Review of the Past Year's activities - Will Flint (Head Coach)

Prior to lockdown, the club has grown from 137 to 213 - an increase of 55%. This growth has been across Recs and Squads. We have also seen an increase in the quality and number of coaches across all groups. We intend to continue this into the future.

The pandemic has hit us hard operationally - we are not expecting to be able to return to normal operations for some time to come. We have engaged squads continuously through Zoom calls, and have recently started a class offered to Recreational gymnasts as well. This is definitely a temporary measure, and we are watching Government and BG guidelines closely to understand our options in the coming weeks. Many gymnastic clubs are in the same position, with their school hall tenancy in doubt as schools also try to form their plans for reopening.

We have used the time in lockdown to find a new home for the long term. We will give more detail later but we are hoping to be operational in the next 4 to 6 weeks, depending on other factors such as a reversal of lockdown easing.

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Review of the Club's Financial Statement - Phil Bowles (Treasurer)

The club was operating strongly up until lockdown in March. Overall increase in membership drove a corresponding increase in turnover. While Cost of Sales increased accordingly, our Fixed Costs have remained almost constant enabling the club to create a surplus over the financial year.

From this initially healthy picture, the lockdown effectively stopped all activity. Our turnover from April to March has been supported by squad parents who are still able to pay, and limited coaching opportunities on Zoom calls. We have the advantage of minimal fixed costs and operationally have broken even for the first three months of the new year

A significant investment has been made in extending into Caterham, in a new permanent site. We have secured funding from two sources in addition to our own capital, and begun construction on the new location.

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Covid-19 and plans for re-opening - Will Flint (Head Coach)

Our view is that Covid-19 and restrictions are here for the long term - we need to plan to operate with social distancing restrictions as a constant factor.

• For the time being, only gymnasts will be allowed into the hall. We will not be able to have parents or other spectators.

• All visitors to the hall will be temperature checked on arrival. If your temperature is above 38.4 we will not allow you to participate and ask you to return home

• We will phase gymnastic classes with smaller numbers of gymnasts in groups, rotating through the equipment

• Contact between coach and gymnast will not be allowed. This will limit the range of training unfortunately, but is a necessary restriction

• We are working on hygiene routines to keep the equipment clean, such as wipe-down beam and vault covers, metal bar only

• Gymnasts will not be expected to wear face masks as this could be unsafe during tumbles etc.

• Air conditioning in the new hall will have UV-sterilisation of the recycled air

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question: have we considered training outdoors

Will: We are not considering outdoor training at this time. There are too many factors that we cannot control around the duty of care to the gymnast. Equipment, safety, privacy and weather make the prospect of outdoor training impossible. We are aiming to make the new site operational within 4 to 6 weeks, we believe this is the best approach for resumption

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question: instructions for the returning gymnasts?

Will: We will put together notes and a video to demonstrate what we require of gymnasts in this regard. We will publish to the members area of the website to make it easily accessible.

Re-Election of Club Officer Roles

The Club has no permanent Officers, instead the Officers will stand down at each AGM and can then be re-elected.In this regard, the following Officers were proposed and unanimously re-elected:

Chair – William Flint 

Treasurer – Philip Bowles 

Secretaries – Charlotte Ingram and Wendy Shaw 

Head Coach – William Flint 

Welfare Officers – Karen Sanchez, Wendy Shaw and Catherine Sinclair-Smith

New Company Structure - Phil Bowles (Treasurer)

At last years AGM we talked about the structure of the organisation as an Unincorporated Association. This was sufficient while the club operated within a school hall, but as we have grown over the last three years this is now limiting our ability to take the club forward.

The Officers met in February to agree that we should form a company structure, to allow the club to exist as an independent legal entity. We agreed to make the club a Community Interest Company (CIC).

This enshrines the Club's purpose as a Social Enterprise whose purpose is to benefit the community and all surplus funds must be reinvested in the Club.

CICs are independently regulated to ensure that they continue to meet this criteria. Our Constitution already enshrined these values and so a CIC would be the appropriate vehicle for its evolution

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A vote was requested to allow the Club to be known by its Corporate name, Croydon Gymnastics Club CIC, and operate as a limited company from this point forward. The constitution would be updated accordingly.

The vote was carried unanimously.

Club Premises - Will Flint (Head Coach)

We received full planning permission for the new premises on Croydon Road yesterday (July 31st). This represents a big step forward for the club, particularly in light of the current conditions. The ability to control our environment will be a massive advantage in the coming months and years.

The new club premises will have a complete range of equipment for Women's Artistic and mixed Floor & Vault.

• 13m sprung floor

• 3 beams

• trampoline

• 2 sets of asymmetric bars

• vault

• 1.5m deep pits for safe dismount

• foam padding on walls

We are awaiting drawdown of a loan from Sport England to complete the building works.

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