The Omni Gymnastic Centre is a hive of activity after some teaks and tricks to accommodate 700 members at the club in Napier. Photo/Paul Taylor
The Omni Gymnastic Centre is a hive of activity after some teaks and tricks to accommodate 700 members at the club in Napier. Photo/Paul Taylor
Build it and they'll come is an adage that quite often rings true but what happens when they're already knocking down the door of a modest venue even before they have had a chance to expand?
That's what the Omini Gymnastic Centre manager, Tania Gavilan, was facing not long after she assumed the position of centre manager at the Napier club in March.
"There were quite a few people on the waiting list because there's a lot of demand for the sport at the moment," says Gavilan, who has had to draw on her nous to restructure classes to accommodate the influx in a confined set-up.
The club has made a few modifications and the most prominent outcome is boosting its membership to 700 members for the first time in its history.
But even adroit tweaks and tricks aren't enough to meet such demands so growth becomes inevitable.
Consequently the club is running its Omini Recreation Competition this Saturday to boost its coffers.
More than 300 youngsters from the ages of 5 to 14 will display their routines and compete among peers in what is billed as a fun event from 9am to 5.30pm.
"As a non-profit organisation, we use this as a fundraiser and this year all the money raised will go towards replacing our gymnastics floor," says Gavilan.
A new floor will cost the club about $80,000 but she says as daunting as that looks, they won't let the target overwhelm them because they'll be able to secure more funds through grants and pub charities.
"We know it's not a short-term thing but we're aiming high."
The long-term plan is to expand the facilities before offering more diverse class times to suit everyone's needs from 5 to 16-year-olds as well as adults.
"I know of a lot of adults who want to do it, starting from the basics."
The interest from children with physical disabilities also is an area that Gavilan is focusing on.
The children, she says, are eager to perform in Saturday's event because it's the only opportunity to showcase their prowess to coaches, family and friends, not to mention perform in the same environment as older athletes.
"Gymnastics is becoming a very popular sport because children love doing it."
Gavilan says it provides a basic template of fitness and suppleness for myriad codes.
"I think society is realising more and more how important it is to grasp the basics when you're young."
Omni Gymnastic Centre manager Tania Gavilan says the membership demand at the Napier club is on a record high. Photo/Paul Taylor
From Burgos, in northern Spain, Gavilan took up coaching when she was 16 after a back injury stymied a promising gymnastics career.
"It's a big shock when you have to quit a sport due to an injury but there are so many other things that you can do involved with that sport," she says, emphasising the scope of mentoring, volunteering and management.
Her parents, Marisa and Juan, did not lead sporting lives but Gavilan was very active as a child who had flirted with myriad codes in trying to find what suited her best, in a country where the beautiful game is No 1.
"I did ballet, I did dancing and I did gymnastics from the time I was 6 years old," she says.
Gavilan says she instantly took a shine to gymnastics because of the variety it offered compared with other codes.
"Like when you play soccer you follow a ball with the support of a team but when to do gymnastics you've got lots of different movements you can try on the apparatus and you really can't get bored."
In those days in Europe, she says it was quite normal for some athletes to start mentoring in their mid-to-late teens.
Gavilan felt it was time to make a change in scenery as well so a more sedate city life in Napier beckoned and she arrived here in March.
"It's beautiful and so different from Auckland. Life is so much more relaxed and you find you've got more time for other stuff," she says. "You don't end up spending too much time driving to and leaving from work."
The first thing that struck her about Omini centre was how tidy it was compared with other gyms she had encountered where equipment was left strewn all over the place.
"Compared with other gymnastics club, we have a really good image," she says.
