Accora Village, a privately owned rental community located in Ottawa, Ontario, is home to over 8,000 residents.

“One of the things that really sets us apart as a community is the fitness and wellness programs available,” said Jen Nason, who has served as Accora Village’s recreation manager since November 2016. “We really do want to have an active and engaged community.”

At the heart of the community is the Accora Centre, an exclusive health and fitness facility for residents of Accora Village. Here, fitness center members and residents have access to over 1,000 fitness, nutrition, and mindfulness classes through Wellbeats.

“We have a fitness studio, and we have a projector and screen set up in there,” Jen said. “People can just plug in the class that they’re looking for and participate at their leisure.

“We also have taken the approach of doing some scheduled Wellbeats classes where we put it in, program it, and include it on our schedule, and then you can just automatically play the class at certain times as well.”

The variety of classes available through Wellbeats has helped Accora Village accommodate the interests and meet the needs of its community members.

“It allows us to be able to offer our fitness center members and our residents some additional classes,” Jen said. “It gave us that ability to say we have a wide variety of classes that they could do on demand and appeal to a wider demographic.

“Somebody might have something very specific that they’d like to see, and because there’s quite a list of classes to choose from, it hopefully fulfills most everybody’s interests and needs, and that’s a big advantage.”

The flexibility of Wellbeats’ virtual classes provides value to the Accora Village community as classes are available on-demand at any time.

“If they want to take a set class, if it’s with an in-person instructor, it’s pretty regimented, but this offers flexibility,” Jen said. “They can just come at a time that suits them. I know before COVID-19, we had a small group of friends that would often meet up and use the space there. They’d pick a class they liked and be able to choose and try different ones, so that was really fun.”

To encourage Accora Village community members to try Wellbeats classes, Jen and her staff have employed a few effective strategies to promote the classes and educate the community on Wellbeats’ ease of use.

“I think typically, once they’ve used it, people realize just how easy it is to use and follow and select the class they want,” Jen said.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Accora Village fitness staff regularly led orientations and trainings with new members. They would show them how to use Wellbeats and invite them to try classes. The staff also included Wellbeats classes on their group fitness calendar, scheduling classes to play at select times and allowing members to show up and attend—just like the traditional in-person classes.

“For some people, it’s intimidating to go and touch a computer screen. They like if someone has already done it for them,” Jen said. “On top of that, it gave us the ability, if say we had 10 instructor-led classes, we could also put that we had these other classes scheduled in, so on days that there were less in-person classes scheduled, we could add in Wellbeats classes as well.”

Accora Village launched Wellbeats in 2016, and residents have enjoyed it ever since.

“I know there was a lot of enthusiasm and excitement around it in the beginning,” Jen said. “And when I first began here, our membership was quite low and we didn’t really have the ability to offer a lot of in-person, instructor-led classes, so Wellbeats really allowed us to highlight more services available to residents and give them a little more value for their membership.

“I would say over the years, the membership has really grown. Whether or not that’s specifically related to Wellbeats, it’s among the list of services available to the members. When we’re doing tours for new residents considering moving in, the features that stand out to them are the pool and gymnasium, and we’re able to show the screen and say there’s on-demand classes. Wellbeats is among the list of the features that are highlighted on tours.”

With classes designed for every age, interest, body type, ability level, or situation, Wellbeats offers an integrated wellbeing solution for all.

Download the Accora Village client spotlight here.

About Wellbeats, a LifeSpeak company

Wellbeats, a LifeSpeak company is a leading provider of on-demand virtual fitness, nutrition, and mindfulness classes for use in workplaces of all sizes, health plans, on college or university campuses, multi-family housing, the U.S. military, and fitness and health clubs. Based in St. Louis Park, MN, Wellbeats makes fitness accessible, affordable, and approachable for everyone. More than 1,000 classes and 35+ programs are available to help members stay on track and meet their goals. To learn more, visit www.wellbeats.com or check out a sampling of the company’s fitness classes during a Facebook Live class, and follow Wellbeats on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.