Sinead Watt found Reformer Pilates in London. Working there from around 2016, she had what anyone living in a major city has: studios on every corner, a wellness scene to dip into, and the kind of considered, well-designed spaces that make movement feel like something you look forward to rather than something you schedule.

Then she moved home to the Roe Valley, and there was none of it.

"In rural areas there isn't a huge amount of bougie wellness things to do the way there would be in London. And I'm a bit of a fan of that myself. So sometimes you have to create these experiences to experience them yourself."

The idea sat with her from 2017 onwards. Life, as she puts it, got in the way. It took the arrival of her second child, and the realisation that she didn't want to go back to nine-to-five, to turn it into a decision.

"That passion was still there to open a studio. That's what made me take the plunge."

Roe Reformer opened in Limavady in September 2025, named for the valley it sits in, with a mantra on the window: Breathe. Move. Belong. A chartered physiotherapist by training, Sinead built the studio she'd have wanted to walk into.

Before Roe Reformer, there was nothing like it locally. Anyone in the Limavady area who wanted Reformer Pilates faced a twenty-to-thirty-minute drive, and plenty of them were making it.

"There's a really strong community of people interested in that movement, and in taking that time for themselves."

Demand confirmed it immediately. The catchment stretched as far as the north coast, and the opening weeks sold out.

What Sinead needed was infrastructure that matched the ambition. Not a DM-and-spreadsheet operation, but something that looked and felt like a proper studio from the very first booking, because in a market that was about to get crowded, that first impression was the differentiator.

The requirement was specific. Sinead didn't want members bouncing between Instagram DMs, a third-party booking portal and a website that looked like neither.

"What I was looking for was that kind of professional booking system that wasn't just done through social media, I love that it's integrated into the website."

CodexFit put booking, credits, memberships and events natively inside the Roe Reformer site. Members browse, book and pay without ever leaving the brand. Sinead manages the whole thing from one place.

A year on, the verdict from the Roe Reformer clients is the one that matters.

"The feedback from the customers has been really good. They experience a smooth operational system, exceptionally easy for them to use, straightforward and transparent."

Ask Sinead what she values most in the platform and she doesn't reach for a headline feature. She describes a Tuesday morning.

"This morning I was able to leave a happy birthday message on one of my clients' reformers, because it flagged to me it was her birthday when I went into the timetable."

For a studio whose entire proposition is belonging, that's more than a nice-to-have.

"The community side of things is so important to the studio. Small touches like that mean a lot to people, and I like being able to show that I value them as people, more than just customers."

Class-attendance tracking does similar work: recognising the member on their fiftieth class, spotting the regular who's quietly stopped coming. It's the operational equivalent of knowing everyone's name.

The monthly community event has become, in Sinead's words, the standout of Roe Reformer, and it's the clearest expression of what she set out to build. Each one is a collaboration with another small business in the area: mood boards and painting, hiking, sea swims and saunas, reiki in the run-up to Christmas.

It's the wellness scene she missed, assembled locally and one Saturday at a time.

Operationally, these could easily have become a separate headache: a different sign-up form, a payment link, a spreadsheet of names. Instead they run through the same system as everything else.

"It's pretty cool, just adding the event, and then it pops up on the website and they can buy their place."

The result is a studio that functions as a local wellness hub rather than a room with reformers in it, without adding a single admin process to do it.

Sinead's day starts before five. She teaches a 6am and a 7am, goes home for breakfast, spends the day with her children, and teaches again in the evening.

"It gives me a lot of flexibility around family commitments, even though in the background I'll always be planning or scheming something to do with it."

That model only works if the admin doesn't sprawl. Timetables can be copied and adapted rather than rebuilt, bookings and payments reconcile themselves, and the whole operation is visible from one screen.

"It's very simplistic, you can adapt and copy and paste timetables. It's handy that way."

Members get their own conveniences. The one that consistently surprises them is being able to book a guest onto a class under their own name, no second account required, a small thing that turns out to be how a lot of first-timers arrive.

"They're always surprised that they can book on for a friend. I had a regular book on herself and her sister-in-law this morning."

Roe Reformer's first year has not been a soft market. Since opening, several competing studios have launched nearby: two on the north coast and another close to Limavady itself.

The opening boom was, by Sinead's account, almost too much too soon. What followed mattered more.

"The right people have stayed. The right people come to the place now."

A year in, the studio is ahead of where she expected, the community is established, and the friendships she's made through it are, she says, some of the best she's ever had.

"It's hard work, but very worthwhile hard work, and it doesn't feel like hard work, because I love it so much."

Year two is already taking shape. Instructors Emma Feeney and Lucia Ward now teach alongside Sinead, the events programme keeps growing, and the same platform that carried the studio through its opening year scales with it: instructor payroll, class occupancy reporting and member retention data are all there to switch on as the business asks for them.

For a studio built on knowing everyone by name, that matters. Roe Reformer can keep growing without losing the thing that brought its community together in the first place.