This Company has a number of aims for the future, which shape its policy and style of management. These are:

1. To remain the largest and most effective slimming organisation in this country

Our current aim is to have approximately one group for every 5,000 population throughout the UK. The population of the UK stands at approximately 58,000,000 (1992 census figures are 57,988.00) so we are looking at a target of approximately 10,000 groups (11,600 is the more exact potential).

“Effective” refers to achieving what our customers are looking for. They come to us primarily to lose weight and to be able to keep it off, so the measure of our effectiveness is whether our members achieve their personal target and are able to maintain it for life. We achieve this effectiveness by raising our members' self-esteem and awareness. In this way we help them to realise their own power, to realise that they are in complete control of what they eat, to realise that they are not “weak-willed” but are choosing various courses of action (sometimes out of their awareness).

The secondary reason many members come to us is to enjoy the social aspects of a group ie. enjoy the evening/day out. By encouraging this secondary motivation we strengthen our ability to satisfy the primary need of achieving weight loss.

We use our own unique methods to achieve these objectives, namely Food Optimising, Image Therapy and Lifelines. In Image Therapy we seek:

• to involve members in helping, supporting and motivating their fellow members through difficulties arising from the need to change their eating habits and in so doing strengthen their own commitment and motivation and their own self-esteem
• to establish a genuine commitment from each member about the week ahead so they can face the days to come in a positive frame of mind
• to raise our members' self-esteem by praising genuine effort and achievement wherever possible, as often as possible and as publicly as possible
• to invite the member to plan ahead so that they can better cope with social eating occasions
• to raise the members' awareness about self-sabotage techniques and so enable them to overcome these.

2. To have a significant impact on the image of slimming in this country

The image of slimming in this country and possibly worldwide is that a slimmer must go hungry in order to lose weight or follow some complicated and/or rigid, inflexible system or count the calories in every food and drink item, with the consequence of having to do a great deal of weighing and calculating.

The other main image of (specifically) slimming clubs is that overt and covert means of humiliation take place. The overall image is therefore one of a tedious and depressing lifestyle, of hunger and restraint - in general a pretty miserable existence for the duration of the slimming campaign with a lot of fun missing from life.

With Food Optimising and the philosophy encapsulated in Image Therapy, Team Fun Tech and Lifelines and with the skilful execution of these our aim is to completely overturn the present image of slimming.

3. To establish a company culture in which mutual co-operation and mutual trust are valued

4. To have a company whose success is a reflection of the satisfaction of its clients' needs

To have a company whose success is not as a result of clever marketing or of massive advertising but because it not only fulfils its promise to its members but exceeds their expectations.