February 2010

Following an extremely busy  2nd half of 2009 it has been impossible to up date the news page until now.

 

   Southport Aerobic Gymnastics new home

                  Banks leisure centre

Due to a fire at Swimschool in October last year the club were forced to find a new training venue. It took some getting used to but everyone now admits this is the best training venue we have ever had so we will be staying.
The training timetable had to change slightly but everyone is settled now and working hard

                   
                        December 2009
Christmas display at the Southport Arts centre
                           

The annual display is a great opportunity for all our gymnasts to show family and friends what they do all year and this year’s display was a fantastic example of the progress of our club from gymnasts to coaches.
Keshia, now a level 2 coach, opened the show and introduced Rea who coaches the Novice children . The novice class is where our future talent lies and we aim to identify those with potential and fast track them to the development squad.

The development squad was introduced by Kelsie who is also now a level 2 coach and spends a huge amount of time working with the youngest members of our team.

Leanne, who is this year an International brevet judge, had the honour of bringing on the FIG squad and detailing their many achievements over the year .

The finale routine ‘Thriller’ was choreographed by Keshia and Kelsie and can be viewed on you tube under southportaerobicgym.

As is customary we present awards to those gymnasts who have excelled in  a particular area and the awards were as follows.

·        Most promising newcomer- Lydia Browne
·        Most Improved – Charlotte Yarwood
·        Head girl 2010- Hannah Branwood
·        Gymnasts gymnast of the year chosen by the squad- Charlotte Yarwood
·        Outstanding Individual- Katy Longden

 

There were also awards for Austria, France and Las Vegas to those gymnasts who travelled to compete.

 

Myself and Leanne were delighted to received photo album books from the club with a selection of photos for this year from each gymnast. This is a wonderful present to receive and something to treasure.

 

           Nikolay Hadzhiev December 2009                            
                        
We were lucky to host another training camp with Nik before we finished for Christmas.  During his 4 day stay Nik was able to help choreograph a new group 2 6 team and a few individuals.

 

                      
                

               Austrian open 2009

               Katy Longden- G1 6 team Silver

                          

 

This years Aerobic gymnastics competition was held in the beautiful town of Kufstein in the Tyrol.  As always the mix of gymnasts from all over Europe gives the competition a special buzz and the atmosphere was electric.

Although the competition was on a smaller scale then last year the quality was huge. Some of the best gymnasts from Russia, Bulgaria and Cez republic set the standard of the event.

This year Southport were the only GB team to attend and the girls who already have great friends in the Austrian squad continued to make friends with gymnasts and coaches.
                                   

 

Newly qualified brevet judges Sara Shotton and Leanne Markey were able to judge all 3 days of the event working alongside judges from Russian, America, Cez republic, Bulgaria, Netherlands,  Germany, Austria and Israel.

 

 

                                  

They were Supported by 3 coaches Rea Mackarell and newly qualified level 2 coaches Keshia Santos and Kelsie Buck who gained their qualification at Weston in October

July 2009

Just when I thought we couldn’t get any busier then June arrived!
Starting with the Welsh championships in Cardiff at the beginning of June the past few weeks have been a blur of activity and success!!

Welsh 2009
Congratulations to all the squad who competed at the competition in Cardiff for some of our best performances yet! The medals continued to roll in for Cerys Mellor who took silver yet again in the Foundation category

 

Skye,Emily and Naomi who took silver and Naomi who took Bronze in the FIG National development section with a tie break score with the 1st and 2nd place. This is a great achievement and we are very proud of Naomi!

Well done to Becky Wall who took silver in the group 1 NAC and then went on to win gold with Hannah Branwood in the group 1 pairs!
Olivia Parkinson kept the medals in the family by gaining Silver in the Group 2 NAC individual and Charlotte Yarwood took silver in the closed group 1.

The FIG girls continue to climb up the categories with some of our best scores yet in the trio and group section.

Forum
Following the Welsh Leanne and I traveled to Swindon to attend an aerobic gymnastic forum. This gave everyone a chance to put their views across and gain valuable feedback about the sports development.

Sefton sports awards 2009
Sports personality of the year
Katy Longden  

Massive to congratulations to Katy who won the sports personality of the year award at the Sefton sports awards on June 24th –14 of us were there to support Katy and hers was a really tough category. It was a lovely evening which we all thoroughly enjoyed!  we are cheekily thinking of naming this award after our club as Gabby won it last year!!

FRANCE 2009 

It was non stop after the awards as the following day was our eagerly awaited trip to France to take part in the Europace, competition and festival.
It was an honour to be invited to this event and one of the best trips I have ever experienced. As we were only allowed a squad of 6 [ who could each compete in 2 categories] we took our Group 1 and 2 trios who also  competed as individuals.
The organisers of this competition could not do enough to look after us and we all enjoyed the welcome party and dinner dance.

                       

Pictured above are Shannon, Gabby, Rachael, Chloe, Keimoy and Katy who came back with some of the best medals and trophies I have ever seen!
The group 1 trio won their category

                                   

with the Group 1 individuals Shannon and Rachel in 2nd and 3rd and the group 2 individuals Katy, Chloe, Keimoy 1st,2nd,3rd.

The finals day was a combination of Male artistic, female artistic and aerobic finalists drawn at random to compete in teams. Although difficult to get our heads around at first, we were totally delighted with the team spirit of joining men’s, women’s bars, beam, rings, floor and vault with aerobics!!
It was like being at the Olympics!

The finalist scores were added up and the top team won-well done to Rachel and Keimoy and the trio whose teams came first in the finals!

Thank you to coaches Kelsie and Keshia and judge Leanne! I was very impressed with the way everyone worked together to make this trip successful, as usual the girls professionalism and conduct was excellent and they weren’t bad at washing up either!

We arrived back in Britain very tried but really happy especially as we managed to get some rather huge trophies past airport security!!
                                       

Teacher’s conference
As soon as we arrived back on Tuesday we were in rehearsals for our display at this year’s PE teacher’s conference at Formby Hall. We were given 15 minutes to show the teachers what the sport was about and the girls who took part did a fantastic job! The teachers who attended were from all over Sefton giving us the chance to develop the sport further a field.

Coaching course
With barely time to unpack Keshia and Kelsie traveled to Weston super mare to do their level 2 coaching course

They worked incredibly hard and were motivated by the things they learned over the 3 days. They now have 3 months to put together a log book of work and do lots of revision before their exam.
 Leanne and Rea continued with rehearsals for the 3 displays planned for Saturday.

Unfortunately the 2nd display at Ainsdale was rained off but the girls looked fantastic in the first displays where the squad performed alongside the novice class. I wasn’t there, but people keep stopping me to tell me how good they looked-how proud am I?

The club are now looking forward to the next major display at Southport football ground on the 19th July the same day we wave Katy off to represent GB at the ANAC competition in Las Vegas.
Katy will be traveling with the rest of the GB squad to compete in the group 2 individual section.
This is a very prestigious world championships and we are very proud of Katy’s selection and wish her the very best of luck!

August sees Sara travel to Rome to take her Brevet qualification and the start of September is the Heathrow International championships.

I think we need a holiday!!
Sara

Pictured in the photo are gymnasts and coaches from the club who recently returned from a 5 day training camp in Worgl Austria.

The trip was a fantastic success allowing the gymnasts from both countries to make friends and gain valuable coaching advice.

Training was delivered by the National coach Nikolay Hadzheiv who came to Southport in January to hold a weekend of workshops. Following his visit he organised the camp in order to help develop the talented gymnasts from Southport.

The team who travelled to Austria had an amazing experience, a hotel set in the hills above the picturesque village of Worgl was an adventure in itself. With outstanding views of the mountains and a steep climb the gymnasts made the half hour journey up and down the mountain on foot [ most days!]