Club News
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This page contains news on the various awards the club has received and other information.
In November 2019 we celebrated our 25th year as a club.
It all started in late summer 1994 of with a family gathering round the dining room table to discuss whether it would be possible and who would be involved. Andy and Sandy were willing and fortunately daughters Adeline and Naomi were up for it. Naomi later left for son's football (!!) switching with daughter Steph. We brainstormed for a name and Genesis seemed suitable for an enterprise with a new beginning. Sandy and Andy had already been running Acrobrats pre-school classes on weekdays for a number of years and we had some good coaches helping us with those, and a couple said yes to Saturdays.
The Chessington sports hall was completely unused at weekends at that time, so a small team of 8 adult coaches opened the doors for our first sessions to 33 children, mostly 6 - 8 year old. Apparatus was minimal and just two classes ran.
We were lucky in having good coaches at the start and that is still the case today. We now have 22 coaches and 160 children with a 6 - 12 month waiting list. The apparatus takes an hour to set up and, with more hands, 45 minutes to put away. While it is difficult to put an exact number on it, we believe that about 30 other coaches have come and gone over the last 25 years - most off to Uni or parents who stopped when their children got older and move into other sports. Many still keep in touch.
So that's a short potted history of the club. We still have ambitions to grow and improve. Ideally this would be in our own premises, and we have been looking, but in this area the costs are astronomical and at the moment we simply don't make that much money.
Here's to the next 25 years!
Attached are some then and now pictures. Enjoy.
 ... And Eat It !.jpg | 36 kB | 28/02/20 |
 1994 Class 1.jpg | 600 kB | 28/02/20 |
 1994 Class 2.jpg | 519 kB | 28/02/20 |
 November 2019 Class 1.jpg | 53 kB | 28/02/20 |
 November 2019 Class 2.jpg | 73 kB | 28/02/20 |
 November 2019 Class 3 - In Full Swing.jpg | 63 kB | 28/02/20 |
 The Young Founders - 2019.jpg | 27 kB | 28/02/20 |
 You Can Have Your Cake ....jpg | 28 kB | 28/02/20 |
Winners of the Regional Chairman's Legacy Award
In 2019 Andy, Sandy, Adeline, Steph, Jasper, Nyah & Matt (Adeline's husband) were awarded the South East Region Chairman's Legacy Award, for services to the Region in running the regular Floor & Vault competitions. These started in the year 2000 and have grown steadily in popularity. Over 1000 gymnasts a year now enter these competitions. It is rare for 3 generations of a family to be involved in running such events and the award recognises this.
Winners of the Regional Club of the Year Award
In September 2017 the club was presented with the Regional best club award in the medium size club category. Clubs in contention were from Kent, Surrey and Sussex.
We are very proud of this achievement as we were up against some stiff opposition. This caps a strong year for the club during which we reached capacity with our membership, entered a number of competitions and re-organised classes to make best use of our coaches.
To quote the criteria for this award, it is "awarded in recognising the contribution the club has made in the development of gymnastics, reflecting it's contribution to the community as well as promoting the aims of the sport at all levels of participation".
It is all made possible through having a very good coaching team - keen, positive, knowlegable and friendly. The award is really saying well done everyone!
Winner of the Inaugural British Gymnastics Education Award
In 2014 Andy, who is a British Gymnastics Coaching Tutor, Assessor and Internal Verifier, was awarded the British Gymnastics National Education Award when this was presented for the first time. Andy has run over 400 courses for coaches and teachers, so helping 4000+ people on their coaching pathway, and is still going strong!
