Tumblemania - Fastrack and pit upgrade

Aim

Raise funds towards a fast track and upgrade the pit area. We wish to take down unused office space to create larger training area.

Who are we?

We are Grindon Gymnastics Club a Community Interest Company in Sunderland. Our members are aged 0 months -Adult.

Grindon Gymnastics Club is an inclusive gymnastics club in the Southwick area of Sunderland in the North East of England. It is in the top 10% of the most deprived super-output areas in England. As a Comunity Interest Company (CIC), our focus is on providing opportunities to support and improve the lives of those in our local community. We provide classes for everyone, from birth to 100. Our recently developed sensory room paid by 'Innovate for Good Innitiative Funding BIC' means we can cater for new-borns as well as provide sensory activities for the elderly. Our facility is used by local schools, SEND and disability groups. 

Our growth and challenges 

Over the past 3 years, the club has gone from strength to strength: we now have 400 gymnasts/members on our books who take part in weekly classes Infant-Recreational-Competitive local and national events. This year we took 60 gymnasts to regional finals, 25 gymnasts to National finals. June this year 300 non competitive gymnasts participated in a club gymnastics display at our facility. We keep fees low and affordable especially due to the impact of covid and due to the cost of living crisis. We frequently hold fundraising events such as parties, displays, competitions, film nights and family fun sessions. 

How you can help GGC to contribute to the United by 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games Legacy?

Birminghams objectives are to reach the most disadvantaged communities by supporting projects that are:

• Community led, enabling communities to put their ideas into action and work to solve the challenges on their doorstep.
• Keep the Games for everyones vision alive and promote fairness and social inclusion. 
• Insure venues and other Games assests are turned into well used and well loved community spaces after the Games.

Commonwealth Legacy

Our members followed the Commonwealth gymnastics coverage in our gym projected onto a wall and also watched at home raising dreams and aspirations. We have seen a surge of enquires since the Commonwealth Games wanting to join our club which already has a very long waiting list. Taking down the unused office area would create extra space. This would mean we could increase the amount of gymnasts in every session with a new place/area to train in.

Why are we crowdfunding and how we will spend the money raised?

We have plans to change a 1/4 of our gym by taking down an unused office/storage space installed by previous occupiers. Build a large raised landing pitted area for gymnasts to safely dismount equipment independently. Purchase a fast track which would run into the pitted area, the funding would also have bars mounted over the pit area. This new area of our gym would have a huge positive impact for all of our customers. 

The impact of the COVID 19 Pandemic, the high price of equipment brings the need of crowdfunding to afford to upgrade our facility. 

We need to maintain our equipment to ensure, not only the safety of our gymnasts and coaches, but also to make sure we have the right equipment to keep developing our gymnasts to a high standard.

Currently, we need to replace our foam pit as it deflates and requires constant top up of air. 

The purchase of a fast track would provide opportunities to progress skills to a higher level. 

Images below show Fast Track, an example of Bars over pit set up we hope to acheive. 

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. 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 20th December 2022