NUMBER 1 Gymnastic Club was set up in November 2019 by coaches Suzanne Richards and Emma Munro from Number 1 West Somerset following the closure of the Sports Centre. Since then it has gone from strength to strength.

The club was set up to enable West Somerset children to access gymnastics locally without having to travel to Taunton, Bridgwater or Wellington which created barriers such as access to travel, costs of travel, attendance, and time restraints. 

Number 1 Gymnastic Club is a registered and accredited British gymnastic club and follows its policies and protocols, and it’s ethos is always to offer affordable gymnastic sessions locally which are accessible to all. 

The club has worked tirelessly to secure a venue, which in West Somerset has been pretty challenging and they have been fortunate in being  able to hire Minehead First School two nights a week to run the club and store their equipment.

In November 2022 the club was changed into a Community Interest Company which has enabled them to access more funding resources to improve their equipment.

The Tesco token scheme last year also enabled them to purchase a second set of bars, handstand bar and gymnastic trainer mat. Looking towards the future the club has several students working with them both on a voluntary and casual basis and who they have encouraged to attend British Gymnastic Courses. They also have one student who is joining them in September as an apprentice who will be doing their Level 1 and 2 Gymnastic Training.  

Suzanne Richards, involved since the start, said: “The legacy of Number 1 Gymnastic Club is in place; all we need to secure is a venue/building in West Somerset for the future. 

“Our vision would be to have a purpose made building and offer gymnastics and trampolining in Minehead. This could then be used for School PE Curriculum visits, home education groups, pre-school right through to adult trampolining and gymnastics.”

The club works with local schools and accesses funding sources such as STAR in order to support gymnasts attending sessions. Although the club recommends a leotard and do have some uniform, this is not compulsory in order to not put additional financial pressure on parents/carers.

British Gymnastics also offer a foundation scheme to support gymnasts whose families may need some extra funding.  Number 1 Gymnastics Club recently held their first Inter club competition at Minehead First School, which involved over 87 children from aged four upwards, split into school year groups with each group having a first, second and and third placement. 

Parents/carers were invited to watch and the children performed individual beam and floor routines.  

Suzanne Richards continued: “It was a lovely opportunity for parents/carers to see what everyone has been learning this year and for the children to show their skills. Gymnastics can be quite an individual sport and each child performs on their own and this can be quite daunting, by introducing this in the Club it enables the children to normalise the performance in a competition and so when we go to perform in other competitions the children are confident and know what it entails.  

She added: “ I don’t work with all the year groups so I was so impressed with how the children worked towards the competition and what routines they came up with, Emma, my head coach, works tirelessly providing engaging and motivating gymnastic sessions and the quality performed and the enthusiasm and smiles on the gymnasts faces shows this”. 

Number 1 Gymnastic CIC Club runs on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings at Minehead First School. For further details e-mail Emma@[email protected].