Good morning everyone, Gaz here!
So much to fill you all in on and I will get around to that shortly, but first I just wanted to thank each and every single one of you who have given and supported me as I worked hard to take GT Ministries to the next step.
GTM ACADEMY
I'm excited to let you all know that the GTM Academy has been a huge success already, with 26 students signed up and attending our Theory of Wrestling classes. This will start to provide us with a regular weekly income stream that we can reinvest back into the wrestling school to purchase equipment and provide a bursary for those who cant afford it.
Alongside this strong start we have two coaches joining me, Jennie B who will take our female classes and Sean Only who will take our advanced classes. We are also looking at youth classes in the new year as there is a lot of interest from parents.
So you may be thinking, what about the ring?
Well, we have our 16 foot ring arriving in November in time for our GTM Genesis event, this will then be housed within Fountains Church. The best bit about this is that we managed to source it at a lower cost than we were originally quoted! So we have some money to help fit the space out for us, adding mats and other equipment. This also means that all future events will have a slightly lower cost to churches as we wont be hiring a ring every time.
PARTNERSHIP WITH FOUNTAINS
We cant be any more excited about our partnership with Fountains Church, not only are they housing the Academy, helping with funding applications and other background tasks, but we are launching a very special joint venture in 2022.
We will be hosting a GTM event every month at Fountains, one month will be a GTM wrestling show, the next month will be WRESTLING CHURCH! They will then rotate throughout the year.
What is Wrestling Church? We will be taking stories from the Bible and themes like forgiveness and telling the story in a physical way, within the ring, with a short talk fleshing out the scripture and teachings, alongside live worship and other segments like Testimonies and Q&A's. We cant wait to see how this plays out! We are praying and seeking God's guidance and wisdom on this, so please be praying with us.
VXS DISCOUNTS
You may have also seen on our social media channels that we are offering discounts on gym wear from VXS. This is a gym wear brand which is well placed to help us provide discounted clothing for our Academy students and any commission from sales will be put back into the Academy, so its win/win for us.
We are aware that bookings from churches have been a little slow for next year so far, but we have plans to start contacting our past bookings for follow up events and getting the word out that we are back to business as usual in 2022.
GTM CHAMPIONSHIPS
You made have seen the newly created GTM Championship, sponsored by our friends at CVM, Edge Ministries, Restored and Sorted Magazine. We have plans to introduce Championships for our growing Tag Team Division and our fledgling Women's Division, we hope to source sponsors for these once we have plans for them to be regularly defended on our events.
The Academy will also have a Men's, Women's and Tag Championships created to give the students something to aspire too, once they have been awarded a title in the Academy we will then promote them to our main roster and give them chances to perform on our normal shows in front of larger crowds.
BUY ME A COFFEE - MEMBERSHIPS
After looking at the engagement we have had through Buy Me A Coffee, I decided that our Membership Options needed some work. After my years of experience in Fundraising and Marketing, I realised that we needed to give our Members a better package for their support. So we have made some changes.
The tiers are now as follows:
Trainee - £5 a Month - As a Trainee you will receive monthly updates, access to our prayer group, monthly updates and early access to our monthly events
Rookie - £10 a Month - As a Rookie you get all the perks of a Trainee, plus Free access to our online video library and 10% off orders from VXS
Pro - £20 a Month - As a Pro, you get all the perks of a Rookie, plus a FREE GTM T-shirt and discounts on future orders
Champion - £50 a Month - As a Champion, you get all the perks of a Pro, plus FREE entry to all GTM Live Events!
Legend - £100 a Month - As a Legend, you get everything a Champion gets and exclusive access to the inner workings of GTM, personal communication from our Founder and Director, Gareth Thompson, who will be happy to discuss how your support will be used to further the goals and aims of GT Ministries
We hope this helps encourage more people to join us and give monthly.
I know there is a lot to digest there, but we want to be completely transparent and bring you all in on our successes and growth moving forward.
I will be taking a break over December and January for the birth of my second daughter, but will be back with a bang in February 2022, ready to attack the year and take GTM further than we have ever gone before.
God bless you all! Gaz