Welfare met with Active Sussex welfare before Xmas - they'd like to have an online meeting on a date to introduce themselves.
Willing to come to a face to face meeting - with anyone who wants to go, club welfare etc - on conflict resolution.
Several clubs struggling with parents and their dominance and power - important to have the above meeting ^ - has whyte review and covid bought this on? Coaches are worried things will go against them.
More parents are staying to watch children - some clubs encourage gymnasts parents to stay until 8.
No charge for presentation - need budget and venue and to provide teas and coffee etc - £5/£10 - contribution to venue.
Potentially 2 to cover both ends of the county - one daytime, one evening - welfare to make a proposal and send round after meeting,
Beth to find out evening that’s free at John Selden and let us know.
Welfare to pick a date for online meeting and let us know. Either a Tues, Wed or Thurs.
6. Any other business
6.1 Meetings
The most preferred time for a meeting was 10am, so we are looking into venues - potentially coffee shops? Secretary (Emily) to investigate venues and put them out to the committee to determine best.
AGM to remain in evening - Jack and Jill - Function room - May 7th 20:30.
2025/2026 Dates
16th July
15th October
4th February
6th May - AGM 2026
6.2 Club Affiliation
Annual club renewal 2025 - everyone agreed that current prices were fair and they should remain the same for this year.
6.3 Welfare Funding
Welfare funding proposal - agreement that anything welfare do in regards to courses/conferences should be funded for.
SE said welfare officers weren’t appointed by region - and they're not in control, BG are - other regions pay all funding for welfare officers. BG only pays for things they send welfare out to.
If welfare are to attend, specifically for Sussex - we will fund their expenses - send to chair/treasurer/secretary to be accepted.
Secretary to write letter - short letter - asking about funding - send round committee to check. Sally-Anne (Sussex rep) is to bring it up at next SE board meeting.
6.4 Funding for Judges
It was asked whether National judges can have funding for their course revalidation as well as Brevet? It has been found out that Brevet judges are having £1k of the £1.2k funded by the region. SE need to be clear if they are offering funding or not.
Funding for judging - only really currently down for course costs.
National judges to potentially put forward something for funding - can come through independently and then the current funding through club.
Lisa to put proposal together regarding individuals claiming funding for judging etc by AGM.
6.5 South East AGM
Potentially more Sussex clubs to go to SE AGM - as clubs unaware of the AGM and South-East awards evening.
SE AGM - 25th September 8:30pm - secretary to send this out to clubs.
6.6 Tumble ICC Date
Nikki queried whether there could be a new date for ICC - could it potentially be earlier in the year?.
It was up to the discipline reps and the involved other counties. Going to put the question to Kent (other county) - agreed by all committee present at the meeting. They were made aware that the cost needs to be covered too if the competition is to run separately to trampolining and DMT.
6.7 High Performance Funding
HPF funding has been taken up well with 12 TeamGym, 3/4 Men’s, 2 Women’s and 1 Trampolinist coming forward to claim this funding.
Secretary to update website to say funding for 2025 HPF is open/available.
On website, it says the funding runs until end of March but isn’t agreed until AGM - secretary to make sure it says up until day of AGM not March.
Meeting ended at 21:37
The next meeting will be the AGM and will take place on Wednesday 7th May at the Jack and Jill Inn, Hassocks at 20:30.
We now have our Disney team ready for 2025 and have secured our space. ✨ So, now spend the next following months prepping for this and our 50+ routines. We can’t wait. 🎉
We’ll also be attending GymStarz in London again for the second time. A great day event not too far. 😁
Dysons club update:
We held a festival showcase at the gym club this month giving the gymnasts a chance to perform their routines in front of an audience and had over 100 people come along to watch and support them in this.
Like Chichester gym club, we have secured our space at Gymnastique Magique in Disneyland Paris for October this year.
We have started a new group of festival children to take part in UK shows only, helping to build our next generation of festival children to join the main group once they have competed in France.
Other clubs in Sussex taking part:
Still no other updates or contact from other Sussex clubs but if anyone wants to be included in these updates in future do contact me This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
For any clubs interested in getting involved in Festivals here are a list of future events:
· British gymnastics perform at the Artistic British Championships 22nd & 23rd March. Entry fee (free I believe). Entry deadline 17th February 2025 https://www.british-gymnastics.org/articles/calling-all-gymnastics-display-teams-
· Wythall Gymnasia 2025 14th & 15th June 2025. Entry fee £30 per person. Entry deadline 27th February 2025 I don’t have a link for this one but for more details you can email them - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
· GymFusion York 28th June 2025. Theme is storytellers - Entry fee £22 per person. Entry deadline 16th May 2025
· GymFusion Aylesbury *date TBC* Theme is storytellers https://www.british-gymnastics.org/find-an-event
· ImaGYMnation festival 6th July 2025 (date updated due to a clash of events at the venue) in Ilford. Entry fee £20 per person. Entry deadline unknown but entries open 6th March 2025. https://imagymnation.co.uk/
· London gymnastics festival 10th-12th October 2025. https://www.facebook.com/groups/4828134054/about
I am aware there are many more available than I have listed above and will try to include as many as I know about each time.
I would appreciate anyone that is aware of ones that go on in & out of the UK forwarding links or emails to me This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to help with this
1. Confirmed GG – Novice & Inter Sussex Champs – held at lancing Leisure center on 23rd March.
Online entries are now open via gymevent. Last years event we had over 200 participants so hopefully the entries will be similar.
This competition will be the first of the New regional criteria for the county.
Booking Van and two men transport for the equipment and a review meeting between the GG reps will be held in the next few weeks to finalize details.
IF ANYONE WOULD LIKE TO HELP ON THE DAY please put your name forward thanks, the more the merrier! We would like to ask if Dawn would be available as on the day welfare as in previous years she was a great help.
2. We are still looking into a venue to host the Advanced Bronze silver and gold GG Sussex Event, I recently had a meeting with my contact at Sussex Uni about using their new venue and they can only offer during school holidays for an event (Any thoughts? I can go back to them and try and lock in a date) or if anyone has any information or contacts on clubs that would be willing to host please email Beth
3. We attended a regional workshop/ conference day on the new criteria in November the day covered the new roll out in 2025.
4. We would like to look into running a Judging workshop based on the new criteria combined with another coaches routine construction workshop for the county so that smaller clubs and young development leaders/ coaches that were unable to attend the regional one could also have the opportunity to get involved and have an improved understanding of the new Criteria. This would be a one-day event, possibly Morning for coaching development and afternoon for judging.
If we put a budget sheet together is this something that the county would consider and pay for with a nominal fee being paid by local clubs to attend?
Action to be taken in the next 6 months.
1. County GG Development Workshop
2. secure a GG ABSG comp in 2025 looking into Hollington, Hawth and or Chichester as venue other larger venues are currently not available
3. Look into starting Back up the Sussex 4x4 also in 2025/2026
Sussex Champs Questionnaire – We sent out a questionnaire after last years comp to get feedback on the change of runs and levels. From this we will be taking forward what clubs have said and we will continue to include all levels. With regards to the tumble runs, we will be confirming in the next few weeks as to which runs we will be using.
ICC qualifier – this will be held at Hollington Gym, with the date looking to be the beginning of July. Date will be confirmed in the next few weeks. The tumble runs will be those sent out via the South East Region last year, copies of these runs will be forwarded to clubs with the entry.
Sussex Champs – again this will be held at Hollington Gym and will be for all levels from club 1 to adult. Looking at possible date being beginning of October, but this will be confirmed in the next few weeks. As above at present we can not confirm which runs we will be using for club 1-3 but will inform clubs as soon as this is sorted.
Hollington Gym Club held their annual competition back in January. This was very well supported by our Sussex clubs, with lots taking home medals and Dyson winning some of the Highest score trophies for both days.
Last weekend saw our Sussex clubs attended the first IRCC qualifier at Jumpers. All gymnasts performed to the best of their abilities and have gained some great results and scores, all ready for the 2nd qualifier in March, where hopefully they get the chance to finish in the top places and then represent their region at English champs in Telford and IRCC in Birmingham.
November saw Georgia Stables (Hor) represent Great Britain at the Olympic hopes in Czechia. The team placed 3rd and Georgia placed 14th individually.
National Finals took place for the FIG development and Classic Challenge levels with many Sussex gymnasts representing the South East. There were many fantastic achievements and medals won, as well as 2 gymnasts gaining British Championship qualification.
National judging course dates have been released for April. Regional and club judge dates will follow once organised but likely to be around June/July.
Apologies for my absence. I had booked myself for the evening event, when the meeting was originally booked for the morning.
I have nothing to report as our Sussex was last October. This year we are trying to get more clubs in Sussex involved as we want as many competitors as we can. We made great profit which Keith was very happy with.
In March we have National Qualifiers. I will report back in our next meeting if we have anyone who qualifies from our region.
Welfare Report - Sussex Gymnastics Meeting 5th February 2025
Dawn and Mike attended the Sussex tumbling championships at Hollington GC in November 2024
Dawn attended both days of Hollington Acro competition January 2025
Dawn has also attended the Regional Acro championships and Pat Wade Classic in Stoke which had representatives from the County.
Early in January 2025 Dawn and Mike met with the Sussex sport welfare officers.
They have suggested an hour-long online meeting, open to all Sussex Clubs, as an introduction to the Sussex sport welfare network on either 18/19/20/25/26/27 March
The Sussex sport welfare officers have also offered to deliver a face-to-face session to Sussex clubs. The presentation would focus on managing low level concerns and having difficult conversations. Little or no budget so venue would have to be free (gym club?) Or very cheap e.g. church hall. Ideas for other presentations welcome. Date to set for April/May. Day and time to be discussed.
This quarter the WA, Acro, Tumble and DMT championships all took place and they were all better than budget and contributed a lot of money to county funds.
We have in recent years used some of this money to offer 50% funding for coaching, and judging, which targets new Level 1 and level 2/3 coaching as well up to 100% for development workshops.
At the October quarter meeting it was agreed to also allocate up to £5000 from this year’s surplus and to put aside the same amount from next year to support the High-Level competitors who incur considerable expenses to attend and compete at National level.
Support with funding is only possible because of the surplus from competitions, and so far this year we have financially supported all training by more than £6000.
Information on what is available and how to apply is on the county web site.
Finally the county is well funded and I expect this year to show an increase in funds at the March year end.
Hawth is the only club active in this discipline. There are 2 coaches and one judge at this club. There are around 12 gymnasts competing.
Hawth has 2 gymnasts in Welsh Squad (Alfie Morgan, Jamie Llewelyn), one in Scottish squad (George Pattison) and on in Swedish Squad (Jasper Carminger).
Competition and events
Grades Finals – 1-3 November 2024. Hawth entered 5 gymnasts.
The level 5 team was entirely made up from Hawth gymnasts. This team was placed second. Based on these results, one member (Alfie Morgan) was invited to the Grades Reward Camp at Lilleshall.
