 GMT
"We just wanted to remind everyone to please be sensitive to the fact that many of our message board members are WW employees that may be impacted by these financial decisions being made by WW.
To our friends here that have been affected we are truly sorry.
Deb & Rad"
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Post by finreporter on May 16, 2020 20:09:26 GMT
Why would we not be sensitive to people losing out on income? Surely we can have a discussion as it relates to the financial strategies WW is planning on implementing and empathize with those who may be directly affected by it.
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Post by DebDoesWW on May 16, 2020 21:15:39 GMT
finreporter just asking people to use compassion and common sense under the circumstances. I am sure you can understand that.
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Post by Laura M on May 17, 2020 17:20:57 GMT
Out of curiosity, I did the search for a workshop. The two I normally would go to, Waynesboro PA & Chambersburg PA, have the number of workshops listed as 0 but have a big large orange box stating where to find the virtual meeting. Didn't seem odd at first until I hit the meetings for Hagerstown MD (different state but only 17 miles from where I am in PA). All of its meetings were still listed, no orange box; but when you click to view the times there was a notice about everything being virtual for the time being. Frederick, MD and Hanover PA were the same.
It looks as though the locations with the least amount of meetings are being pushed viritual and the places with a lot will have meetings.
Now, of course, this is just my opinion; but I have kept looking at my studio to see of reopening dates and this is the first time the days/times have been completely wiped out.
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Post by diva49 on May 17, 2020 18:55:18 GMT
The two I normally would go to, Waynesboro PA & Chambersburg PA, have the number of workshops listed as 0 but have a big large orange box stating where to find the virtual meeting. WW is still trying to get as many people as possible involved in the virtual workshop situation. It's already been 9 weeks <!!!> and I know that having the opportunity to "see" my fellow chair-sitters has really kept me connected to the program (and to my friends). Even though they sent out that e-mail about IRL meetings coming back, they didn't say it was happening soon. I expect that, affected by different states' reopening plans, the WW IRL workshops will not just "all happen" in any quick manner on any one day. And workshops that are at stand-alone private sites are also dependent upon how soon the locations themselves make space available after they're released by their states to do so. So tidying up the website will tell any member from that location who is still not attending a VW where they will find the members from their location. There is no GROUP in Connect for Waynesboro PA or Chambersburg PA, so you need to join the [name of the Group in the orange box] to find your VW. After you join the Group in Connect, you can see that Silver Spring MD (the group to which you are directed from one of those boxes) includes Church of the Apostles (Waynesboro PA) and a few other stand-alone meetings. Physical proximity of the IRL meetings does not matter; one of the NJ Connect Groups includes folks from a NY town that's 103 miles away. Go down the list to look for your workshop day/time. If Silver Spring had a meeting at the same time as CoA, then both locations' coaches would be listed for that day/time and I have seen a tag-team approach in that situation, in my NJ group. This has been WW's practice from the first week of virtual workshops. As for the workshop days/times being listed on the "bigger" pages - if you click on the location, it says Virtual Workshop Schedule (Virtual workshop link within Important Announcements below). There are no IRL workshops right now. There is no schedule for reopenings. There is no statement regarding what locations may or may not still be used. So goes WW in May 2020. I hope you're taking advantage of the virtual support that WW is offering!
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Post by Laura M on May 17, 2020 20:08:11 GMT
I do know where the Virtual Workshops are for the two meetings I would go for.....though it totally makes no sense who they were grouped with; none-the-less, I didn't care for the virtual (which is odd because I'm a computer geek) but I think I'm virtually exhausted with having to do EVERYTHING that way....I liked walking into meetings and being around people. My WW meeting was my "me" time. But I guess we shall see.
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Post by finreporter on May 17, 2020 20:18:15 GMT
Stratcat I’m sure they won’t do away with them completely. Not n the near term anyway. Not sure what their true long term plans are. There may be limited meetings and permanent exits out of some meeting locations but I would assume they will keep some meetings once restrictions are starting to lift.
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Post by diva49 on May 18, 2020 2:36:53 GMT
I didn't care for the virtual (which is odd because I'm a computer geek) but I think I'm virtually exhausted with having to do EVERYTHING that way....I liked walking into meetings and being around people. A couple of my WW GF don't care for the virtual workshops at all, but attend as a courtesy to the rest of us. One of them is constantly in virtual meetings for her DayJob, so a VW is "just ANOTHER meeting". The other just doesn't care for the way Zoom works. And since our workshop is a friendly and welcoming bunch, we all miss "sitting in those blue (yes, ours are blue) chairs" and express that sentiment often (we also have a substitute coach; our coach is a nurse who is on duty at Penn Health Princeton with unbelievable hours and we miss her, too). We even have a Breakfast Club that has met monthly for over two years, with its final gathering on Saturday 3/14 - just days before NJ went to shelter-at-home. So because this is all we have right now, the same gal who is cyberMeetinged-OUT has organized bi-weekly Zoom meetings for after our workshop is over. We've had two so far; the next one is this Saturday. We schmooze and talk over each other and the guy who schedules the meeting took a screen shot of us last time - just like we always took a group picture in the diner(s). BTW - at Saturday's VW we learned that one of our long-timers has been tending her DH, who has COVID-19 and is at home. He's improving, T-G . She tested negative. She was able to join us and not feel so cut off from the WW part of her life when her shelter-at-home has become a full quarantine. The silver lining to the VW cloud.
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Post by DebDoesWW on May 19, 2020 13:40:22 GMT
diva49, I just love your group, that is so cute, what a great support system.
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Post by limefan on May 19, 2020 20:43:18 GMT
Laura M, The Saturday morning Hagerstown meeting I attend has 3 different locations rolled in with the Hagerstown group. So we have 3 different coaches in the same meeting. The coach for my meeting location is going on maternity leave, so I am not sure if one of the other coaches from Hagerstown will take her place or if the other two coaches will just handle the meeting. I did see Joni (Chambersburg group) posted on the Chambersburg WW Facebook page that she could be found at the Forestville MD group. I do miss my normal group and it would be nice if it was just us on the VW. I usually do not talk and just sit and listen or type comments in chat. One of the guides told me that it will probably be July before we start having in studio meetings.
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Post by Laura M on May 19, 2020 21:18:03 GMT
Laura M , The Saturday morning Hagerstown meeting I attend has 3 different locations rolled in with the Hagerstown group. So we have 3 different coaches in the same meeting. The coach for my meeting location is going on maternity leave, so I am not sure if one of the other coaches from Hagerstown will take her place or if the other two coaches will just handle the meeting. I did see Joni (Chambersburg group) posted on the Chambersburg WW Facebook page that she could be found at the Forestville MD group. I do miss my normal group and it would be nice if it was just us on the VW. I usually do not talk and just sit and listen or type comments in chat. One of the guides told me that it will probably be July before we start having in studio meetings. I know Sheila from Chambersburg is in Forestville as well. I know Joni is very very popular and has been for years, but I've found her meetings more like being in school. I like Sheila, but her boss is always telling her she needs to control her meetings and when the boss is there the meetings are dull at best. I'll just have to wait it out and see. I switched to just digital for right now. Once I see who has made the "cut", I'll make a decision then. There's some talk of limiting the number of people in meetings and I can't imagine how they'll ever do that, especially if someone is paying for meetings only to be turned away. If Hagerstown had earlier meetings 4:30, 5:00 during the week I'd just go there after work.
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Post by limefan on May 19, 2020 22:32:02 GMT
Laura M Laura, I had not looked at the app until just now and saw that there is mention of some meetings closing for the "Forestville" group. I saw that all of Joni's workshops say they will be closing as of 5/31. That is sad. Yes, Joni's meetings were old school, but I did not mind them. I agree, that Sheila has her own style. But that is what makes her unique and keeps her meetings interesting. I also just looked at the Hagerstown virtual meetings and noticed some changes. There is no mention yet that any of the meetings would be closing. I thought there was a Thursday evening meeting, but it is now on the app now. Maybe I was dreaming or it has been removed. I guess we will have to wait and see. If in studio meetings do not resume, I may go to just digital also or stop altogether.
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Post by Laura M on May 22, 2020 14:34:45 GMT
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Post by fullmahina on May 22, 2020 16:24:03 GMT
Wow that is really a crappy thing to do.
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