Te Puke gym club prepares for $4 million expansion

Te Puke Gymsport co-presidents Jane McKay (left) and Sarah Elliot with, from left, Pareen Singh, Portia Morgan and Addison Walkington. Photo/supplied

Te Puke Gymsport is poised to take a giant leap into the future after proudly serving its community since 1954.

The club, which looked to achieve 400 members by the end of this school term, has reached an agreement in principle with the Western Bay District Council to lease a section of Centennial Park for a proposed $4 million multi-use gymsport facility.

With nearly half its membership coming from Papamoa and Mount Maunganui, the club is riding a growth spurt and has a waiting list for some classes.

From humble beginnings in McDowell's Hall on Te Puke's Main St, a fire forced the club into the town's Memorial Hall until Te Puke High School built its gymnasium.

In 2008, the club moved into its current 700sq m building on Station Rd.

Club vice-president Jocelyn Boyle said it was nothing flash, an industrial shed with a concrete floor, and was not fit for purpose.

She said the club realised early on that the shed had big limitations and has worked for six years to get its own purpose-built gym that will include a pit filled with foam to cushion falls.

It will be the only gym in the Bay of Plenty and Waikato to have a pit.

The confidence in taking on the project came out of the strength of the club.

''We have really good people, our fees are friendly and there is a welcoming atmosphere,''
Boyle said.

Te Puke Gymsport chose not to follow other clubs into Tauranga's Argos Gym because, at the time, it was attracting lots of kids from Otamarakau and Pongakawa, and it would have been a long haul for them to Tauranga.

It meant the club had a lot of community support, including a strong following from Papamoa.

Club joint president Sarah Elliott said the club had reached the point where it had outgrown the Station Rd building and so approached an architectural designer with M&N Design who had daughters in the club.

He produced a design that would make the building something special for Te Puke.

''It will become a bit of an icon for the town because we want to bring in people from all around the Bay of Plenty.''

The feasibility study for the new building pointed to it becoming a regional centre and Te Puke Gymsport had asked its national body to give the planned gym regional status.

That would assist with fundraising, particularly from major funders.

Elliot said the club had evolved into directions that suited what people wanted.

It included trying to bring in a Sport Bay of Plenty programme called Keeping on Your Feet for elderly people who needed to retain their basic balance and locomotion skills.

At the other end of the age spectrum, the club already ran very popular pre-school programmes that taught the base movement skills needed for all sports.

These were locomotion, landing, swinging, springing, balance, rotation and manipulation.

The planned new building will be more than three times the size of the existing gym and include a 110sq m area with a separate entrance that could be used for community programmes like yoga or indoor football.

Elliot said there were 110 gymsport clubs in New Zealand with a membership of 500,000 doing movement development.

The club tried to keep membership affordable, with the pre-school gyms subs ranging from $40 to $70 and a full term for fun gymnastics being $99 for 10 to 11 weeks.

Te Puke Gymsport programmes include
- Gymsports New Zealand programmes
- Pre-school from one to four years-of-age
- Parkour
- Fitness fundamentals
- Boxercise
- Circus arts