Further review free Safra gym membership scheme for pre-enlistees before rollout

The Ministry of Defence’s (Mindfef) PreEnlistees Exercise Programme for National Service (PREP4NS) granting future national servicemen a free one-year Safra EnergyOne gym membership should be further reviewed before the trial is implemented in November. (“NS pre-enlistees to get 1-year SAFRA gym membership in November trial”, Oct 4.) 

This will help to ensure that taxpayers’ money are not wasted and existing paying Safra EnergyOne gym members are not adversely affected.

The PREP4NS trial will give pre-enlistees free access to all six Safra EnergyOne gyms at the following hours:

• Weekdays: 630am to 5pm and 10.30pm to 1am

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  Weekends: 630am to 1pm and 8pm to 1am

This will keep the gyms exclusive to paying members from 5pm to 10.30pm and 1pm to 8pm on weekends, presumably because these are peak hours of usage.

But as a Safra gym member since 1990, I have observed that for weekdays, the gyms are also crowded from 7.15am to 9am and around lunch time, from 11.30am to 2pm. On weekends, they can be busy from 8am to 1pm.

It is likely that the gyms will now be even more crowded during these hours with the addition of PREP4NS participants. These would not be fair to fee-paying members.

Second, the gyms currently operate from 6.30am to 10.30pm from Mondays to Fridays, 7am to 8pm on Saturdays and 9am to 7pm on Sundays and Public Holidays. 

It would appear that their opening hours will be extended — to 6.30am on weekends and public holidays and from 10.30pm to 1am every night — to cater to the PREP4NS programme.

This could put further stress on the facilities, which sometimes suffer from air conditioning breakdowns as they serve thousands of members and users.

At the same time, I wonder how many pre-enlistees will want to go to the gym from 10.30pm to 1am or get up early to exercise at 6.30am?

On what basis did Mindef make the decision to extend the opening hours? What if there is under-utilisation during these hours?

I hope Mindef can also explain whether pre-enlistees must meet certain minimum hours of training under PREP4NS. 

If not, wouldn’t it be a waste of resources, especially since gym hours are being extended for these pre-enlistees?

As this is a national programme, perhaps Mindef can also consider tying up with Home Team and ActiveSG gyms to tap into their facilities for more efficient use of resources.

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