Farm Gym cultivates spirit of cooperation despite adversity

Farm Gym owner Luke Harvison ... “We’ve got 20 sets of hands saying ‘let’s go’. That spirit is helping keep our community together through these challenges.”

BELOW: member Emma Clarke has volunteered for work on the farm.

Forced to cancel their  in-person sessions due to Coronavirus restrictions, Farm Gym owner Luke Harvison and his wife Acacia pivoted quickly.

They now train their members online and have redirected energy to the farming side of their business. 

“Looking back on what’s made Nambour great is that people have had that same adaptable, adventurous spirit,” Luke said. “That same will to go head first into what they saw could become a reality and just keep forging ahead until it shaped itself into something remarkable.

“We’ve managed to transfer the ethos behind the Farm Gym and our reason why to our online sessions, where we still work hard and strive to earn a small improvement everyday. 

“And for my wife Acacia and myself it’s freed us up to do more for our second passion of organic farming.”

An unexpected mutually-beneficial outcome of the crisis has seen members who have recently lost their jobs volunteer for work on the primary production side of the business: Farm Gym Harvest. 

“A lot of our guys are, unfortunately on their own without work and going stir-crazy at home,” said Luke. 

‘It’s freed us up to do more for our second passion of organic farming’ 

“From a business owner’s perspective, you want to get help and you want to pay them something ... but what you don’t realise is that the value exchange in this case is them just having something worthwhile to do and to be part of something they believe in. 

“If you can offer an inspiring authentic environment coupled with a worthwhile task and  truly elaborate on the meaning of where you’re going and how it can benefit those around you,  you’ll end up with a wake of people behind you that just want to help. 

“Our crew come in at a moment’s notice and we’ve got 10 sets of hands ready to go.

“That spirit has helped keep our community together through these challenges.”

In normal times at The Farm Gym Luke combines the farm environment and his background in constructing challenges and props on the American Survivor series to create a game-based training program in a rural setting. 

“We’ve used a lot of task based gamification to make something epic here,” he said. “the work becomes fun when you’re going head to head against our other classes”.

“Even when you’re training in our shed everything around you is green. The environment is literally the key to it all. If you’re going to train somewhere why not include nature into the mix? as it’s only going to boost your experience.”

“People love our farm environment which has made transitioning to our online platform interesting. We’re approaching COVID-19 like any other challenge: we train to overcome adapt and thrive. The gym is also getting some love and attention and will come back ready to go, better than before, when the time comes.”        

— by Cameron Outridge