Dear Circus Center community,

San Francisco has allowed gyms to open for indoor services on extremely limited terms. The current health order allows for students ages 18 and up to train in gyms at 10% capacity or less in either private lessons or solo training. Circus Center will start offering private lessons on October 5. Soon, we will also roll out a plan for students to do supervised solo training. 

Whether for private lessons or solo training, some fundamentals will be true:

• Everyone will undergo a health screening upon arrival.
• Everyone will be required to wear a mask the entire time they are in the building.
• Everyone must remain at least 6ft from everyone in the building and at least 12ft from anyone breathing heavily (i.e. there can be no hands-on spotting).
• Per the health order, we are only able to use equipment that can be easily cleaned or allowed to "rest" for 3 days between individual uses. This means that, for now, there can be no access to trampoline or flying trapeze.
• Students and Instructors will be permitted to bring their own equipment

At this time, we will only be offering 60-minute solo private lessons for students ages 18 and up. If a student wants a 2-hour lesson, they can book two lessons back to back, with the instructor's consent.

For more information about private lessons, please keep an eye on our private lesson page, which is currently being updated on a daily basis with new information from instructors as we receive it. We will be coming out with more information about our hours of operation and more in the coming days, and we will begin processing booking requests on Wednesday, September 30.

Meanwhile, we are very grateful for everyone's support, and we ask your patience as we all work together to adapt, get your questions answered, and do everything we can to serve our community and stay safe during these tough times. We are very excited to be able to welcome students back to the building, but we are also sober and serious about the need to keep everyone safe. As a community we are lucky in so many ways, but we have certainly not escaped the terrible toll the current crisis has exacted on the entire world. The current team running Circus Center is lean and working our butts off. The next couple weeks may be a slow or rocky start, but we can and will come together to learn, adapt, and thrive once again. 

Thank you,

Barry, Tracey, and the Circus Center Team

Starts today!

Ends September 22
 
You can purchase these packs yourself on MindBody so make sure you have an updated method of payment on file. The October Class Schedule will be available for enrollment and purchase at 12:01am on Sept 22 so stock up now!

60 & 90 MINUTE CLASSES

$20 single credit, and during pack sale, it's:
Online 3-Pack $54 ($18/class)
Online 5-Pack $85 ($17/class)
Online 8-Pack $128 ($16/class)
Online 10-Pack $150 ($15/class)
Online 15-Pack $210 ($14/class)

ALL 6O-90 MIN CLASS PACKS

 
2 HOUR CLASSES

Online 3-Pack: $81 ($27/class)
Online 5-Pack: $125 ($25/class)
Online 8-Pack: $176 ($22/class)
Online 10-Pack: $200 ($20/class)

ALL 2-HOUR CLASS PACKS

All class credits expire 30 days after purchase, but during pack sales the expiration date of the credit is a bit longer. These packs will expire October 31 regardless of your date of purchase!

When we first released online classes, we had hoped to exist in the “Zoom world” for a few weeks or a month. We were working quickly to bring Circus Center to your living room and figuring out entirely new platforms and financial models in the meantime. As you know, we are now working towards the slow process of getting back to in-person training, but we certainly will be in a livestreaming class world for the foreseeable future as well. 

With that in mind, we would like to let you know about two upcoming changes. First, we will likely be changing our method of streaming classes to you in the next month. There will be more details about that coming when we know them. We don't anticipate this will be a very noticeable change on your end. 

Second, on October 1, our 2 hour online classes will have a price change to $30. There has long been some frustration that our 1 hour and 2 hour classes cost the same and this came entirely out of the initial rush to get online classes up and running, but now that we know we will be in this world for some time, we need to make this change to properly reflect the cost of running classes. If you take 2 hour classes and wonder how this might affect your existing class credits or have other questions, please read more here....(jump to a link on our website with instructions about exchanging existing credits, copy below).

And to make that price change for 2 hour classes a little easier, and to help all of our Circus Center family during what has been an especially tough couple weeks, we will have a PACK SALE coming from Sept 18-22 so get ready! You will be able to purchase these packs yourself on MindBody so make sure you have an updated method of payment on file.  The October Class Schedule will be available for enrollment and purchase at 12:01am on Sept 22 so stock up now.  

60 and 90 minute Classes

$20 single credit, and during pack sale, it's:
Online 3-Pack $54 ($18/class)
Online 5-Pack $85 ($17/class)
Online 8-Pack $128 ($16/class)
Online 10-Pack $150 ($15/class)
Online 15-Pack $210 ($14/class)

2 hour Classes

Online 3-Pack: $81 ($27/class)
Online 5-Pack: $125 ($25/class)
Online 8-Pack: $176 ($22/class)
Online 10-Pack: $200 ($20/class)

ALL CLASS CREDITS EXPIRE 30 DAYS AFTER PURCHASE, BUT DURING PACK SALES THE EXPIRATION DATE OF THE CREDIT IS A BIT LONGER- THESE PACKS WILL EXPIRE OCT 31 REGARDLESS OF YOUR DATE OF PURCHASE!

If you have existing online class credits on your account that you purchased prior to this eblast being sent (Sept 15, 2020) that you would like to have turned into 2 hour class credits, please email info@circuscenter.org with a request specifying which credits you would like changed over, and we will handle this within 48hours of your request.  Your credits will retain their original expiration dates. The final day to process changes is Oct 1. If you don’t opt to change your credits to 2 hour class credits, they will still be eligible for use on our other offerings until their expiration date.  

If you have other questions about the change in price for 2 hour classes, please contact info@circuscenter.org.

In the last week, both the state and city have issued new health orders, guidance, and directives that impact the possibilities for reopening Circus Center.

Last Friday, Governor Newsom announced a new 4-tier framework for classifying each county's progress in combatting COVID-19, and what activities would be permitted at each tier. An important part of the plan is a mandatory 2-month waiting period between each tier, which means in the best case scenario, each county will spend two months at each tier before being permitted to move to the next tier.

San Francisco County currently is NOT in the worst category, "Widespread," but instead is in the 3rd tier, "Substantial." At this tier, the state permits counties to allow gyms to reopen at 10% capacity. It's not clear right now how "capacity" would be calculated.

With these statewide parameters in place, it is up to each county to decide how to proceed. Counties cannot be more aggressive than the state rules, but they can be more conservative, and this is what is happening so far in San Francisco. On Tuesday, Mayor Breed announced her plan for reopening businesses and activities, and the Department of Public Health issued several new orders and directives. Two categories are most relevant to Circus Center:

1. Gyms: Gyms are currently only allowed to operate outdoors (or online, of course). The city is planning to permit gyms to reopen for private lessons and solo training by the end of September, pending continued progress in getting the virus under control.
2. After-School Programs: After-school programs are permitted to operate indoors now, with stable cohorts of no more than 14 children each, wearing masks and maintaining social distancing at all times. An important exception is sports and other athletic activities (including the more physically strenuous forms of circus training), which are still required to operate outdoors only.

Executive Director Barry Kendall and the Board of Directors reviewed this information in detail last night (Thursday, September 3), and agreed on the following directions:

• Barry will work with Texas Holly and the rest of the staff to develop an after-school program that focuses on the less strenuous circus skills, including juggling, balance, clowning, and stilts. We aim to start such a program in the next 2-4 weeks.
• Barry and the staff will begin to prepare the space and the staff for potential reopening for private lessons and solo training by the end of the month.

With all of these things, there's a lot we don't know – how it will work, how much it will cost, etc. – and there's a lot we can't control. But we remain committed to two things: serving our community, and keeping our community safe. We look forward to the next step in reopening, and we look forward to working with each of you to achieve both of these goals.