Dawn Cox (Nee Hen) began gymnastics in this area in 1972 and was helped by parents and coaches at the time: – Brian Wardle, Ken Birch, and Terry and Jan Holman. Dawn coached gymnasts for displays, often taking the display team to Denmark. In the early days the gym club was run at King Edward, a local school. At this time Dawn was joined by a young Richard Kearns who wanted to coach gymnastics. Through the hard work and dedication of the parents and the club gained funding from the Sports Council, Coalville Gymnastics Club was formed and moved to its own premises. It was at this time that the gym club became more involved with competitions, as well as display work. Richard began to coach gymnasts for competition and Dawn kept up the display side of the club still travelling to Denmark for display work. In 1988 Dawn finished working with the display team to start a family, but continued running recreational and toddlers classes. Today Dawn still visits regularly and brings the children from her school for gym sessions. Richard continued with competition gymnastics with great success, coaching some gymnasts who became well known regionally and nationally.
It was a luxury for Coalville Gym Club to have a facility of its own but it wasn’t long before the gymnasts and coaches were eager for more room and equipment. The next phase was to buy the business unit next door and knock the two into one. Again the dedication of the parents to get funding (this time from the Foundation for Sport and the Arts) and make it all happen won through and in 1994 Coalville Gym Club got its wish, including a full sized competition floor and a foam pit. The club’s dedication to keeping up to date continues with the purchase of new and updated equipment as technology within the sport changes, the latest acquisition being the new competition sprung floor.
The club has grown through the years and become one of the best facilities in the East Midlands. The club now caters for a wide range of participants, from the very young recreational children through to high level competitive squad gymnasts. Through its history Coalville Gymnastics Club has been the training facility for some very successful gymnasts;
Our membership is drawn from a wide area surrounding North West Leicestershire. In addition to our core of local girls, some of our Elite level performers travel as much as 30 miles, drawn by the reputation and ability of our coaches and the quality of our facility.
The club is a voluntary organisation, which relies on the good will of the coaches and parents to keep the gym running; coaches donate their time for love of the sport. However, this doesn’t mean that we don’t take our sport seriously. Most of our competitive squad gymnasts train on four or five days of each week with their coaches showing the same commitment.
Gymnastics is the most demanding of sports requiring of both physical strength and flexibility plus dedication, stamina and tenacity form it’s performers. Our very best girls put in over twenty hours training over five or six days