Shrewsbury yoga business goes from side hustle to second premises
Shrewsbury-based Jenna Blair Yoga Wellbeing Centre, established as a side hustle just as Covid was closing down many wellbeing businesses, will shortly be celebrating the opening of its second studio and wellbeing space.
The studio offers yoga classes, workshops, teacher training and retreats for all ages, including babies and those in their nineties and from all backgrounds and shapes and sizes. The sessions are designed for all abilities and groups.
Speaking about setting up the business, Jenna said: “During Covid, I wasn’t entitled to any financial support as I had just gone self-employed. I managed to survive the lockdowns, and the business thrived, teaching in the local park and spaces outside at reduced numbers and online.
“At the end of 2020, I was on a lockdown walk, and I found this dilapidated building which I believed could be brought to life and made useful – and I have! I was fortunate to have a brother-in-law to help renovate the premises from a disused shell in lockdown 2021 through to a yoga studio we have used ever since.”
Since that successful start, the business has continued to grow and adapt. In 2022, Jenna established a not-for-profit arm – creating accessible Yoga and wellness to those who can’t afford it while paying teachers a rate to provide free/subsidised sessions supporting the local community. The business provides classes for refugees, NHS workers, mums and babies, as well as special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) groups.
On top of that, through our not-for-profit strand of work, the centre offers five ‘Yoga For Cancer’ classes each week, which are free to attend as they are fully funded.
Jenna added: “I am currently in the process of evolving to charity status and seeking Trustees as this project has grown substantially, including gaining £70,000 of grants to offer free and subsidised sessions.”
Jenna discovered yoga in 2017 and has said, “It changed my life” after she experienced a series of bereavements and the associated grief. “Yoga was transformative. Yoga was everything I needed at that time, and before I knew it, I had become yoga mad – attending classes at least three times a week.”
It wasn’t long before Jenna was moving beyond just perfecting her tree pose and downward facing dog, and by 2019, she was looking to combine passion with commerce. That year, she began launching her own test sessions, “which eventually built up to five classes per week on top of my day job as an estate agent.”
With further support from Start Up Loans in the form of a second loan - the first loan helped with renting and fitting out the first studio - Jenna is looking to renovate another disused premises next door to the current studio, which will more than double their space. The business will have an additional yoga studio as well as four other rooms for holistic services.
Jenna said of the future: “We have recently created a new full-time role for centre manager, helping us support lots more wellbeing services.
“Our not-for-profit arm is progressing to charity status and receiving increased funding to help even more people access free/subsidised sessions, and is something I’m really proud of and excited to expand.
“I’m also introducing my two young children to yoga and hope it to be as beneficial to their lives as it has been to mine.”
It’s been quite a journey for this yoga fanatic, from using yoga to recover from bereavement, through opening up a second studio with the support of Start Up Loans financing, to setting up a charity to provide further benefit to her local community.
