by Catherine Quinn
Earlier this month, the Cleve Chiropractic and Physiotherapy Centre celebrated an important milestone – our 20th anniversary, meaning 20 years of Tim Button’s chiropractic career.
On September 2nd 2003, the 2033rd chiropractor on the UK register, officially saw his first patient in the back room of Cleve Rugby Club. Through that first year, Tim established himself as the Chiropractor for Bath Rugby Club, which lead to Bristol Rugby and then Bristol Rovers, for whom Tim has been the first team chiropractor for 20 seasons. On Mondays and Fridays he would travel to Minehead to see patients there which he later switched up to see patients at the Fishponds GP practice.
But in 2010, Tim made his first big and brave move… he went from the safety of a single room to building a four roomed clinic complete with X-Ray machine and his first member of staff in Kate Smart. Three years later, Tim branched out into building Next Step Physiotherapy Centre, diversifying his multidisciplinary clinic from Chiropractic and Sports Therapy to Physiotherapy too, and in 2016 Keith Graham joined forces with Tim to develop the Physio department.
Over the next nine years, Cleve Chiropractic outgrew its surroundings yet again … so in November 2019 after nine months of running back and forth from what is now the Fish & Chip shop over the road to this building, in between patients, managing builders, architects, engineers and so much more, Cleve Chiropractic moved into the amazing building we work in today.
Twenty certainly seems to be a key number for Tim and Cleve Chiropractic. The first clinic building was number 20 and so is this one! So, it is fitting that on the 20th anniversary of the clinic, the biggest testament to how successful his mission has been, is that we have seen almost 20,000 patients through the doors in that time, some of whom were able to join us as we marked the day, as well as having 20 individual clinicians working within the building.
On behalf of the staff team here at Cleve Chiropractic and Physiotherapy Centre, I want to thank Tim for creating a business at 23 (sorry that does give your age away…), straight out of Uni with a portable bench, shed loads of debt and one patient, which has flourished into a truly multidisciplinary clinic that provides a home for each of us to come each day, provide care to the local community and is very much my family here in Bristol. Every member of the team that he has curated here at Cleve emulates the values that he started this business with, and patients should feel incredibly well cared for in their hands.
Now I first met Tim in his other role, when were both Board Members of the British Chiropractic Association, very much the youth of the Board and brimming with energy to make a change, we became great friends from Day 1 after Tim was excited to show us his new Dyson hairdryer and I think I was the only person who passed the excitement test! We bonded very much over our passion for sports chiropractic and for generally shaking things up and making a change. So, one month later when he was asked to step up and be my right-hand man as I stood for BCA President, he threw caution to the wind, and we have been shaking things up ever since.
Over the past six years I think it’s safe to say we have certainly shaken things up at the BCA, and it is the same energy and appetite that Tim brings to the BCA that means Cleve Chiropractic has grown into this special place.
So… To you Tim! Congratulations!
Tim’s column: Page 58
