FITNESS TRIBUNE No 1 English

Editorial

A view to the future! What a pleasure it is to be writing the first editorial for what I hope will be many issues of FITNESS TRIBUNE INTERNATIONAL (FTI), the first English language edition of FITNESS TRIBUNE. The German issue of FITNESS TRIBUNE has been published now for over 15 years and this new project, an English edition, is the first step towards bringing a specialist magazine which spans the whole world, to market. Many of my friends abroad, mainly those from the USA who are au fait with German, have been trying for years to persuade me to publish a version of FITNESS TRIBUNE for the English speaking countries. This would also bring the magazine’s content within the reach of people worldwide who have learned English as a second language - and many sooner or later do. This first issue doesn’t yet contain the explosive, up-to-the-minute inter views that have made FITNESS TRIBUNE a leading magazine in Ger man speaking Europe. FITNESS TRIBUNE doesn’t simply report what some industry leaders would like to hear - no, we say what we think. Over the years our comment and articles have caused a great deal of controversy and this is what makes FT a good professional specialist magazine. What use would a glossy “all things to all people” consumer magazine be? Our job is to actively question, criticize, polarise opinion and initiate controversial discussion on hot topics whilst providing balanced and, most importantly, unbiased coverage on all aspects of the fitness industry. We also see it as our job to praise where praise is due - see the FITNESS TRIBUNE awards for example - and to promote a positive view of our industry to the world. This mixture of professional reporting and industry information, not to mention entertainment, will now flow into the English edition - and we won’t avoid the hot potatoes here either! It’s going to take some time to build up a team of reporters from around the world who can competently write country specific articles and comment for the FTI. They are out there and this is a direct appeal for all who are inter ested to contact me - to react and seize the opportunity to take part. A specialist magazine is only as good as the people who write for it! For the first few issues I have decided to expand eastwards with the FTI - Ukraine, Russia and Byelorussia, - the up and coming nations. The second phase is also on the way - and readers in the U.K., Scandinavia, France, Holland, Italy and Spain followed by the USA will all soon have the FTI in their hands. Neither, of course, have we forgotten Asia, Australia and the rest of the world. It’s coming too. When? Watch this space! A specialist magazine can only expand slowly because quality has to remain our first concern - and there are already enough magazines on the market with “run-of-the-mill” content. I would be more than pleased if, as well as potential advertisers and subscrib ers, industry insiders from the whole planet would recognise the benefits of an unbiased and independent specialist magazine and contact me directly with their ideas. The fitness industry with its thousands of fitness clubs spread across the world is the only industry that is actively doing something to promote pre ventative methods of maintaining health. The time has now come for politi cians and public health services (I’ve been calling them the sick services for years) across the world to at last acknowledge the importance and necessity of our industry. We shall continue lobbying them - in English now too!

See you in the next issue. Jean-Pierre L. Schupp

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Fitness Tribune International 1