During early 2014 the club identified that our current sprung floor was in need of being upgraded due to ageing issues, costs spent on maintenance and the up keeping of it to maintain it’s safe use.
The club had purchased secondhand floor boards in the past and had added to it at times to provide a suitable training resource however some of the boards used were well past their prime which gave us safety concerns if their use continued.
The club committee unanimously agreed to commence working towards the replacement of the floor with a brand new 12 metre x 12 metre competition floor which would take the club into the future (and an enlarged venue eventually).
Led by our Vice President and Funding Officer Monica Carran numerous applications were prepared and submitted to funding providers over the space of a number of months for their consideration. The cost of the entire project would be over twenty five thousand dollars.
Towards the end of 2014 the club had been granted a total of $14106 from the following funding providers
- SKYCITY Queenstown Casino Community Trust – $3000
- Community Trust of Southland – $4303
- First Sovereign Trust Limited – $4303
- Foodstuffs Community Trust – $2500
This was supplemented with the club investing the outstanding $10K from funds accumulated through club fundraising and self-funding from reserves held from past equipment sales. In late December 2014 the order was placed and we then waited. The job was only partly done.
Easter 2015 saw the new floor mats and springs arrive from the USA. This was then placed into storage as we worked on the next part which was replacement floor boards. For the total floor area we needed 60 2metre x 1.5 metre pieces of 17mm plywood. As our training space does not accommodate the entire 12m x12m floor we worked on doing a 12m x 8 metre space which would use 34 pieces of plywood at a still substantial cost of $6000.
Driven by passion and a cheeky approach (thanks Crys) to Rockcote (owned by Resene) with pictures of the kids with a few medals around their necks we were donated 17 plywood boards. Another approach to local supplier ITM saw them donate the balance and then it was onto the next stage.
Labour was donated by TechPlasterNZ ( a fantastic local company who does a great job with applying Rockcote cladding) to drill over one thousand holes in the ply boards and fix the spring caps so the floor springs could be fitted.
We aimed for the first week of Term 2 School holidays to lift the old floor and replace it with the new one. The old floor was lifted and removed into storage over 2 days. The new floor boards were transported into the gym and over 2 days and nights with volunteer labour the springs were fitted and the boards laid. Once the boards were laid we fixed over 300 screws into plates that hold the boards together and stop them from moving.
The space once the old floor had been removed and cleaned
Club volunteers fitting the springs to the new boards
The new boards and springs being laid out
All the new boards in place
Once the boards were down we transported 4 rolls of the new carpet into the gym and rolled them out and fitted them onto the boards. We supplemented the remaining floor space with some of the old floor mats to give us a consistent and even floor depth. The current unused mat rolls and springs are in storage for the future
With over 50 manpower hours used to install the floor we had the job completed ready in time for training the next week. Early feedback from the kids is very positive and as it gets used it will soften up and provide more bounce.
This project took almost 12 months to complete and was not possible without the generous support of our funding providers, Techplaster, ITM Queenstown, Gymstuff NZ , the Gymnastics Club Committee and in particular Monica Carran and Crys Lozano and all our volunteers who kindly contributed their time to make this possible. The club now has a training resource that is up there with the biggest clubs in NZ.
The club would ask that we support these sponsors where possible.
