Soar Valley Trampoline Club - New trampoline

Aim

We are raising money to buy a competition grade trampoline to enable the gymnasts to compete in regional and national competitions

About our club

Soar Valley Trampoline Club is a not-for-profit sports club run by a committee; the Head Coach and Chairperson is Annette Lewis. The club is based at Soar Valley College in Leicester and has been running for 35 years.

We offer recreational and competitive trampolining for children from the age of 5 to 18, to develop their skills and confidence in a safe and fun environment. 

The aims of the club are to: 

• enable young people of all ages to experience the fun of trampolining
• encourage members to achieve their full potential
• introduce members to competitive opportunities at the appropriate level, if they so wish.
• provide a safe, child-friendly environment where everyone feels valued and part of the team.
• promote an enjoyment of sport and exercise and contribute to a healthy lifestyle

Soar Valley Trampoline Club is registered with British Gymnastics, the governing body for trampoline activities. We are GymMark accredited, which means that we are child-friendly and welcoming to everyone.

Community impact

The trampoline club welcomes children from the local community as well as children from other parts of Leicester and Leicestershire. Our project will have positive outcomes for the local community as well as for our current members.

Competition trampolines are more powerful and technically advanced compared to our existing trampolines, they allow gymnasts to jump higher and potentially learn more advanced somersaults and complex routines.

Our project will enable the club to:

• develop and expand
• attract new members
• increase participation in sport in the local area, with the associated benefits to health and mental wellbeing that brings
• attract more coaches which will enable us to expand our membership
• make the club sustainable for the future
• give our current and future gymnasts more opportunity to achieve their full potential
• increase the chances for gymnasts to qualify and compete at regional and national competitions. 

Why do we need a new trampoline?

In March 2022, three of our gymnasts qualified for the National School’s Trampoline Final. It was a great achievement! The only downside was that the National Finals would take place on the latest competition trampolines which we do not have. 

To be able to compete to the best of their ability, we had to approach another local club and ask if we could train on their equipment to allow the children to become familiar with the trampolines.

This is not a sustainable long term solution. Our gymnasts need the opportunity to train on competition grade trampolines regularly to enable them to be competitive. As a result, we set up our project.

The trampolines we currently use are 10 to 15 years old, and technology has advanced in that time. The competition trampolines have a host of improvements. 

Two of the existing trampolines are small and out-dated. The webbing on the trampoline bed is half an inch wide and the small frame means the trampoline springs are shorter than those of larger trampolines. (See the 2 trampolines on the right in the picture). This makes it difficult to achieve height and perform somersaults. 

For this reason, our gymnasts rely on the two larger trampolines to learn new skills and practice somersaults and competition routines. Therefore, the time each gymnast has to practice on the better equipment is severely restricted.

Our project requires a large fundraising effort. 

Due to the coronavirus pandemic and the lengthy lockdowns we endured, our membership was reduced as we returned to training and our normal fund-raising activities could not go ahead. This had a significant impact on our finances. We are now fundraising and using Crowdfunder to help us raise the necessary funds to buy a competition grade trampoline and help us to develop the club for the future.

How we’ll spend the money raised

In total we need to raise £9,360 which covers the cost of a new Ultimate 4x4 trampoline. A link to the supplier's website is below:

https://gymaid.com/products/large-trampolines/eurotramp-ultimate-trampoline/

The committee agreed that the club can contribute £2000 from the club funds, and we have already secured an additional £2000 from local charities, including the J Reginald Corah Foundation. We plan to top this up with money raised from our Christmas party, annual display and a Race Night.

We are hoping to raise the rest of the money, £5000, through Crowdfunder by advertising our project to the wider community and local businesses. 

We hope you have enjoyed reading about our project and want to help us achieve our goal.

If we are fortunate to raise more money than we need, then any spare money would be used towards the cost of an "end-deck", (a fixed safety mat for the end of the trampoline).

How you can play your part

There are four simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.

1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!

2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.

3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!

4. If you want to run your own fundraiser to support us, maybe a sponsored activity or similar, use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!

This project successfully funded on 31st January 2023