Welcome back to The Gym Spot's Club Focus segment, where we delve into the stories of various gymnastics clubs and community centres across Australia. This week, we had the pleasure of speaking to Mikayla Harvison, Gymnastics Coordinator at Mordialloc Community Centre about the foundations, vision, and accomplishments of their club.
1. How did your club start?
The Mordialloc Community Centre was founded and run by volunteers in 1964 as a youth recreation centre for the local community. Gymnastics was one of the earlier recreational activities introduced in 1965. It has continued today as one of the core activities facilitated by the centre.
2. How many kids do you train and what skills?
- Currently train 300 kids across Kindy Gym and WAG / recreational Programs
- We currently run WAG gymnastics programs for recreational and competitive gymnasts. We run classes Saturdays and every day after school until 8pm.
- We also have a large successful Kindy gym program that runs 4 days a week for children aged 1 year to 5 years.
3. Do you have any special needs programs?
Currently no, we have run Special Olympics in the past. However due to staffing we couldn’t facilitate this in 2023. Hopefully we can start this up again later in the year!
4. What’s your club’s vision statement?
To facilitate, develop and support opportunities to build and sustain healthy lifestyles and social connections for all generations of our community.
5. What are some of the objectives of your program?
- Some objectives of our gym for 2023 are to make better use of our space. We are working towards expanding our gym currently and moving things around to make the space more useable during class times.
- We have more competitive gymnasts this year, a few teams going to Vics so one of our objectives is to get the girls in great form that they can do their best at the comp!
- We have multiple new junior coaches, so a big goal for the year is to work with these lovely young people and help them in the coaching journey.
6. What are you most proud of with your club?
I’m most proud of how far we have come. All the coaches here are 27 years old and under in age. We really haven’t had much guidance in senior coaches over the years, we’ve really put in the work as a team to learn and grow as coaches. We now have 4 competitive teams ranging from level 3-7 and in the past 2 years all of our teams have come in 1st or 2nd place at the competitions we enter. I’m so proud of how much we have developed as a team of coaches and goes to show you don’t need 20 years of experience to have amazing outcomes in your gym.
7. Why do you think your club is important to families and your community?
Our club and centre as a whole is a Mordialloc Institution. We provide a safe and inclusive place for people to work, volunteer and participate. We pride ourselves on providing quality programs that are affordable for all families and all generations of our community to enjoy.
8. What’s a piece of advice would you give to a gymnast/student?
I always tell my gymnasts that you get what you put in. I always say if you put in the effort 100% you will reap some rewards and that’s super exciting! Never expecting greatness at the start, we all have to put in the work to get where we want.
If you'd like to know more about Gymnastics MCC, you can visit their website or Facebook page!
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