Dear Clients,
It is hard to believe but another year has gone by and it feels just like yesterday where I sat at my desk and wrote my end year newsletter for 2020.
A lot has happened again this year at Serenity Spa.
We managed to build a beautiful outdoor area with two wonderful rooms in our Kitisuru Garden called Bustani 1 and 2. In July we added a shower to the garden rooms and now we are able to provide an airy and hygienic place with additional shower space for more privacy and comfort for you.
We then decided to build another airy and beautiful room which we called Hewani and that is on the roof terrace of Gigiri. The views are amazing and the room is a big favourite with very many of our clients. It is en-suite too and we love the energy in that room with some green treetops as part of the view
In September we decided that it is time to refurbish our spas and refresh the look and feel again. We added more beautiful wallpaper in some of the rooms in both branches as well as replaced some of the older ones. We refurbished furniture and equipment to make sure our spas always look beautiful and immaculate and to ensure that you feel the positive enjoyment of our continued investment and improvements. I am very keen to ensure we offer a clean, aesthetic and stylish environment and we are always happy to re-invest into making our spas more attractive. As an upgrade and based on demand from our clients, we also built another steam room in Gigiri so we can offer more treatments around the steam and ensure that we don’t disappoint a number of you who have been unable to book steam treatments due to the unavailability of a steam room. Hopefully that problem is now solved!
Our latest and very exciting addition is Jani by Serenity Spa. We have decided to venture out to produce our own spa products and we have successfully launched our own massage oils and body scrubs, all formulated by a very experienced Chemist based in the UK. Jani has brought in another dimension to our spas and we are very happy to announce that we will soon be offering many more spa products, all carefully formulated and tested. New body washes, shampoos, lotions, conditioners, soaps, and so much more are being designed and we cannot wait to launch our products in 2022. Of course, all our existing products are already approved by the Kenya Bureau of Standards and that will be the case for our additional products too. Retail will of course be available very soon too so that you can enjoy our premium beauty products in the comfort of your own homes. The packaging and smells are fantastic and we are incredibly proud to be working on this new project which will also give back to local communities too. In this whole process we identified a little gem among us and I would like to congratulate Fred who we promoted from being our Barista to being our Jani Production Assistant.
As we love the buzz and the excitement of new things all bright and beautiful, we organised two absolutely amazing spa retreats in Laikipia, at the magical conservancy called Enasoit. The first one we did was in June and our 14 clients enjoyed a three day detox combined with lots of massages, other body treatments and facials. A lot of rest, yoga, meditation and long bush walks was on the agenda and the results were visible on day 2, everyone had the most wonderful glow on their faces. Our second treat took place at the beginning of November and it was very over-subscribed. This time the retreat was planned around healthy meals with lots of high intensity training, runs and walks but of course the spa treatments went on all day. We have been inundated with enquiries and therefore we will be offering more retreats in 2022.
We launched specials as usual for Valentines, Mothers Day, Easter and our new Christmas Specials are selling out very fast. Our detox programs which we launched this year have been very popular and we have received positive feedback about these programs.. We have also partnered up with Kasia Gendis who has created another 5 day Reset Program. ( 5 Day Reset Program – Serenity Spa ) We carried out among others further training for our senior therapists on our Enzyme Peel and Microneedling therapies and our clients love the results. Our hairdressing team enjoyed a morning working on models to perfect their colouring and highlighting skills and subsequent to that, we have had a lot of very happy clients since then! Our commitment to continually retrain our team and give them new training on new solutions remains in place and we will continue that in the future, to better our skills and improve our knowledge.
We are hoping to launch some amazing new treatments and products in the first quarter of 2022 and I believe they will add even more value to clients. I personally cannot wait to launch the new services.
Because we had a such a busy year, I decided to treat all my 80 staff to a fun team building day. We closed the spa for half a day end of October and we enjoyed our day out playing games, singing and dancing. The day ended with a delicious dinner and an award ceremony. Lots of awards were handed out to many members of staff who excelled during the year, a testament to the great and committed team that I have.
We have learned how to operate during the pandemic and I am extremely proud of my team for being so resilient and hard working. It is not easy, as you can all imagine, to work under these circumstances and I therefore decided to get everyone double vaccinated very quickly. Our safety protocols and policies are still in place and we ensure that we are consistently providing a safe place to our clients and staff. I would like to particularly thank you all, our clients, for your understanding and adherence to our protocols and processes as without you, it wouldn’t be possible and I am happy that because of our protocols, you have shown your belief in us and continued to support us through these difficult times.
I would like to give a special thank you to Mary Mwangi who I promoted from Operations Manager to General Manger in March. She has been an absolute rock to me, supporting me throughout this year with all the ups and downs. As we say, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Thank you Mary!
I would also like to express my gratitude to Winie M, our Branch Manger in Kitisuru, who has not stopped working on improving our HR and overall spa policies and protocols while also managing our Branch. I feel we are so much better structured and our policies and procedures are refined and improved significantly so thank you, Winie. She was promoted in January from our HR officer to our Branch Manager.
More shout outs go to our two spa supervisors – Vivian in Gigiri and Clare in Kitisuru. Both have been promoted out of a front office position and I am so proud of them and their growth.
And now to the rest of the team! Our Front Office teams have excelled this year. We have had some amazing, kind, and wonderful messages and feedback from our clients commenting on their positive and helpful attitudes. Juggling bookings, phone calls, check ins and check outs is not always easy especially on busy weekends and I am so impressed that our teams do it with a smile all the time.
To our therapists and hairdressers, thank you for looking after our clients, making sure they feel safe and that we provide a place of relaxation. Your touch and care are exceptional and I am very proud of you all.
Housekeeping team is another team I adore. Their energy and attitude are outstanding. They never complain, they just get on with their work and they do it so well. Their willingness to always help and be the first ones to assist is so impressive. Thank you for being so hard working and keen.
Our Admin team has also worked extremely hard and I know it is not always easy to manage accounts, our finances and stock. Winnie K, Vanessa, Gabriel and just recently added to our team, Esther, thank you for being our backbone.
Last but not least, I cannot thank all of you wonderful clients for supporting us throughout this year. We have had some incredible kind and encouraging feedback from you which kept us going. It is always nice to hear what we do well as it just points us in the right direction. We of course also appreciate constructive feedback to help us improve and we love to always listen to all of your thoughts. So please keep them coming as without you, we would be nothing.
From the entire Serenity Spa Family and myself, we are truly, very grateful for your support and for being our clients.
Merry Christmas, happy holidays and a Happy 2022.
Petra