Queenstown Gymnastics Club

Queenstown Gymnastics Club is excited to announce we will be introducing morning classes for preschool children ages 2.5 – 5 years and adult conditioning/stretch classes starting Tuesday 13th March.

Children 2.5 – 3.5 years (Mini Tumblers) will be taught by an instructor in a 45 min class but parent/caregiver will be required to attend and assist child throughout class with the guidance of instructor.

Children 3.5-5 years (Mini Ninjas) will be taught in a one hour long class by instructor only. If your child is nervous, we will allow the parents to assist the first few lessons but are encouraged to have the child participate without parents.

We will need a minimum of 4 students to run each class. For the remainder of Term 1, Mini Tumblers will be Tuesdays 9am-9:45, and Mini Ninjas will be Tuesdays 10am-11am. If we have enough interest, we would also like to start up morning classes on Wednesdays with the same times, please let us know if you prefer this day.

Adult conditioning/stretch classes mixing in some gymnastics will be held Tuesdays 11:15am -12:15pm and will be on a drop in basis. Please e-mail us prior so we have an idea of how much interest there is or if you would like to join a class but this time is not suitable for you. No previous gymnastics experience is required.

If you would like to join one of these classes and receive more info please send us an e-mail qtgymnastics@hotmail.co.nz

Kind Regards,
Queenstown Gymnastics Club

Dear parents and gymnasts,

Your Committee has been searching for alternative gym sites for over 3 years. We have known, as you have, that WHS is moving to Frankton. WHS do not have a space for us at Frankton.

We have received advice from WHS that we need to hand over our keys to the current gym on 17 December 2017.

Over the past 3 years we have explored school halls, the Events Centre and private leases. We have visited the Mayor twice, put in QLDC Annual Plan submissions and in June 2017 some of our gymnasts presented the Club’s submission to listening Councillors.

We are continuing to work with Gymsports NZ (our parent body), Ministry of Education, QLDC and the wider community to find somewhere suitable but obviously if we do not have a facility by the start of Term 1 2018 we won’t be running classes.  This doesn’t mean that the Club folds, it will just go into recess until a solution is found.

How much space do we need?
We currently operate in about 140m2 with a 4m min stud height. Gymsports NZ see Queenstown having a subregional facility of about 1000m2. We think somewhere between 200m2 – 400m2 would be affordable and would meet the needs of our gymnasts. 1000m2 would be fantastic but we have to be realistic.

How many gymnasts are in the club?
We have 181 members and 65 on our waiting list. This is a big deal.

How much can the club afford to pay?
It depends. We currently turn over about $115,000/annum, pay nothing for rent and make a small annual surplus (about $20,000).  So for example, 400m2 at The Warehouse site could cost $60,000/annum.  We would have to raise this additional amount, as well as any additional staff and other costs needed to cover any additional hours we might be able to offer at a new site.  So, the answer is that the Club can currently afford to pay around $20,000 but potentially could pay more.

Have we been talking to Council?
Yes. We are working with Simon Battrick, Sports and Recreation Manager at QLDC. QLDC and CODC and Sport Otago are putting together a Recreation Strategy which will identify needs of all sports and recreation clubs across QLDC and Central. This will help prioritise Council’s funding for future facilities and hopefully more equitably distribute the existing facilities to our benefit. However, realistically any tangible outcome for the Club from this review is at least a year away.

What private leases have we looked at?
Properties in Gorge Road (ex Carters Site – too short term as site will be redeveloped soon), around Site Trampolining (too expensive), the old warehouse site in Remarkables Park (Decisions will be made by The Warehouse in January 2018). We have also looked on the REINZ site and Trade Me at various location including a building in Cromwell.

What can parents do to help?
a) Please let us know if you know of what might be a suitable property.
b) Stay enrolled in the Club. If your child wants to continue with gymnastics then please enroll for Term 1, 2018. We wont be able to charge fees for Term 1 until we know we have a facility and as soon as we know WE WILL BE SHARING THE INFORMATION.
c) Like our post on Facebook, post it on your page, spread the word to your friends and colleagues, we would love their help
d) Join the Committee – many hands make work light.

What is next?
Ministry of Education and QLDC and the property manager from Wellington are meeting on site on 20 November 2017. Following this meeting we will have a better idea of how the current gym site sits.

Come to the Prize giving and AGM on Wednesday 6 December 2017 at 5.30pm.

GymSports NZ National Championships 2016, Invercargill, 28th September-2nd October 2016

Awesome results for all our 3 Queenstown girls competing in the NZ Gymsports Nationals.

Friday, 30th September – Apparatus and Team competition
Ana Carolina Lozano – 5th on vault, 8th on bars, 6th on beam, 9th overall
Liana Carran – 17th overall
Ana Sofia Tapper – 19th overall

Sunday, 2nd October – All Around finals:
Ana Carolina Lozano – 10th on vault, 10th on bars, 6th on beam, 8th overall

Selfie time with Renaan, Invercargill Gymnastics Club

Catching Sonja, coach at IGC!

With Angela – thank you for all your input, Angela!

The WAG crew!

Podium training at the ILT Stadium

Go Southland!

Ana Sofia Tapper

Liana Carran

Ana Carolina Lozano

Focused 🙂

Selfie time with the best coach ever!

Excited and happy

Thank you Vlad 🙂

There is always space for gymnastics

A different gym 🙂

Daily beach time was just what the girls needed

Finding all sorts of treasures

:>

Nationals Training at IGC

The Nationals WAG team of Southland

Another Nationals Training day done 🙂

Check out the new Southland uniform! Don’t they look stunning. Thank you to Crys and Cesar from Techplaster and Dulux for sponsoring these.

Last Nationals Training day done

Outside the Nationals venue, the ILT Southland Stadium

Having fun 🙂

:>

Gymnastics is always part of things

Ana Sofia Tapper

Ana Carolina Lozano

Liana Carran

If anyone knows of any options that could be discussed with a view to rehoming the club, please contact us on qtgymnastics@hotmail.co.nz

The Committee

We are very excited that 3 of our senior gymnasts Liana Carran, Ana Carolina Lozano and Ana Sofia Tapper as well as coach Giovana Santos have been appointed to represent Southland in the 2015 Gymsports Nationals in Auckland from 28th of September to 4th of October.

Well done girls and coach. 🙂

From left: Liana Carran, Ana Sofia Tapper, Ana Carolina Lozano

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.

We have had a number of conversations in committee meetings about providing additional classes/ services for the senior gymnasts to help them improve their performance.

The class is run within current allocated gymnastics time on Mondays from 3.30-4.30.