In this week’s episode, Geoff chats with Kate Howard & Emma Murray from Hub Gymnastics, winners of the 2022 Woolworths Community Group of the Year Award at the South Australian Community Achievement Awards.
Hub Gymnastics Club was established in 1985 by a group of volunteers to run a recreation gymnastics program. The Club has since embarked on delivering new programs for the community, allowing families access to professionally run classes with highly skilled coaches. They also offer school holiday gymnastics, after-school, and in-lesson gymnastics programs. Hub Gymnastics continues to increase participation of girls and boys from the age of 1 and now has around 750 members, with about 350 children on waitlist! The Club prides itself on being an inclusive and welcoming family-based Club that provides high quality programs.
Kate and Emma also talk about the way Hub Gymnastics achieves sustainability as a community club, by valuing the development and progression of athletes, who may have grown up at the club, to highly skilled coaches that can now remain active within both the club and the sport.
“Don’t ever underestimate the impact you can have by being involved in a club”
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Links
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Transcript
[00:00:08] Christine
Welcome to Inspirational Australians, where we share stories of Australians making
[00:00:13] Christine
a difference in their communities and in the lives of others. We at inspirational Australians acknowledge the
[00:00:20] Christine
Wurundjeri and Bunerong people of the Kulin nation as their traditional owners and
[00:00:25] Christine
custodians of the lands and waterways on which this podcast is produced. We pay our
[00:00:31] Christine
respect to elders, past and present, and those who are emerging and extend our respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
[00:00:39] Christine
Strait Islander peoples. At Inspirational Australians we are inspired by the world’s oldest living culture
[00:00:46] Christine
and pay homage to their rich storytelling history, when we share stories on our podcast.
[00:00:58] Geoff
This week’s podcast guests are Kate Howard. And Emma Murray representing the
[00:01:03] Geoff
volunteers of the mighty Hub Gymnastics club. They were the winner of the twenty
[00:01:08] Geoff
twenty two Woolworths Community Group of the Year Award. And the award was
[00:01:14] Geoff
presented as part of the annual state’s Community Achievement Awards. Kate and Emma.
[00:01:20] Geoff
Welcome to the inspirational australian’s podcast and hello to all of our
[00:01:25] Geoff
listeners. I hope you all gain some inspiration from today’s chat. Welcome Kate. Welcome. Emma.
[00:01:34] Emma & Kate
Thank you. Thanks for having us.
[00:01:36] Geoff
Good to have you on board and congratulations on all we do at hub gymnastics. It’s such a great program,
[00:01:45] Geoff
which is obviously why you were recognized with your award last year. I’m sure over
[00:01:50] Geoff
the over the years there have been thousands and thousands who have come together and really got
[00:01:57] Geoff
a lot of joy from the programs and competitions that you run. Now I only had boys
[00:02:03] Geoff
myself. So I’m not real familiar with gymnastics, which I am sure come out in the wash as we have
[00:02:11] Geoff
a chat. So feel free to enlighten me. And of Course,
[00:02:15] Geoff
anywhere other listeners who have only had boys as well about
[00:02:21] Geoff
a little bit more detail about gymnastics. So how and when did the idea come about
[00:02:27] Geoff
and who was a part of the creation of Hubbard in gymnastics, in the beginning?
[00:02:34] Emma & Kate
Very much before the height of my sales time with the club and sorry
[00:02:41] Emma & Kate
back in nineteen eighty five I believe. And
[00:02:45] Emma & Kate
a group of volunteers was sort of approached, I think, at the time,
[00:02:49] Emma & Kate
actually approached by the YMCA and I’m sure someone has been
[00:02:52] Emma & Kate
a factual check of this. And that approached by the YMCA a gentleman, Gordon Sykes,
[00:03:00] Emma & Kate
and effectively began the club. And it started at the hub and recreation centre and fairly quickly,
[00:03:09] Emma & Kate
I believe they Amalgamated with the YMCA that run the centre at the time. Obviously
[00:03:14] Emma & Kate
they provided the equipment and the space,
[00:03:16] Emma & Kate
and then it just kind of grew from there. So obviously parents came on board to
[00:03:20] Emma & Kate
help coach and, you know, people were on board volunteering and then the programme just grew and grew from there.
[00:03:27] Geoff
Often does comes from a great idea. But you need people who are passionate about the whole thing to
[00:03:36] Geoff
get it going.
[00:03:37] Geoff
But I think the proof is in the pudding for a success,
[00:03:40] Geoff
for the longevity of any programme comes down to finding new people to be involved,
[00:03:47] Geoff
getting them enthusiastic and being part of the journey. So back to those
[00:03:54] Geoff
original days where was hub gymnastics initially located
[00:04:01] Emma & Kate
A recreation centre. And I believe we did this for a number of years. Emma can confirm that I’m not
[00:04:10] Emma & Kate
a hundred percent. Sure. How many years music it was? Well, before my time, Emma, did you want to expand?
[00:04:15] Emma & Kate
Because I think you know more about that than me.
[00:04:18] Emma & Kate
Yes, I think the original hub recreation centre was a third state government,
[00:04:24] Emma & Kate
a third YMCA and a third hub high School,
[00:04:28] Emma & Kate
I believe was the funding arrangement. So we were there for a period of time, basically,
[00:04:33] Emma & Kate
till I think about two thousand and thirteen. And we were with the YMCA for quite
[00:04:38] Emma & Kate
a period of time there. And we did obviously,
[00:04:43] Emma & Kate
at some point break away from the YMCA and we obviously offer Competition streams.
[00:04:50] Emma & Kate
And it wasn’t quite aligned with what they sort of offered the package. And they no
[00:04:54] Emma & Kate
longer had the management rights to the facility we were in. And so it just kind of
[00:04:59] Emma & Kate
made sense from that point to incorporate on our own. And obviously,
[00:05:04] Emma & Kate
that allowed us to sort of take a little bit more direction around, you know,
[00:05:09] Emma & Kate
the service that we provide, and why it might be different to a standard YMCA kind of program.
[00:05:15] Geoff
I’m so there were plenty of benefits of the
[00:05:17] Geoff
initial amalgamation with the YMCA in terms of the growth of the organisation.
[00:05:25] Geoff
Is that why the initial amalgamation started or happened?
[00:05:31] Emma & Kate
Yeah, I think so. I mean,
[00:05:32] Emma & Kate
that’s certainly very much before our time. I think it may have even been the YMCA
[00:05:37] Emma & Kate
idea for a gymnastic centre in that space, and I know that they offered the space,
[00:05:45] Emma & Kate
I think they offered some equipment. And so I think it was very much
[00:05:48] Emma & Kate
a them idea. And I believe they obviously helped with some of the financial kind of
[00:05:54] Emma & Kate
side to running a gymnastics club. So certainly early days.
[00:05:58] Geoff
Sounds like a win win in the initial stages. Yeah, yeah. So since that initial partnership,
[00:06:05] Geoff
I guess there’ve been a few changes. I’d say that there have been
[00:06:09] Geoff
a few changes in center management over the time and locations for the club. Can you tell us
[00:06:15] Geoff
a bit more about the history from the two thousand and thirty thirteen period where you parted ways with YMCA?
[00:06:24] Emma & Kate
Yes, sorry. The YMCA had lost the center management contract, I think
[00:06:31] Emma & Kate
a few years earlier. And the facility we were in was put out for tender. Another
[00:06:37] Emma & Kate
management and Company were awarded the contract and it just wasn’t tenable for us
[00:06:42] Emma & Kate
to remain in that facility. And so we sort of I think it kind of happened fairly
[00:06:48] Emma & Kate
similar where we had decided to infill away from the one side. They were actually
[00:06:52] Emma & Kate
fairly supportive of that process. I think.
[00:06:55] Emma & Kate
And sort of, you know,
[00:06:57] Emma & Kate
understanding that we probably had different directions that we sort of saw,
[00:07:00] Emma & Kate
the club going and they weren’t really able to help us facilitate some of that
[00:07:04] Emma & Kate
space moving forwards. And then we needed to find
[00:07:07] Emma & Kate
a new facility. Obviously that meant we moved out of the city of onkaparinga,
[00:07:11] Emma & Kate
so we did move to the city of Marion for a period of time and into
[00:07:15] Emma & Kate
a whole that was sort of available. It did allow us to have
[00:07:20] Emma & Kate
a more permanent set up still not full time at that point, but
[00:07:24] Emma & Kate
a more permanent set up. And it did also allow us to expand on hours offered. And
[00:07:30] Emma & Kate
so because obviously we were sharing
[00:07:32] Emma & Kate
a facility that had school usage. And we were limited on the available hours that
[00:07:37] Emma & Kate
we had access. And when we moved to the city of Marion,
[00:07:40] Emma & Kate
we were able to increase those hours and therefore,
[00:07:42] Emma & Kate
obviously increase the volume of athletes we can get through the door. And then
[00:07:47] Emma & Kate
when we made the move back to the city of ringer and now into
[00:07:50] Emma & Kate
a permanent home. And so the hill recreation centre, which has now been renamed the Pomona recreation centre,
[00:07:58] Emma & Kate
which is amazing. And when we moved back into the pool, my recreation center,
[00:08:02] Emma & Kate
we now have full time usage. So we do share with an active over fifty group one day
[00:08:08] Emma & Kate
a week. They have about five hours access. But outside of that we have full time
[00:08:13] Emma & Kate
access. So that was kind of, as we grew, we kind of needed to be in
[00:08:17] Emma & Kate
a facility that would support the access and now we have programs not quite all day
[00:08:23] Emma & Kate
every day, but getting pretty close. So I
[00:08:26] Geoff
know historically Kate, you must have your equipment would have had to I imagine have been packed away and
[00:08:34] Geoff
then re set up each time you used it.
[00:08:39] Emma & Kate
Yeah, so when we were in the city of Marion, we used to have set up happening on
[00:08:47] Emma & Kate
a Saturday morning. I think we did set up.
[00:08:50] Emma & Kate
I think we did. We had pat down numerous times a week and the equipment was all stored actually on
[00:08:58] Emma & Kate
a stage in that facility. So there was a lot of
[00:09:04] Emma & Kate
a lot of volunteer work behind the scenes to make sure that the gym was set up
[00:09:08] Emma & Kate
ready to go. When we needed it, I remember when my daughter first started,
[00:09:13] Emma & Kate
we were always on Saturday set up because she was one of the first groups in as
[00:09:18] Emma & Kate
a little tacker. So I and that was, that was where my involvement came from,
[00:09:23] Emma & Kate
primarily with the set up being a parent. And you know, mopping floors on
[00:09:29] Emma & Kate
a Thursday night to get rid of all the chalk and all that sort of stuff associated
[00:09:33] Emma & Kate
with gymnastics. So we still have an element of pick up and sit down etc.
[00:09:39] Emma & Kate
in the current facility because we have got that active group in there.
[00:09:45] Emma & Kate
So
[00:09:47] Emma & Kate
currently we still pack down on a Thursday night and then sit up again on
[00:09:52] Emma & Kate
a Saturday morning. So yeah, it’s much less than it used to be, which is great.
[00:09:58] Geoff
So how many times would you have had to have packed down and set up in the other order?
[00:10:06] Geoff
Previously in summary, railway occasions
[00:10:09] Emma & Kate
every day, in fact, in the
[00:10:11] Emma & Kate
original
[00:10:11] Emma & Kate
location we set up every every day and we just didn’t have the same.
[00:10:16] Emma & Kate
You couldn’t have the same equipment, you know, a full gymnastics floor,
[00:10:19] Emma & Kate
either ten person to our job to set up. So we didn’t, we didn’t have that equipment,
[00:10:24] Emma & Kate
we had very minimal trampolines. We didn’t have any of the, the stuff we have now. So we do have
[00:10:29] Emma & Kate
a small set up now of one particular space. But we do have
[00:10:34] Emma & Kate
a lot of our equipment that remains set up so that we can have access to sort of
[00:10:37] Emma & Kate
bigger, safer, better equipment.
[00:10:40] Geoff
That’s pretty
[00:10:41] Emma & Kate
fun. It was a mission. It was definitely all hands on deck like every year
[00:10:48] Geoff
and to all of our listeners, we put our hands together for all volunteers. It’s we,
[00:10:55] Geoff
it’s hard to imagine where we would be without the volunteers in any organization club or sports organization that
[00:11:05] Geoff
make them function. And the more volunteers the better, more active, the better involved, they are,
[00:11:12] Geoff
the better the organizations can run. Kudos to you both to all of your team and
[00:11:18] Geoff
shout out to hub gymnastics, club, volunteers, and every other organization that functions that way. Kudos and hub
[00:11:29] Geoff
gymnastics is also a story of resilience, isn’t it?
[00:11:32] Geoff
How you’ve grown. You’ve had to undertake and undergo change of management.
[00:11:39] Geoff
partnership’s been used as you say, the set up and tracked down on
[00:11:45] Geoff
a regular basis. It’s just a story of resilience and, and belief in a vision and the purpose,
[00:11:52] Geoff
I guess which for your community benefit. So and the same for anybody out there who
[00:11:59] Geoff
is involved similarly big Kudos and shadow. And I say congratulations on your resilience. How many volunteers are there on?
[00:12:09] Geoff
I presume you have a committee. How many people on your committee and how many volunteers do you have?
[00:12:18] Emma & Kate
So currently on that committee we have, I think we have
[00:12:22] Emma & Kate
a committee of nine. We generally try and keep an odd number. So that if we have to
[00:12:29] Emma & Kate
split the vote on something, it’s generally easily split.
[00:12:35] Emma & Kate
And primarily, the majority,
[00:12:38] Emma & Kate
vast majority of us are parents of gymnasts at various stages in their
[00:12:44] Emma & Kate
careers. I’m still on the committee to support my job. No longer actively
[00:12:50] Emma & Kate
participating as a gymnast. She’s still a coach and is still involved in the club, but yes, it’s primarily
[00:12:58] Emma & Kate
a lot of parents. The vast majority of us are mums on that committee, being
[00:13:05] Emma & Kate
a ninety four percent female sport. Often it’s the mums who do the committee work
[00:13:11] Emma & Kate
on the dads, do the sit up with the heavy equipment etc..
[00:13:16] Emma & Kate
And in terms of the volunteer advice. You know,
[00:13:18] Emma & Kate
we’ve got over eight hundred members in our club.
[00:13:22] Emma & Kate
So voluntary advice is it’s huge.
[00:13:26] Emma & Kate
But some, some of those people might only volunteer once a year. Some might be that week in week out,
[00:13:31] Emma & Kate
so I don’t think we could actively put a number on our volunteers. You know, realistically we’ve got
[00:13:41] Emma & Kate
a cool group of volunteers that was there and always willing to lend
[00:13:45] Emma & Kate
a hand. And then there’s other people who come in twice
[00:13:49] Emma & Kate
a year when they can. And we absolutely appreciate anyone who’s willing to come and
[00:13:55] Emma & Kate
help us out if we produce twice a year is no problem. I really think
[00:14:01] Emma & Kate
it’s nice to see sort of the next generation
[00:14:03] Emma & Kate
of volunteers. So obviously a lot of our junior athletes are coaches. So you know,
[00:14:08] Emma & Kate
they get their first employment with us. You know, they might work three, four,
[00:14:12] Emma & Kate
five hours a week. And for example,
[00:14:15] Emma & Kate
this weekend we are hosting. So at that second day with our inaugural last year.
[00:14:19] Emma & Kate
But we’re hosting a inter-club Competition for the southern area,
[00:14:24] Emma & Kate
some little level ones and twos.
[00:14:26] Emma & Kate
And even just the amount of help that the junior
[00:14:29] Emma & Kate
coaches who are paid staff,
[00:14:31] Emma & Kate
but they just want to come in and volunteer to run the session. And you know,
[00:14:35] Emma & Kate
they’re going to serve food. They’re going to help with a little craft activity we’ve got for the kids,
[00:14:40] Emma & Kate
and they just want to get involved and they’re happy to donate this Sunday and to
[00:14:46] Emma & Kate
display how good our club is. They love hearing feedback from, you know,
[00:14:51] Emma & Kate
parents from other clubs about how amazing the Competition was. Last year,
[00:14:55] Emma & Kate
the girls talked about it for months afterwards. How,
[00:14:57] Emma & Kate
how good the feedback was. They were getting from people from other clubs. And so
[00:15:01] Emma & Kate
like the next generation of volunteers as well, like yes,
[00:15:05] Emma & Kate
they hold paid employment and that’s really important to them. Obviously they’ve
[00:15:08] Emma & Kate
got mobile phones and bills to pay and, but they still are willing to participate,
[00:15:15] Emma & Kate
donate their time, you know, go above and beyond, which is really cool when they’re, you know,
[00:15:19] Emma & Kate
fourteen and fifteen and there’s so many things that might be more important to them
[00:15:23] Geoff
Yeah, hundred percent getting young people involved in any form of volunteering or
[00:15:29] Geoff
similar is really critical. So there are so many pressures and challenges in life
[00:15:36] Geoff
in people these days. And of Course everybody. So volunteers are critical and
[00:15:41] Geoff
getting new people on board is, as you say, really exciting and invaluable. So how do you get your funding?
[00:15:48] Geoff
Where’s your funding come from now to pay for coaches and the likes?
[00:15:54] Emma & Kate
Well, you are talking to Kate who’s our treasurer,
[00:15:57] Emma & Kate
so I’m happy to let her is the money lady.
[00:16:00] Emma & Kate
I know when I have to ask for a dollar, could we take it to here?
[00:16:06] Geoff
That might be a good, good time, Kate, when you make people big.
[00:16:10] Emma & Kate
Absolutely. The in all honesty, we have, the majority of our funding comes from ATM fees that we charge our
[00:16:21] Emma & Kate
families. We have various different strains of gymnastics with various different
[00:16:27] Emma & Kate
term costs associated with them. And we are one of the cheapest clubs in Adelaide
[00:16:33] Emma & Kate
as far as I’m aware. I haven’t done the numbers recently, but we
[00:16:36] Geoff
have one of the best costs.
[00:16:38] Emma & Kate
Absolutely, we’re not going to shy away from that fact. So primarily that
[00:16:43] Emma & Kate
a lot of it comes from our base. We do do
[00:16:47] Emma & Kate
a lot of fundraising over and above that because we do need to replace equipment, gymnastics,
[00:16:54] Emma & Kate
equipment when it gets tired and all unfortunately it can become on site. So there
[00:16:59] Emma & Kate
is that work safety issue there as well. So we do fundraising through the
[00:17:07] Emma & Kate
fundraising committee and the support of our parents and being a large club, we can, you know, get
[00:17:14] Emma & Kate
a lot of resources out there to do that fundraising. And every now and again,
[00:17:20] Emma & Kate
we might get a grant or two for equipment purchases or any upgrades.
[00:17:25] Emma & Kate
Obviously,
[00:17:26] Emma & Kate
the funding for our building project is
[00:17:28] Emma & Kate
a totally different story which Emma can share more on with that. There is
[00:17:33] Emma & Kate
significant funding there from various government sources,
[00:17:38] Emma & Kate
but primarily it’s from our families in paying the space and the fundraising that we do. So
[00:17:46] Emma & Kate
I think we probably have a slightly unique fee structure then a few other clubs,
[00:17:52] Emma & Kate
so we’ve tequila our Competition program. And it was really important for us
[00:17:58] Emma & Kate
designing the face structure to sort of reward loyalty,
[00:18:02] Emma & Kate
time spent with the club. So the more hours you train and the higher level,
[00:18:08] Emma & Kate
your athlete is, the less you actually pay per hour. So effectively,
[00:18:13] Emma & Kate
by the time an athlete had sort of been with us
[00:18:16] Emma & Kate
for five, six, seven, eight years, the phase have kind of whilst you might be paying more because they’re doing
[00:18:22] Emma & Kate
significantly more hours. It’s actually a, a lower fee per hour. So it does really reward the,
[00:18:28] Emma & Kate
the value that we’ve got from those families. You know, by the time your athlete is fifteen or sixteen,
[00:18:32] Emma & Kate
your parent has helped out at numerous volunteer things you’ve been involved in fundraising. You’ve traveled as
[00:18:39] Emma & Kate
a team to different interstate competitions or whatever it is we thought of. Yeah,
[00:18:43] Emma & Kate
that fee structure is designed to sort of reward reward those families and the loyalty for,
[00:18:48] Emma & Kate
for being with us for that period of time.
[00:18:50] Geoff
It’s great idea. I love that.
[00:18:52] Geoff
They call
[00:18:53] Geoff
does the same apply for multiple children in one family. So if you’ve got three
[00:19:00] Emma & Kate
kids. Yeah, there is
[00:19:01] Emma & Kate
a sibling discount for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And we will try and do things to sort of
[00:19:06] Emma & Kate
assist with families. You know, if you’ve got kids in multiple programs,
[00:19:10] Emma & Kate
if there’s a recreation program that works on a day better, you know,
[00:19:13] Emma & Kate
we’ll do things logically to sort of support families because we do have
[00:19:16] Emma & Kate
a few families where we might have all three of their kids. I don’t know if we’ve
[00:19:20] Emma & Kate
got all four of anyone’s kids at the moment, but I think we’ve got two or three of
[00:19:23] Emma & Kate
a few families. So you know, there’s some parents that need a permanent chair and
[00:19:27] Emma & Kate
a lawyer at the moment. So we do try and make things as easy as possible for those families.
[00:19:33] Emma & Kate
Yeah, and there’s, there’s also those families where obviously we are primarily female dominated sport.
[00:19:40] Emma & Kate
But since we’ve started at boys program, you know this
[00:19:44] Emma & Kate
a few brothers coming into the fold. So it’s not necessarily just three female siblings. And so that’s opened up
[00:19:52] Emma & Kate
a whole nother avenue for our families as well where, you know,
[00:19:56] Emma & Kate
one child might be able to participate, but we didn’t have
[00:19:59] Emma & Kate
a boys program and so the Brother missed out. So we have opened up that as well,
[00:20:03] Emma & Kate
which is expanded at programs and most importantly we would never do
[00:20:10] Emma & Kate
a boys program. Here we are and you know, it’s actually, there was
[00:20:15] Emma & Kate
a demand for it as well. So we,
[00:20:19] Emma & Kate
we took that on and it is actually progressing really, really well at this stage, which is good.
[00:20:25] Geoff
Yeah. Brilliant. So again, excuse my ignorance.
[00:20:29] Geoff
I imagine every child has
[00:20:32] Geoff
a varying degree of flexibility or capability, or, or enjoyment from, from gymnastics. How different can the boys programme be
[00:20:45] Geoff
from a girls program? Do they have separate coaches or are they all pulled together dependent and based on their
[00:20:53] Emma & Kate
I look at and say, if you look at Competition programs,
[00:20:57] Emma & Kate
boys and Girls have different equipment. And so obviously our Competition programs,
[00:21:02] Emma & Kate
they do have different coaches. Some of our coaches do grow and coach across
[00:21:06] Emma & Kate
multiple programs because obviously there are particular elements that are the same.
[00:21:11] Emma & Kate
And a lot of the, the teaching aspect of controlling
[00:21:15] Emma & Kate
a class and listening skills and all of those things are kind of the same across
[00:21:20] Emma & Kate
programs and, and some of the equipment is the same. But no, we do have,
[00:21:24] Emma & Kate
have different program. And even without within our recreation string now where the
[00:21:28] Emma & Kate
Boys and Girls are together up. And because the demand has been sort of growing for a boys program,
[00:21:35] Emma & Kate
we do occasionally have groups within that class where the boys are all together.
[00:21:39] Emma & Kate
If we’ve got enough boys in that class to do that,
[00:21:41] Emma & Kate
and then they get to go on different equipment and it’s
[00:21:44] Emma & Kate
a little bit easier. But then we do have some programs for the Boys and Girls and
[00:21:47] Emma & Kate
together and it doesn’t make any difference.
[00:21:49] Emma & Kate
Yeah,
[00:21:50] Emma & Kate
I think the thing with gymnastics is because it is an individual sport. It’s really
[00:21:55] Emma & Kate
up to the coach to be able to have, you know, six or seven children within
[00:21:58] Emma & Kate
a class and make sure that they’re all participating at the appropriate level for
[00:22:03] Emma & Kate
them and being challenged for them. But you might have kids have a quite
[00:22:06] Emma & Kate
a varied ability within that class. And we do also have fairly low
[00:22:13] Emma & Kate
coach to athlete ratio is probably much lower than other programs. You know, obviously from a feasibility standpoint, you know,
[00:22:23] Emma & Kate
you need to work out and that’s like comes in about where,
[00:22:26] Emma & Kate
where are absolute minimums sort of are in that space. But we do have fairly low
[00:22:31] Emma & Kate
athlete to Coach ratios so that athletes can, you know,
[00:22:35] Emma & Kate
they’re being coached sufficiently and able to be sort of challenged sufficiently.
[00:22:39] Emma & Kate
You wouldn’t have one coach with twenty kids. You know, especially in a junior program like
[00:22:44] Emma & Kate
a recreation program where obviously the kids are still fairly new to gymnastics, the skills,
[00:22:51] Emma & Kate
still working out body control and strength and those sorts of things.
[00:22:55] Geoff
Awesome. So can you tell me again for those who are not conversant with gymnastics,
[00:23:02] Geoff
you mentioned just then about programs more for beginners. So there’d be more
[00:23:09] Geoff
in principal basic introduction type classes than I imagine. Like martial arts,
[00:23:17] Geoff
you would progress through the levels of skill and ability or and
[00:23:24] Geoff
I imagine do you go to specific types of courses that are more appropriate for our specialist apparatus,
[00:23:34] Geoff
whatever. Now I have no idea what I’m talking about.
[00:23:37] Emma & Kate
Can you doing a pretty good job
[00:23:39] Geoff
through the various types of
[00:23:41] Emma & Kate
yes, sorry. I mean if we stop right at the start, we have killed the gym.
[00:23:46] Emma & Kate
So can the gym,
[00:23:48] Emma & Kate
you can be nine months old. You can be crawling around just sort of standing up and
[00:23:52] Emma & Kate
in the gym we do from sort of infant to I think it’s about two. And then you would
[00:23:59] Emma & Kate
go into a Mini gym. Sorry. Still very small. The kids are sort of two and
[00:24:05] Emma & Kate
a half to three and a half. You’re starting to have some sort of instruction. And parents are
[00:24:11] Emma & Kate
a little bit less involved than we’ve got with kids. Which are that is that funny.
[00:24:15] Emma & Kate
It’s like the three and a half to four and
[00:24:17] Emma & Kate
a half.
[00:24:18] Emma & Kate
And so very low numbers in those programs coach ratio because obviously we
[00:24:22] Emma & Kate
were still working on not listening skills at that point. And
[00:24:27] Geoff
that’s where I belong in a bit.
[00:24:30] Emma & Kate
Yeah, I think that’s the program, the coaches get most tired coaching because that once yeah,
[00:24:34] Emma & Kate
we go along with kids and you can kind of imagine what and then you would move to
[00:24:38] Emma & Kate
a recreation program. So recreation program we do from about four to I think we’ve
[00:24:44] Emma & Kate
got fourteen year old athletes in those sorts of programs and that’s an hour
[00:24:48] Emma & Kate
a week session. And it’s really tailored on, you know,
[00:24:52] Emma & Kate
you can be an absolute beginner at this. We’ve got kids that have been with us two
[00:24:55] Emma & Kate
years and nice progress. Individual groups are kind of an age and
[00:25:02] Emma & Kate
skill based, sorry. We designed the program so that you know, you’re with a group of appropriate aged athletes,
[00:25:09] Emma & Kate
but also appropriate level. And we have our own skills matrix that we’ve developed. So
[00:25:14] Emma & Kate
a coach and resource that the coaches work from. And to sort of ensure that the kids,
[00:25:19] Emma & Kate
the earning are learning skills evenly across like a banding. And then, you know,
[00:25:24] Emma & Kate
if kids need to move up into groups throughout that recreation program,
[00:25:27] Emma & Kate
they would. And then getting into look on invitation program is invite only we
[00:25:33] Emma & Kate
obviously would love to have thousands of athletes in Competition programs,
[00:25:38] Emma & Kate
but we simply don’t have the size of the resources. So it is invite only,
[00:25:43] Emma & Kate
so we ever do. We normally do a trial sort of once a year and we’ll do
[00:25:48] Emma & Kate
a trial towards the end of next month,
[00:25:51] Emma & Kate
I think. And that will be our next batch of Wimbledon slate. So that’s the name for
[00:25:56] Emma & Kate
the first year. Competition athletes? Honestly, I, I’m not quite sure why or how I was
[00:26:03] Emma & Kate
a flea like twenty twenty something years ago. I
[00:26:08] Geoff
don’t know secrets.
[00:26:10] Emma & Kate
And I just, I don’t know why they call plays
[00:26:13] Emma & Kate
, but the names just stuck, so we do a trial for a new slave squad. Every,
[00:26:18] Emma & Kate
every twelve months or so. And then we do occasionally type kids into squads.
[00:26:22] Emma & Kate
If
[00:26:22] Emma & Kate
we’ve got spies or, you know, transfers from other clubs as well. And the Competition programs are invite only
[00:26:29] Emma & Kate
there. And then we have a few extra classes. So we have an aerobics program which is like
[00:26:33] Emma & Kate
a dance based gymnastics program so that it’s got its own recreation stream and its
[00:26:38] Emma & Kate
own Competition stream. And we have an accurate class which is like
[00:26:42] Emma & Kate
a tumbling class. So we’ve got kids from different recreation programs,
[00:26:45] Emma & Kate
kids per program doing it. And even like, you know,
[00:26:48] Emma & Kate
dances who just want to safely learn tricks that it might not be appropriate for
[00:26:52] Emma & Kate
them to be watching YouTube and Learning at home. So we’ve got
[00:26:55] Emma & Kate
a few people that have enrolled because they would like to be taught by someone who
[00:26:58] Emma & Kate
is qualified and capable to teach those sort of things in
[00:27:01] Emma & Kate
a safer environment as well. So we kind of have something for everyone,
[00:27:06] Emma & Kate
hence the need for the expansion because the waitlist is getting longer. And we
[00:27:11] Emma & Kate
just, you know, we ran out of space really. And
[00:27:16] Geoff
so too, while we’re on the subject, tell me about the expansion because I know you’ve got
[00:27:20] Geoff
a lot of exciting stuff going on and planned. So I might come back to
[00:27:25] Geoff
a few other questions I have, but tell us about that. What’s going on?
[00:27:31] Emma & Kate
Yeah, so exciting and or terrifying. Depends on the day of the week,
[00:27:34] Emma & Kate
I think to ask yeah, I mean, maybe a year and a half ago now,
[00:27:41] Emma & Kate
two years ago I think some of my father had just sort of passed away. And after
[00:27:46] Emma & Kate
a fairly long battle with Cancer, the council came to us and said, look,
[00:27:52] Emma & Kate
we want to honour your father in a way, what do you and the family want to do?
[00:27:56] Emma & Kate
And the idea was presented for the name change of the building. And we thought
[00:28:01] Emma & Kate
that’s amazing, like dad would be so proud, you know, he never likes to show off,
[00:28:06] Emma & Kate
but he would have been secretly pretty, pretty pleased that
[00:28:09] Emma & Kate
a building was named after him. And then, you know, it kind of,
[00:28:14] Emma & Kate
I was sitting there thinking okay, like, you know,
[00:28:16] Emma & Kate
dad had all these plans written down for things he wanted to do for the club. Like, you know,
[00:28:21] Emma & Kate
he saw what was kind of next. And mum’s actually given me some beautiful things
[00:28:25] Emma & Kate
that he’d written down in his plans and things that he was doing. And I’ve been
[00:28:29] Emma & Kate
able to take all of that stuff that we’ve sort of achieved since and, but we,
[00:28:33] Emma & Kate
we knew we needed to sort of look at what,
[00:28:36] Emma & Kate
how we were going to expand. And we sat down and thought, okay,
[00:28:39] Emma & Kate
we really want to keep the gym space full time. Sorry. We want to be added to the
[00:28:44] Emma & Kate
gym on the weekends. The dads to come along to we, you know,
[00:28:48] Emma & Kate
we want to be able to use the Friday.
[00:28:50] Emma & Kate
And so I said, Kate,
[00:28:52] Emma & Kate
please may I have some money and she let me have
[00:28:55] Emma & Kate
a little bit of money and I got some plans drawn up for
[00:28:58] Emma & Kate
a separate kind of gym space. I got some cost consulting done. Did all of this took
[00:29:05] Emma & Kate
it to council and said, can I have my land donor’s consent?
[00:29:08] Emma & Kate
And they said yeah, and I was going to submit to like
[00:29:11] Emma & Kate
a grassroots sports grant. And then it kind of all got a bit murky for
[00:29:15] Emma & Kate
a bit there. And we sought some external advice around why wasn’t being supported
[00:29:20] Emma & Kate
and we got to learn about building life. And obviously, if we touched a building,
[00:29:27] Emma & Kate
which is not had much love since the original building in,
[00:29:31] Emma & Kate
I don’t know sixty years ago maybe fifty years ago. It’s not really had much love
[00:29:36] Emma & Kate
and we would obviously need to upgrade our building to building code and that
[00:29:40] Emma & Kate
wasn’t something council had budgeted for. So it became apparent that we weren’t
[00:29:45] Emma & Kate
going to be able to do that. That little extension we wanted to do. And it was kind
[00:29:49] Emma & Kate
of an all or nothing. And I guess I being a female marrying a fellow redhead was like, well,
[00:29:58] Emma & Kate
I really like the word no. So I guess we’re doing this whole building. So then I
[00:30:03] Emma & Kate
said, hey, can I have some more money? Because now any plans for the whole building and
[00:30:09] Emma & Kate
got our plans drawn up for the
[00:30:11] Emma & Kate
whole building and then it just timed quite nicely with an election coming up that
[00:30:14] Emma & Kate
I just started going to politicians and saying this is what I want to do. We’ve got
[00:30:19] Emma & Kate
eight hundred athletes, so we’re bigger than anyone else. And you know, where female sport we’re female led,
[00:30:24] Emma & Kate
we’ve got three hundred females on the waitlist who can’t get even in the door. So
[00:30:30] Emma & Kate
what about you fund us?
[00:30:33] Emma & Kate
And then we, it worked well. I mean, there was definitely time where I was like, how is this working?
[00:30:41] Emma & Kate
But we just advocated we did stand up. We, you know, and we did look as a club,
[00:30:48] Emma & Kate
we did probably make close to fifty eight thousand dollars worth of actual work
[00:30:54] Emma & Kate
ourselves in terms of, well, no, not actually with ourselves in terms of XS, sorry,
[00:30:59] Emma & Kate
you know, we had an architectural plan. I had a fully cost consultant, you know,
[00:31:03] Emma & Kate
so it made it easy for politicians to support it because I was handing it to you to
[00:31:07] Emma & Kate
want to play going. Here it is here. It’s all done like, you know,
[00:31:10] Emma & Kate
this is what your contribution will will buy. You so we, we ended up with matching election, promises,
[00:31:18] Emma & Kate
labor and liberal. We’re very lucky that.
[00:31:22] Emma & Kate
And politicians that have been
[00:31:24] Emma & Kate
supportive to us have really been supportive to us irrespective of political alliance. We have been very,
[00:31:31] Emma & Kate
very lucky in that space. So we’ve had some really strong advocates who effectively have worked together
[00:31:36] Emma & Kate
a lot of the time because they’ve been massive supporters. And we then had the,
[00:31:42] Emma & Kate
we got a contribution from the state government in the election. We got
[00:31:47] Emma & Kate
a promise that was not an election commitment centrally. So that was
[00:31:52] Emma & Kate
a budget commitment. And then we went to council and said right,
[00:31:56] Emma & Kate
help us up because we’ve brought you four million dollars. So could you do the rest
[00:32:01] Emma & Kate
and then yeah, we’ve been doing a well, I mean,
[00:32:05] Emma & Kate
I think it’ll end up being just under six million and but
[00:32:09] Emma & Kate
a proper expansion refurbishment of the facility. Sorry. It’s just so good for gymnastics in the whole. I mean, it’s
[00:32:17] Emma & Kate
a school that’s traditionally hideously underfunded, Whether that’s just because,
[00:32:24] Emma & Kate
yeah, well it’s purpose built and I know a lot of the way
[00:32:27] Emma & Kate
a lot of the policies are written are around like multi share facilities. And
[00:32:32] Emma & Kate
there’s a lot of policy in place to support facilities being used and underused, which we totally understand,
[00:32:38] Emma & Kate
but we train all year round and we have different strengths. So our facilities are
[00:32:44] Emma & Kate
not underused. They’re just used very differently than your average courts or like field schools. And so
[00:32:52] Emma & Kate
a lot of the policies are just not written designed to support clubs like us. When
[00:32:56] Emma & Kate
in reality we’ve got eight hundred athletes, three hundred on the waitlist,
[00:33:00] Emma & Kate
and we use it fifty. Maybe fifty three weeks a year like we, we really break for
[00:33:05] Emma & Kate
a couple of weeks. Sorry. You know, a lot of those policies that are designed to have clubs,
[00:33:12] Emma & Kate
multi share facility. We don’t need because we’re doing that on our own. So it was
[00:33:16] Emma & Kate
definitely some changing of mindsets as well. I think like people who traditionally
[00:33:21] Emma & Kate
wouldn’t had much idea about gymnastics. I just read
[00:33:25] Emma & Kate
a lot of business plans. I printed a lot of strategic plans and just, you know,
[00:33:29] Emma & Kate
drove my argument as to why we’ve met all of the criteria for support,
[00:33:33] Emma & Kate
even if it didn’t look like what it had looked like in the past. And eventually
[00:33:38] Emma & Kate
people just bought in and like they could say, you know,
[00:33:41] Emma & Kate
we weren’t making it up like this is what we’ve been doing. It’s maybe we weren’t
[00:33:45] Emma & Kate
shouting about it loud enough.
[00:33:47] Emma & Kate
I think also like
[00:33:49] Emma & Kate
a lot of the success of where we’ve been able to get to with this project is
[00:33:56] Emma & Kate
the volunteer hours behind the scenes are just phenomenal. Like Emma so like I, I couldn’t put
[00:34:05] Emma & Kate
a number on the amount of hours that she has spent driving these projects. You know,
[00:34:11] Emma & Kate
there has been a supportive committee, one hundred percent behind her with this.
[00:34:17] Emma & Kate
But the volunteer aspect of it,
[00:34:20] Emma & Kate
I think has it can’t be underestimated with this sort of project. And I think also like we’re, we volunteers,
[00:34:31] Emma & Kate
we can see the benefit of what we’re doing. And we can see the outcome that it’s
[00:34:36] Emma & Kate
going to give this other area of particularly and,
[00:34:40] Emma & Kate
and it’s for the benefit of these little kids that walk through the door, you know,
[00:34:43] Emma & Kate
every day. You know, like I’m a volunteer treasurer and I’ve ended up coaching on
[00:34:49] Emma & Kate
a face. I not for an hour because my daughter coaches and I’m up on four different
[00:34:55] Emma & Kate
coaches. So I’m coaching these little kids who are not my children. I have no
[00:34:57] Emma & Kate
relation to this whatsoever other than the fact that somehow this club just exudes, you know,
[00:35:06] Emma & Kate
confidence and belief in what we’re doing. And I think that rubs off on every
[00:35:11] Emma & Kate
person who walks through the door and the number of parents that will stop you in
[00:35:15] Emma & Kate
the foyer and just compliment what we’re doing. And they can see your vision. And
[00:35:21] Emma & Kate
they’re all super excited about it. But I think realistically, without Emma’s drawer behind this project,
[00:35:28] Emma & Kate
it might not have got off the ground. And I think say, you know,
[00:35:33] Emma & Kate
tunnel vision as well. You know, so how had those relationships with politicians?
[00:35:40] Emma & Kate
And he was, he was always the first one to go knock on someone’s door and have
[00:35:44] Emma & Kate
a chat to them about it. And if it led somewhere, great if it didn’t work,
[00:35:48] Emma & Kate
he hadn’t lost anything. And I think,
[00:35:50] Emma & Kate
I think that’s really important to remember where we’ve come from with this. And
[00:35:54] Emma & Kate
then like in the with boys at that time,
[00:35:57] Emma & Kate
you’ve got Disney volunteers coming on board. And that vision for the future and
[00:36:02] Emma & Kate
fingers crossed once we get this done, it doesn’t have to be done again for quite
[00:36:06] Emma & Kate
a long time, because the facility will be there. And
[00:36:10] Emma & Kate
whenever doing this again,
[00:36:12] Emma & Kate
that we’re not doing again, I can guarantee you that much. You know,
[00:36:15] Emma & Kate
but I just think it comes back to that notion of a volunteer. It really does. And you know,
[00:36:23] Emma & Kate
that just can’t be underestimated.
[00:36:26] Geoff
Well,
[00:36:26] Emma & Kate
congratulations,
[00:36:27] Geoff
just purpose, purpose driven aside and that’s the key is not taking people on the journey of what
[00:36:35] Geoff
you aim to achieve. This episode is proudly sponsored by Woolworths who are supporters of the community achievement awards. In
[00:36:47] Geoff
Northern territory, South Australia and Western Australia, we team at Woolworths for their outstanding support of our community contributes.
[00:37:00] Geoff
So what’s the age range of, of your membership?
[00:37:04] Emma & Kate
I think we’ve still got some athletes. Nineteen twenty. Yeah. Once the facility is renovated and expanded,
[00:37:15] Emma & Kate
I have been getting lots of elbows about an adults program,
[00:37:18] Emma & Kate
so we will do something for adults. I’ve got some retired gymnasts who are talking
[00:37:22] Emma & Kate
about maybe coming back in and training once a week. So yeah,
[00:37:26] Emma & Kate
I mean that will open up the door to sort of Be able to do some of those things.
[00:37:30] Emma & Kate
We’re investigating some stuff in the ndis space. So there’s some amazing research
[00:37:34] Emma & Kate
and programs being developed around using trampolines for kids with like muscle
[00:37:40] Emma & Kate
tone and lots of stuff in that space. So it’s just going to open up some of the
[00:37:43] Emma & Kate
doors for those sorts of things as well. We are fairly inclusive, like,
[00:37:48] Emma & Kate
I mean we’ve got plenty of children with various disability that participate in classes and with all sorts. But yeah,
[00:37:57] Emma & Kate
we’ll be able to run some sort of specialist stuff as well,
[00:38:01] Geoff
Which is fantastic to hear. I did write down
[00:38:04] Geoff
a question before given your name and Paul’s surname being the same,
[00:38:11] Geoff
I was going to ask what it was. So how did your, how did,
[00:38:15] Geoff
and sorry about the passing of your father. Cancer is
[00:38:20] Geoff
a dreadful thing. I. How did your dad get involved initially?
[00:38:26] Emma & Kate
Yeah, so I’m, there’s three daughters. I’m the eldest. I’m sorry. Dad got involved. So
[00:38:35] Emma & Kate
he was a very, very hard worker.
[00:38:37] Emma & Kate
He worked a lot,
[00:38:38] Emma & Kate
he studied at night and Saturdays were his thing. He always joked, he wanted to be
[00:38:42] Emma & Kate
a soccer coach. He had three daughters, sorry,
[00:38:46] Emma & Kate
mum sent him off to gymnastics. So she’d done in the gym with us in the Mini gyms
[00:38:51] Emma & Kate
and all of that. And then he would take us to recreation at the hub recreation
[00:38:57] Emma & Kate
centre on a Saturday. And I think he was, I would have been there barely
[00:39:02] Emma & Kate
a few weeks before he was like, well, if I’m going to sit down for an hour and watch,
[00:39:06] Emma & Kate
I may as well help. So off he went to the, you know,
[00:39:10] Emma & Kate
the coordinator of the programme at the time and set, do you need any help?
[00:39:13] Emma & Kate
And then he just started helping and yes, started coaching. We’ve got
[00:39:18] Emma & Kate
a few parents that start like that. You know,
[00:39:20] Emma & Kate
they’re happy to be the parent volunteer and on the floor that session. And yeah, he started coaching,
[00:39:26] Emma & Kate
had no experience in gymnastics. He was fairly mechanically minded. And so fitter
[00:39:31] Emma & Kate
and Turner by trade and than an engineer. So I think he understood the mechanics of
[00:39:35] Emma & Kate
skills and he and he sort of grasped that rather than ever being able to do
[00:39:38] Emma & Kate
anything. I do remember him doing a very bad flip,
[00:39:42] Emma & Kate
and I must have been about ten or twelve, and yet he was jumping on a trampoline,
[00:39:46] Emma & Kate
and did a flip because he was telling the jokes, be that hard,
[00:39:49] Emma & Kate
and I don’t think he did again after that, but no, he certainly was not
[00:39:52] Emma & Kate
a gymnast himself, but yeah, just just wanted,
[00:39:55] Emma & Kate
it was always very volunteer centric and just wanted to sort of help and then got
[00:40:00] Emma & Kate
suckered in and then. Yeah, around the same time that I would have been selected into
[00:40:04] Emma & Kate
a Competition program. He took the Competition squad and I think he coached me not
[00:40:11] Emma & Kate
for very long. That was probably never going to work and I was moved into
[00:40:14] Emma & Kate
a different squad and then he yeah, just started coaching.
[00:40:18] Geoff
Yeah. How long have you been involved in the
[00:40:21] Emma & Kate
um yeah, look. We’ve been getting close to three decades now. Yeah. Well,
[00:40:27] Emma & Kate
yeah.
[00:40:28] Emma & Kate
Yeah, sorry. Yeah. You go first obviously. First as an athlete.
[00:40:34] Emma & Kate
I guess
[00:40:35] Emma & Kate
I would have to say we start coaching at twelve. If you want to, you take like
[00:40:40] Emma & Kate
a junior coaching role. So I took
[00:40:42] Emma & Kate
a junior coaching role at twelve. I took my first comp squad at sixteen,
[00:40:48] Emma & Kate
and I’ll be thirty one later this year. So yeah, a long time now.
[00:40:54] Geoff
Yeah, well congratulations and Kate, how long have you been involved?
[00:41:00] Emma & Kate
I’ve been involved. This is my Nancy with the club. My daughter started as a gymnast. Well,
[00:41:11] Emma & Kate
nine years ago. And she then progressed competitions, got within. Probably
[00:41:20] Emma & Kate
a month of giving into the Competition squad.
[00:41:22] Emma & Kate
I was targeted for treasurer and I,
[00:41:26] Emma & Kate
I say that with all love and affection treasurer is a really hard role in
[00:41:30] Emma & Kate
a club. And in today’s world,
[00:41:33] Emma & Kate
you do need some qualification to be able to do it. And I’ve been the treasurer
[00:41:38] Emma & Kate
ever since. My daughter competed for eight years and she’s coached since she was
[00:41:45] Emma & Kate
twelve. She’s still coaching now. She’s just turned sixteen. And interestingly enough, my is,
[00:41:55] Emma & Kate
I think up can’t remember how many I’ve got five nieces. And three of them have
[00:42:02] Emma & Kate
been involved with the club as well to do that. So it does tips and it’s
[00:42:07] Emma & Kate
a family affair. And despite likely not competing anymore, we both still heavily involved. Um and I, I did make
[00:42:17] Emma & Kate
a promise to Bo that I would say these building projects was the end. And obviously
[00:42:23] Emma & Kate
it’s part of the mine response to here. But I think regardless of whether I’d said
[00:42:27] Emma & Kate
that or not, I would probably still keep going. It, it is extremely rewarding and it’ll
[00:42:35] Geoff
be, you know, it doesn’t, it
[00:42:37] Emma & Kate
all it does. And obviously when you’ve got
[00:42:39] Emma & Kate
a daughter who’s competing and gets to a decent level of gymnastics, you know, you tend to understand
[00:42:45] Emma & Kate
a lot more about sport because I’ve never done gymnastics. My last Mollie choices
[00:42:50] Emma & Kate
for herself just decided one day that she wanted to do it. So here we are nine years later.
[00:42:57] Geoff
Awesome.
[00:42:58] Geoff
So, Emma, what’s your role on the committee?
[00:43:03] Emma & Kate
Yeah, so technically I don’t sit on the committee and so I’m the head coach. So Competition, stream, head coach,
[00:43:12] Emma & Kate
and obviously I coach as well. And when we sort of made the transition initially
[00:43:17] Emma & Kate
from a volunteer model to a paid poaching model, we effectively set up
[00:43:22] Emma & Kate
a bit of an executive committee. So as we sort of negotiated some of the things
[00:43:26] Emma & Kate
that come with high char, sorry, hiring staff, performance management, anything like that, we sort of installed
[00:43:33] Emma & Kate
a bit of an executive committee. So President treasurer secretary and club head
[00:43:37] Emma & Kate
coach. So whilst I don’t hold an active position on the committee,
[00:43:43] Emma & Kate
I’m the club head coach. And it has also meant, obviously that, you know,
[00:43:47] Emma & Kate
sometimes it’s been easier for me to sort of advocate and hassle a bit as the club head coach,
[00:43:53] Emma & Kate
as opposed to necessarily being the President. And you know, there’s been some,
[00:43:59] Emma & Kate
some fierce conversations at some point about when we’ve,
[00:44:02] Emma & Kate
we’ve sort of demanded some support. And our President is amazing. She’s amazing. And she’s very much
[00:44:11] Emma & Kate
a bit more polished and calm than I can be sometimes. And so she is sometimes she
[00:44:17] Emma & Kate
checks me a little bit before I can tell you, but we’ve got
[00:44:21] Emma & Kate
a great relationship now where she is. She trusts that I will make the right
[00:44:24] Emma & Kate
decision. We just sometimes make them a little bit differently because we’re also so lucky in that,
[00:44:29] Emma & Kate
in that aspect. Like we’ve got this great blend of personalities. I think I take off my father
[00:44:35] Emma & Kate
a little bit which I never really quite knew until his funeral actually. And all
[00:44:41] Emma & Kate
the different eulogies were being presented,
[00:44:43] Emma & Kate
all of these people from all different parts of his life. And I think about twelve have been said,
[00:44:48] Emma & Kate
do now ask for forgiveness later. And I was sitting there thinking.
[00:44:53] Emma & Kate
Yeah, look,
[00:44:53] Emma & Kate
I think I’ve inherited that quality So yeah, I think we’re,
[00:44:59] Emma & Kate
we’ve got this great range of personalities where, you know, marie’s is just
[00:45:03] Emma & Kate
a wonderful communicator and sometimes I’m just like why not? And it’s worked for us like we’re really good.
[00:45:10] Geoff
I’m very well known marketing guru by the name of Paul McCarthy. Once always says it’s his philosophy ready?
[00:45:18] Geoff
Fire and Dan white. It never be. It’ll never be perfect if you’re waiting for it to
[00:45:24] Geoff
be perfect. I think the opportunity is gone.
[00:45:27] Emma & Kate
Yeah, I think for us it was just asking why, you know,
[00:45:31] Emma & Kate
people would say no to me and I’d be like, but why?
[00:45:34] Emma & Kate
Like, I’m happy to accept, you know, if you
[00:45:36] Emma & Kate
can show me why, like, you know, I, I’ve read hours of council meeting minutes. That wasn’t ali’s, you know,
[00:45:44] Emma & Kate
just to find precedent to find, you know,
[00:45:46] Emma & Kate
what gets supported by all of these things. And then I would say, okay,
[00:45:49] Emma & Kate
well you’ve told me no, but what about these twelve? Like, why are we different?
[00:45:54] Emma & Kate
And you just ask why enough times and then you challenge people’s thinking and then
[00:45:57] Emma & Kate
they go, whoa, hold on actually. And I was like okay, well that’s good. So in he like yeah,
[00:46:06] Geoff
I think you’d be a problem. I’m glad I’m not on the committee. I just kidding. That’s cool.
[00:46:13] Emma & Kate
I’ve been offered
[00:46:14] Emma & Kate
a few jobs in politics in the last twelve months that I don’t think I’ll take, but I
[00:46:19] Geoff
might be worth considering.
[00:46:21] Geoff
It probably would be
[00:46:24] Geoff
Well, I imagine besides the fitness and the skills, learning, friendships, teamwork, and fun,
[00:46:33] Geoff
would be at the forefront of the focus of hub gymnastics
[00:46:39] Emma & Kate
for creating good humans. Yeah, yeah. They’re just good humans,
[00:46:45] Emma & Kate
like they have respect for each other. They support each other, they can fail,
[00:46:49] Emma & Kate
they can. I think when you only compete a few times a year,
[00:46:53] Emma & Kate
you really have to enjoy training because you can’t compete every weekend. It’s not like
[00:46:58] Emma & Kate
a football team where you run out and you compete every single weekend. And that
[00:47:02] Emma & Kate
doesn’t happen the gymnastics, and you know,
[00:47:05] Emma & Kate
there’s not fifty per cent of the people that can pay our winner. One person wins.
[00:47:10] Emma & Kate
You might have forty people in your category. And so I think it, it teaches just way different skills than
[00:47:16] Emma & Kate
a lot of other sports in that aspect. You know, and the concept of perfecting something. You know,
[00:47:22] Emma & Kate
it’s different. You can do it. Sure. But
[00:47:25] Emma & Kate
you know, how do you then perfected it? And, but I think for us, you know,
[00:47:29] Emma & Kate
our athletes don’t try in huge hours in comparison to athletes. They compete
[00:47:34] Emma & Kate
against. And it’s not been about that for us. We then generally do
[00:47:41] Emma & Kate
have all the athletes and all the clubs because it is sustainable for the girls.
[00:47:45] Emma & Kate
Does they get fourteen fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. That they do train ten hours
[00:47:51] Emma & Kate
a week. They’re competing against girls training twenty but they also work and they
[00:47:57] Emma & Kate
also still study and they have social lives still. So we have quite a good balance, I think,
[00:48:02] Emma & Kate
of keeping the kids involved in numerous aspects. So they don’t experience that
[00:48:08] Emma & Kate
burnout quite the same. And I think for us as well, like this year,
[00:48:13] Emma & Kate
so we kind of not the way we teach the building off, but we,
[00:48:16] Emma & Kate
we teach the funding for the building office and we’ve sort of looked at,
[00:48:20] Emma & Kate
I guess what we can contribute to the community around, sorry, and how you attended
[00:48:25] Emma & Kate
a seminar with our President on the mental health stuff.
[00:48:29] Emma & Kate
And we then funded
[00:48:32] Emma & Kate
and I remember what her name was and but we funded someone to come and present to
[00:48:38] Emma & Kate
our community. So we invited parents, it was gold coin donation. And, you know,
[00:48:44] Emma & Kate
come and learn about teenage mental health is obviously something that we deal with
[00:48:47] Emma & Kate
as coaches and, and all the time. And so we,
[00:48:50] Emma & Kate
we funded that for all parents in our membership, you know, come along, listen. So I think
[00:48:56] Emma & Kate
a lot of that professional development and stuff is kind of next for us now and
[00:49:00] Emma & Kate
making sure that the athletes, you know, as they transition into being coaches. And you know,
[00:49:05] Emma & Kate
gymnastics that they do some great stuff where they’re trying to,
[00:49:08] Emma & Kate
to work on that professional development as well. So they do, they use leadership, they, you know, we sent along,
[00:49:14] Emma & Kate
I think about twelve or fifteen of our athletes and coaches to you know,
[00:49:18] Emma & Kate
work on some of those like team building skills. We’ll do generally,
[00:49:23] Emma & Kate
each time we do like a professional development day in house. So we’ll work on Yes,
[00:49:28] Emma & Kate
there’s coaching aspects to it. But there’s also like behavior aspects,
[00:49:33] Emma & Kate
children’s behavior, you know, trying to I guess, get the girls ready for, you know,
[00:49:38] Emma & Kate
where those skills will actually take them outside of working for us forever. We’d
[00:49:42] Emma & Kate
love them to work for us forever. But obviously, you know,
[00:49:45] Emma & Kate
careers is calling for them a lot of the time. And so yeah,
[00:49:48] Emma & Kate
just try to work on some of that for professional development is kind of the next
[00:49:51] Emma & Kate
step for us and for our coaching workforce.
[00:49:54] Geoff
I think it’s a good next step to have.
[00:49:57] Geoff
So going back to last year’s awards program,
[00:50:00] Geoff
it must have been really wonderful to be acknowledged for the good work that you
[00:50:05] Geoff
contribute to your local communities. You made the finals. Course. You attended the event. What,
[00:50:17] Geoff
what are the memories and what are the things that stand out to you as part of the
[00:50:22] Geoff
thrill of first making the finals and being at the event? And then of Course,
[00:50:28] Geoff
winning the award what stands out to us as the great memories of that of the whole thing.
[00:50:39] Emma & Kate
I think winning and an award outside of gymnastics, sorry, you know,
[00:50:44] Emma & Kate
we obviously have gymnastics South Australia has an awards night. We’ve been
[00:50:49] Emma & Kate
blessed to win a few different awards over the years individually, our coaching,
[00:50:54] Emma & Kate
our athletes, particular programs, and overall we’ve been lucky enough to win
[00:50:58] Emma & Kate
a couple of times. But I think for us,
[00:51:01] Emma & Kate
the thing that we took away from it was our first time that we won an award outside
[00:51:05] Emma & Kate
of that category. You know, said to be able to be recognised, wider and as
[00:51:11] Emma & Kate
a sporting organisation, not necessarily pigeonholed into gymnastics, but like, you know, as
[00:51:16] Emma & Kate
a sporting organisation that is doing really good work. And I think that was really
[00:51:20] Emma & Kate
cool for us and really awesome for me in particular that it was a category at the
[00:51:26] Emma & Kate
height of, you know, we were competing with a number of sporting when I was Asians,
[00:51:30] Emma & Kate
some of them the amazing programs and really rich history so that was,
[00:51:34] Emma & Kate
that was really cool that it was like okay, gymnastics is actually getting recognised. Not as an elitist sport,
[00:51:39] Emma & Kate
but actually like listen to the programs that we offer and how it is for everyone.
[00:51:43] Emma & Kate
And yeah, that was really cool.
[00:51:46] Geoff
Yeah, it must have been great validation for all of your volunteers as well.
[00:51:52] Emma & Kate
Yeah, I tend to agree with that sentiment. You know, it. We have invested,
[00:51:59] Emma & Kate
we have been recognized by gymnastics Australia numerous times, but to be in
[00:52:06] Emma & Kate
a room full of organizations that are doing amazing work within their field
[00:52:13] Emma & Kate
was quite humbling as well. You know, to be around those people who just have
[00:52:19] Emma & Kate
a genuine love for what they’re doing.
[00:52:22] Emma & Kate
And I remember I remember sitting,
[00:52:23] Emma & Kate
sitting at a table thinking, you know, my degree was coming up and I was like,
[00:52:28] Emma & Kate
just just stick to it just, you know, because we had been,
[00:52:31] Emma & Kate
we’ve made the semi-finals, I think the year before, one hundred percent. I can’t remember, I was just,
[00:52:38] Emma & Kate
I was just sit tight just let’s just see how this goes, you know,
[00:52:42] Emma & Kate
and then obviously building up to it and everything and then all this and then to
[00:52:47] Emma & Kate
hear. And I’m code out that we had actually won our category. I think, I think realistically it was,
[00:52:53] Emma & Kate
it was validation for the hard work that we had put in over many,
[00:52:59] Emma & Kate
many number of years. It wasn’t just that year. You know, it was
[00:53:03] Emma & Kate
a culmination of everything and I think, you know, it was,
[00:53:07] Emma & Kate
it was exciting to be in Korea, you know, and to,
[00:53:11] Emma & Kate
to make that walk up to this stage and you have to give an image. You have to have
[00:53:17] Emma & Kate
a name out there and their voice heard as to the community aspect of what we’re
[00:53:21] Emma & Kate
doing was just super pleasing from my aspect. Yeah.
[00:53:26] Geoff
And as you alluded to and congratulations again. But as you alluded Emirates being recognised outside of the sport,
[00:53:35] Geoff
because what you do in gymnastics is clearly fabulous and outstanding part to be
[00:53:41] Geoff
recognised from the community aspect. You are making
[00:53:45] Geoff
a real community difference just, you know, the hundreds of, of young people, you know, contributing in a community sense,
[00:53:55] Geoff
equally valuable as is the gymnastics contribution you make. So yeah,
[00:54:02] Geoff
it’s great that you can be recognised in that side of the fence as well. Would you
[00:54:07] Geoff
encourage our listeners to nominate someone for an award subsequently?
[00:54:13] Emma & Kate
Yeah, if you’re not in it, you can’t win it and certainly not so much last year,
[00:54:18] Emma & Kate
but the previous year. It was a tactic of us in terms of, you know,
[00:54:23] Emma & Kate
if you’re not in it, you can’t win it. And, you know,
[00:54:26] Emma & Kate
we wanted to be in the faces of politicians leading into federal elections. We
[00:54:31] Emma & Kate
wanted to be, you know, we know the work we’re doing, but you know,
[00:54:36] Emma & Kate
someone has to sit there and someone has to write the awards and Kate and I wrote
[00:54:40] Emma & Kate
a lot of nominations in the last three years. But we were always nominating people
[00:54:46] Emma & Kate
who deserves to be nominated. We just had to sit down and make
[00:54:49] Emma & Kate
a conscious effort to dedicate the time to do it. And we’ve had some,
[00:54:54] Emma & Kate
even some of our junior coaches and staff,
[00:54:57] Emma & Kate
they’ve been doing amazing work like they deserve to be nominated. And so we, yeah,
[00:55:02] Emma & Kate
it’s definitely a conscious. It was a conscious decision that if you’re not in it,
[00:55:06] Emma & Kate
you can’t win it. And, you know, people within an organization,
[00:55:10] Emma & Kate
when they know that the work they’re doing, like celebrate it,
[00:55:13] Emma & Kate
shout about it because that’s how you know, you get more support. And that’s how, you know, like,
[00:55:18] Emma & Kate
you want your membership to know that that’s why you’re doing stuff for them and,
[00:55:22] Emma & Kate
and it does generate, you know, families will say to us all the time,
[00:55:25] Emma & Kate
like they love the community, feel an aspect of the club. But that’s a conscious decision, like, you know,
[00:55:30] Emma & Kate
that is what the volunteer committee make every single decision with that in mind.
[00:55:35] Emma & Kate
Like that is our ethos. That is what we’re trying to bring. That’s the feel that we
[00:55:38] Emma & Kate
want.
[00:55:38] Emma & Kate
So is this decision we’re making reflecting that
[00:55:43] Emma & Kate
in nominating as well? So don’t. Now I think, you know,
[00:55:48] Emma & Kate
organizations are not very quick to promote and so from that aspect of it, you know,
[00:55:55] Emma & Kate
you pay your advertising and you pay your marketing and you do all that sort of
[00:55:59] Emma & Kate
stuff to sell your brand, but nominating for these type of awards is another way of selling your brand,
[00:56:06] Emma & Kate
and I think you know, whilst you know,
[00:56:09] Emma & Kate
it’s not the sole reason you do it. But as an organization, you need to have
[00:56:14] Emma & Kate
a voice out there and be prepared to tell people your story and that. So that’s all
[00:56:19] Emma & Kate
we did with this nomination, we told a story, and it worked. So I think any organization out there,
[00:56:29] Emma & Kate
just don’t be afraid to nominate because you never know what might come out of that.
[00:56:34] Geoff
Yeah, fantastic. Thank you. Well,
[00:56:36] Geoff
a big shoutout to hub gymnastics club for what you have done over the past. Forty almost is absolutely Brilliant,
[00:56:47] Geoff
because fifty can count.
[00:56:50] Emma & Kate
So we’re getting close to forty. There’ll be
[00:56:51] Emma & Kate
a birthday we’ll send you the invite. For me that may day throw
[00:56:56] Emma & Kate
a good party. That’s the one time that Kate lets me have some money. Well,
[00:57:00] Geoff
that sounds good as long as you don’t expect me to get on an apparatus and. And I
[00:57:04] Geoff
press Allegro and the big shout also big shout out also to Woolworths for their
[00:57:11] Geoff
support of the awards and the community very broadly, of Course. But in this case,
[00:57:17] Geoff
the community achievement awards and the awards wouldn’t be possible without Woolworths and our other community minded partners for making
[00:57:26] Geoff
a difference. And if any of our listeners would like to nominate someone,
[00:57:30] Geoff
please head to our awardsaustralia.com website. Or if you’re interested in sponsored partnership opportunities,
[00:57:39] Geoff
contact me geoff@awardsaustralia.com. We’d like to find out more
[00:57:44] Geoff
about how to nominate someone or being involved. Send me an email,
[00:57:49] Geoff
don’t be shy. I’ll be very offended if you don’t get it. Give me a drop me an email. And
[00:57:57] Geoff
also of Course, how do people find out more about hub gymnastics here? Our listeners get in contact.
[00:58:09] Emma & Kate
We’ve got and various different social media, so you can find us on Facebook,
[00:58:13] Emma & Kate
but it’s an Instagram live. We’ve got a website as well, so I have gymnastics,
[00:58:17] Geoff
I’d say the first click on or type in hub gymnastics on Facebook,
[00:58:24] Geoff
Instagram, and on the website, or Google. How get go without finding.
[00:58:30] Geoff
Fantastic,
[00:58:31] Geoff
I’m sure there are plenty of our listeners particularly local to the area who are
[00:58:36] Geoff
thinking I need to get my daughter or son or South kids
[00:58:43] Geoff
involved in some way or form. Or if people want to volunteer. Very tired superstar
[00:58:49] Geoff
coach want to get back into it, get in contact, or if just want to volunteer, make
[00:58:56] Geoff
a difference. It certainly would be. Do you have any words of wisdom or advice for
[00:59:02] Geoff
our listeners that are involved with a club or an organisation? You’ve been, have given lots of ideas,
[00:59:08] Geoff
but any words of wisdom or advice you can share with others.
[00:59:17] Emma & Kate
Ooh, you want to go for that.
[00:59:18] Emma & Kate
I can, my being a parent obviously comes with a different territory. But I would just say,
[00:59:28] Emma & Kate
don’t ever underestimate the impact you can have by being involved in,
[00:59:34] Emma & Kate
not only your children’s sporting whatever it might be that they’re interested in. But in a club in general,
[00:59:46] Emma & Kate
I would say that gymnastics has become somewhat of
[00:59:49] Emma & Kate
a family to me through just my involvement and that came from my daughter being
[00:59:56] Emma & Kate
involved. So I think just never underestimate what you can achieve
[01:00:01] Geoff
and get involved. Emma,
[01:00:06] Emma & Kate
I think for me and words of wisdom would just say no, no,
[01:00:12] Emma & Kate
your point of difference and what you do well. So I think for us,
[01:00:16] Emma & Kate
we really believe the things that we do well and we believe the things that we do
[01:00:22] Emma & Kate
that are different. And then all of our decisions that we make are backed up by
[01:00:27] Emma & Kate
that. So I think if you just, you know,
[01:00:29] Emma & Kate
your brand and you know what it is that you do really well,
[01:00:32] Emma & Kate
and that’s what you do. You stick to things. So, you know, for us, we all that community ethos club,
[01:00:37] Emma & Kate
it is first and foremost about creating good humans. And if they learn gymnastics
[01:00:42] Emma & Kate
as well, wonderful. And you know, for us like really knowing what it is that you,
[01:00:47] Emma & Kate
you do and you do well of just having that in mind every time you make
[01:00:51] Emma & Kate
a decision or you advocate for yourself or for the club.
[01:00:56] Geoff
Yeah. Good advice from you both, Kate,
[01:00:59] Geoff
I would have you were gonna say your advice would be don’t become treasurer, but not
[01:01:07] Emma & Kate
have to I it’s one talent that I do have that I can give back.
[01:01:11] Emma & Kate
You know, that’s what I do play my own sport. Don’t get me wrong,
[01:01:16] Emma & Kate
but you know, I can, I can deal with numbers and, and I’ve put my talent to good use. So
[01:01:26] Geoff
my ad for hub gymnastics is that it’s so critical to get young ones young people involved in community in
[01:01:36] Geoff
a sport, in something where you’re learning discipline. But you’re learning to teamwork
[01:01:43] Geoff
and gain friendships in a way is absolutely critical for everybody,
[01:01:49] Geoff
but young people in particular. Well, it’s been a real pleasure,
[01:01:53] Geoff
Kate and Emma. Thank you so much for your time today. Congratulations. And thank
[01:01:59] Geoff
you. On behalf of the community that you serve and support for all that you do. And
[01:02:04] Geoff
on behalf of our listeners, for words of wisdom for teaching us that resilience pays off be patient believe
[01:02:13] Geoff
in your one purpose bond together and to make
[01:02:17] Geoff
a difference. So thank you so much. It’s been absolutely amazing and thank so much
[01:02:24] Geoff
to our listeners for being with us as well for the past hour,
[01:02:29] Geoff
hopefully of all kinds, inspiration today, and until next time. Be safe,
[01:02:35] Geoff
have fun and be kind because together we make a difference. Thank you very much,
[01:02:42] Geoff
Kate and Emma. It’s been fun.
[01:02:44] Emma & Kate
Thank you.
[01:02:46] Geoff
Thoroughly enjoyed the talk to you.
[01:02:53] Christine
The Inspirational Australian’s podcast is brought to you by Awards Australia. We recognise,
[01:02:58] Christine
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[01:03:09] Christine
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[01:03:17] Christine
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