There has been much speculation out there in Canterbury about how CSG got so big and how we came to be blessed with the excellent facilities that we have.

The club was very fortunate over the years to have had hard working visionaries who put in a lot of work. Our club started in 1968 at Crichton Cobbers but moved to the old Wesley Church cnr Fitzgerald and Worcester Street in 1972. 8 years later we made a huge commitment to buy the old church off the trustees. This purchase enabled us to move to where we are today. The old church within the four avenues was worth $330,000 16 years later and it was this large sum that enabled us to get Lotteries commission funding of $180,000. With this grant approved we were able to complete our funding from the CCC of $100,000 and the Community Trust for $50,000. A relatively small mortgage later we were there. All of these funding agencies would not have been able to give us ANY MONEY AT ALL if we didn’t have the first $330,000. Therefore it was quite evident that no other club, or the Association in Canterbury could have accessed this funding, as no-one else had or likely to have the assets that we did.

The council completed the picture by leasing us land here at QE11.

As mentioned above we were in this fortunate position due to the hard work and foresight of many committed and enthusiastic members of CSG over the years. Our current members today reap the benefit of all that work, and they are also now working for the future to better the facility.

Since moving to QEII from the old church in Fitzgerald Ave, CSG has grown from around 300 members to its current level of approximately 1000 fee-paying members. This has required a significant change in culture within the club in terms of management and governance. CSG has developed from a small club - run by volunteers to a business that employs full time permanent staff (7) and part timers (33). In order for any club this size to survive it has to be run as a business – using standard commercial practices.

Since moving from Fitzgerald Ave, CSG has supported the development of the sport in Canterbury in many ways. The club has and continues to develop and train coaches, judges and has initiated many new programmes that have benefited the community. Other clubs within Canterbury and nationally have successfully adopted programmes that were pioneered by CSG and our community and the sport of gymnastics is benefiting greatly from this.

The club has always looked to invite and include other clubs in clinics and activities over the years and has always made the facility available for Canterbury competitions/clinics etc.  The number of competitions held at the CSG facility over the last few years have included;

Canterbury Ribbon Days (2)
South Island Invitational At Queens Birthday weekend
Canterbury Junior Championships
Canterbury Intermediate & Senior Championships
South Island Championships
Avon City club meet
Primary and Secondary School Competitions
Recreation & Tumbling Competitions
Canterbury Age Groups
CSG Classic

In addition many clinics, judging/coaching courses have been run or hosted by CSG.

CSG do want to see the sport of gymnastics grow and thrive in Canterbury. In fact they are working full time to ensure that this is possible.

It is no secret that CSG is looking to expand the size of its facility. Our programmes are at maximum capacity and the building that just a few years ago was perfectly adequate for coping with our membership and competition numbers is now too small. Because of the huge pressure on the facility from Monday through to Saturday, new programmes are now being run on Sundays– eg Adult classes, birthday parties, additional training clinics etc.

Our new programmes encompass a wider range of ages and needs within the community and provide exciting opportunities for those wanting to be involved in movement-based activities. NZG are looking to implement a range of new initiatives within our sport. CSG support these initiatives and are positioning to be a part of these new developments and programmes. We see our plans to expand the size of the facility offering opportunities to both grow the sport of gymnastics in new and innovative ways and a route to implementing new programmes that will support NZG based initiatives and those of SPARC in making New Zealander’s more active. While we will always support competitive gymnastics and find ways to make this component of the sport thrive and grow – we are also looking at the bigger picture of how to involve the wider community in the sport of gymnastics through movement based activities.

In turn – new programmes will offer additional employment and career opportunities to those employed within the sport industry in Canterbury.

Compounding the problems we face with membership numbers and a smaller than desirable facility, the numbers of competitive gymnasts in Canterbury has been rising during the past few years. This has resulted in larger numbers competing at local competitions. This also means larger numbers of spectators watching the competitions and last season there were several occasions where the number of spectators legally allowed upstairs (237) at the CSG facility was significantly exceeded. We are legally bound as owner of the facility to prevent this from happening.

Our position on the use of our facility for competitions is that we have and will continue to accommodate as many competitions as we can cope with utilising our current resources. CSG have agreed to always make available the venue for Canterbury Championships ( 2 weekends) and the current huge Queens Birthday invitational. We are also prepared to agree on a ribbon competition day with the opportunity to have it in September or May.

South Island competitions we believe should be on a rotational basis around the South Isalnd, so that our gymnasts have the opportunity to compete outside their own home training and competitions venue. The current situation with all competitions being held at their training venue is detrimental to their development as competitive gymnasts.

We also have no problem with hire conditions and charges being set at a commercially competitive and fair rate.

Because of the pressure on the use of the facility as described above, we have capped the number of external competitions that the facility is available for this year at four. This is a number that we believe is achievable and will cause the least impact on our programmes and facility – but still supports all of the Canterbury Gymnastics Association competition. The only competition that we have made our venue not available for is the South Island Championships and this non availability was signalled to CGA last year.

We are happy to confirm that the venue is available for the 4 competitions again in 2005 and 2006, but remind you that the extensions may not be completed in time for the May 2005 ribbon meet, and this may have to move to September.

Until we have some certainty over the future expansion of our facility and when this will happen, we are unable to commit to a longer-term access agreement.

I hope that this outlines some of the issues we as a club are faced with concerning the use of our facility. We are more than happy to discuss this with anyone within the Canterbury Gymnastics community. Our ultimate objective is always to continue to support the growth of the sport in Canterbury and accommodate as many competitions as we are able to annually. We certainly appreciate your continued support.

Yours sincerely

Adrian Russell

President
Christchurch School of Gymnastics Inc