What's On?
Our annual schedule has now been updated on the website - please check for holiday and fundraising dates throughout the year.
Displays
Does your school have a summer fete? Are they looking for something a little different to entertain the crowds? Talk to Michelle or Julie Davidson to see if our display team is free to appear at your schools event.
Fees
Following our recent change to a limited comany with charitable status, fees are now being arranged by monthly direct debit. Letters have been issued on 31.1.10 detailing the monthly total payable for each gymnast. Your support is greatly appreciated in arranging this - it means Julie can get back to coaching rather than sitting by the door collecting cheques!
Club Competition Photos
These were excellent quality, and the club earns commission on each photograph sold. They are still available from:
Chelmsford Gymnastics Pictures
The username is Chelmsford The password id belamore
PremisesYou may be aware, the gym club is planning to expand and move. I am writing to let you know why, who we are, where we are, what we need to do and how are we going to do it.
We are rapidly running out of training time and space. We have a lot of gymnasts who would like to train for longer. How much would they improve if they could spend at least half an hour a week on every piece of apparatus instead of 15 minutes every 3rd week. And the cost of this extra training wouldn't be prohibitive. In fact it will be the same hourly rate as now.
We cannot cater for boys, people with disabilities, young adults, cheerleading, sports acrobatics. We are limited for pre school gym and have a waiting list of over a 100 for the main club.
The new gym is planned to be one of the best in the country. The gym equipment will be set out permanently and we are planning to have pits under the bars, so dismounts will be fun. Landing in a pit filled with foam blocks is great fun. Swinging up to handstand on the bars with a foam filled pit underneath becomes less scary and more enjoyable.
If you would like to look at pictures of other gym clubs in permanent facilities, please click on these links. It gives you an idea of what our gym club could look like.
www.gymnasticsinipswich.co.uk/gii/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
So to start with we are aiming to build our own gym club that will be a multi use sports facility. We are going into partnership with Great Baddow High School, the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) and possibly Chelsea Football Club. Some other sport clubs that are interested in joining us or at least using the gym include martial arts, yoga, and dance, cheer leading.
Chelmsford Gym Club is now a limited company with charitable status. The trustees are Samantha Robb, Gary Joslin, Dawn Joslin, Cassie Nicoll, Nikki Hills and me (Julie). Samantha, Gary and Dawn are parents of current gymnasts. Cassie and Nikki have been members of the club for 25 years each. They started as 5 year old gymnasts and graduated to club coaches and regional judges. I have been head coach of the club since 1993 and I am the most senior qualified coach in the club and one of only a few Senior Club Coaches in the county. I am the secretary of Essex Amateur Gymnastics Association. I am also the judging convenor for Essex Schools Gymnastic Association.
We have permission from British Gymnastics Association (BGA) to go ahead with our plans to have a permanent gym facility on land owned by Essex Local Education Authority at Great Baddow High School. We have been given permission by Essex LEA and Great Baddow High School to lease land along with LTA. The LTA want to build 3 indoor tennis courts and 6 outside tennis courts at the school. They will be paying for their part of the building.
To help us achieve this we need about £1.5m to build it and fit it out. As the gym club is a not for profit organisation we don't have much money saved, hence all the discussion about funding and fund raising that the club needs to do. This was one of the main reasons why the club became a charity.
The BGA will give us some money but we have no clear idea of how much this could be. It could range from £750,000 to £50,000. We have been given an application form for funding from Gymnastics England (a subsidiary of BGA), to be completed by December 2009. The form, of course, is very detailed. We need to show a number of things to back up our request for funding. We have to make this project sustainable, whilst increasing the current number of participants and raising the profile of gymnastics to the local community.
One of the points that we have to prove, is that there is a demand to improve the gymnastic facility in Chelmsford. This is why we sent you all an email requesting you to contact your county and borough councillor. Which a large number of you did, so thanks very much for that. Councillor Ray Ride of Chelmsford Borough Council paid the club a visit on Saturday to discuss our plans. He was very impressed and expressed an interest in helping us achieve our aim.
We have an architect on board who happens to be a lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University. Something that made the BGA sit up, was the fact that he has prepared) his second year students to work on our project as part of their degree course work. They are working on a feasibility study and will begin the basic design drawings (under his supervision).
So we are now at the nitty gritty stage of actually having to find a lot of money from various corporate companies, funding agencies and local companies. And here comes the cries for help and begging part.
If you work for a corporate company that has a department for Corporate Social Responsibility Funding, then it would be really helpful if you could find out who is the person in charge, and also find out if they are interested in funding sport clubs, so I can write to them and apply for any funding that they might have.
If you work for a local company would they be interested in sponsoring us in return for advertising.
Do you own a local company and would you be interested in sponsoring us in return for some publicity?
Do you have a skill that we could use, either to get our project working or once it is up and running i.e. electrician, plumber, builder, solicitor, bricklayer, landscape gardener, painter, decorator, quantity surveyor, civil engineer, etc? I am especially keen to make this a positive benefit not just to the gymnasts but also to their families and friends. If work can go the way of Chelmsford Gym Club folk that can only be a good thing.
Have you had any experience in this type of project and are able to give us advice?
Do you have any skills that we could use for our fund raising activities i.e. hairdressing, face painting, reflexology, sailing, musician, rock climber etc.
And finally how can Chelmsford Gym Club help you? We are very interested in having the local community use the new gym, do you run or know of a group that would benefit from using the facility?
If you have got to the end of this letter - well done and thanks. If you can help or would like to be involved or would like to talk about it, then please either ring me or email Dawn, Gary or Samantha at the email addresses below.
Guinness Book of World Records
We are aiming to attempt to beat the current record for the most vaults performed in one hour. We need to beat 6500! We are starting training for this on Sunday 15th February from 12 until 2pm, and if training goes well, we hope to attempt to beat the current record in Moulsham Street next summer. This is open to any gymnast who can perform a squat through vault. If you are interested, please see Julie.
Safety
Gymnasts must be dropped off in the sports hall at the start of their gym ssessions. Girls must never be dropped off in the car park or at the entrance to the sports centre incase a gym session is ever cancelled. Please also collect your daughters promply from the sports hall at the end of each gym session.
Dress Code
Gymnasts must arrive at their training session wearing club kit with their hair neatly tied back from their face. This is very important for gymnastics, as loose hair falling in the face can be particularly dangerous for the gymnasts. The squad should also ensure they have training shoes at each gym session, as running is usually part of their conditioning training. In the current cold weather, please also make sure gymnasts have adequate clothing when arriving and leaving the sports hall.
Club Kit
Kit can be purchased from the club, or by emailing us direct. Current prices are:
Tracksuit £45.00
T-shirt (with name) £11.50
Parents Association
Why not help the club by joining our Parents Association? Check out the link on the 'People' section of the website, or email us to be added to our mailing list.