The sky’s the limit now for youngsters who attend Hamilton Gymnastics Club thanks to Lanarkshire car dealer W Livingstone Ltd providing welcome sponsorship funding for vital equipment.
The generous donation from the award-winning dealership in New Edinburgh Road, Uddingston, means the club can purchase a new beam and mats while the family run dealership’s logo will be printed on gymnasts’ tracksuits in addition to some banner advertising within their main Centre at Eddlewood, Hamilton.
The club were also successful in securing investment from sportsmatch which is sportscotland’s, the national agency for sport, programme to encourage commercial businesses to invest in grassroots sport. The programme works by matching sponsorship in cash or in kind between the values of £500 – £10,000 on a pound for pound basis.
Hamilton Gymnastics Club, which was founded in 2007, started with around ten children and now boasts almost 1000 members. The club runs gymnastics classes out of Hamilton College, Uddingston Sports Centre, Jock Stein Centre, Blantyre Leisure Centre and Eddlewood Sports Barn. Classes operate every day of the week with the chance to progress into either competitive Artistic or Sports Acrobatic gymnastics.
Classes are offered in freestyle and disability gymnastics in addition to all the other areas of the sport: preschool, recreational, women’s artistic, teen classes, boys only, display and acrobatics. It is also the first disability gymnastics club in Lanarkshire.
Thanks to the hard work of coaches and gymnasts, the Club now has around 100 competitive gymnasts in both Artistic and Sports Acrobatics. 5 of these gymnasts have also been selected by Scottish Gymnastics to represent Scotland.
17 Hamilton Gymnasts have been selected by British gymnastics to represent Great Britain at the 2015 World Gymnaestrada in Finland. The gymnasts will perform their routine 6 times during the week and they also take part in the Great Britain large group display. The girls will also perform as part of the World Large group display. They will be part of the 3000 strong team made up of gymnasts from all over the world performing gymnastics, dance and tumble together.
Hamilton’s Senior Coach, Wendy Lucas, who is also a national tutor for British Gymnastics, commented “The new equipment that this funding has helped purchase, will benefit all the gymnasts and help keep the facility up to date with the best equipment”
Robin Livingstone, Managing Director of W Livingstone Ltd, said: “I am delighted to support such a great club. The energy and enthusiasm that I see from both members and coaches is very positive. It is also fantastic to see so many of the Clubs gymnasts competing successfully and even representing their country at international events. The young and sporty image of SEAT cars seemed a natural fit for such a successful Club”.
The club’s founder and Head Coach Ruth Gibson competed for Scotland as a women’s artistic gymnast at two Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1986 and Auckland in 1990. She was also a member of the women’s artistic British squad.
W Livingstone Ltd was named as Scotland’s best franchised garage for the third time in the Motor Codes ‘Garage of the Year’ 2014 competition. It was also crowned Scottish champion in 2013 and in 2011, when the Motor Codes competition was called Golden Garages.
Stewart Harris, Chief Executive of sportscotland said
“The new equipment will help Hamilton Gymnastics Club continue their growth which will enable more people to take part in sport and physical activity, and this is something that we at sportscotland are delighted to be supporting. We are committed to providing more and better opportunities for people across the country to take part in sport and view our support of the club as a key part of this commitment.”