“We could work out our processes so we knew the athletes would be safe from contamination with the coronavirus.
“This school term (which ends on July 3) and next term (which starts on July 20), we’ll be making it fun. We’ll teach the children new skills . . . they like that.”
Callahan, an international-level coach and judge with 48 years of coaching experience, is being helped by Natalya Barber, an elementary-level coach and judge, and Susy Kerekere and Carla Rolls, who are qualified foundation-level coaches.
Barber said the skills they would teach in the next few months would not necessarily be used in competition but would improve the childen’s air awareness and sense of space, time, balance and co-ordination.
“They’ll also learn how to fall, so if something goes wrong they know how to save themselves from potentially serious injury,” she said.
Callahan said that around the trampolines the club had 200-millimetre-thick soft mats — courtesy of Pultron Composites — to cushion any fall, and trampoline edges were also padded.
Classes for five-to-eight-year-olds would not start until next term, Callahan said.
Children this age tended to be more easily distracted and would have difficulty meeting Alert Level 2 requirements such as distancing and group sizes.
However, the club was opening its facilities to a wider selection of users.
Trust Tairawhiti (formerly Eastland Community Trust) had made a $69,000 grant to enable the club to buy a second competition-standard trampoline, identical to its first, and to install some form of air-conditioning to allow year-round training.
The provision of two identical trampolines is a requirement for the hosting of the North Island trampoline championships.
A condition of the grant was that the club had to open during the day to make its facilities more accessible.
Barber said letters would go out to schools soon, explaining what would be available in terms 3 and 4. Instruction in trampoline safety and skills would be at the top of the list, and the club could benefit through increased membership among children who wanted to learn more.
Of country schools, Callahan said: “We could look at going out to them.”
He said competitive trampolinists and tumblers did not have any New Zealand competitions to target this year, but five club members were at a level where they might be picked to contest the Indo-Pacific championships in Canada in November.
“They have to reach the qualifying standard and then be picked,” Callahan said.
“Even then, the borders have to be open so they can get there and back.”
Charlie Holdsworth, Leah Scholefield and Kaiya Huta, on trampoline, and Lily Rolls and Capria Tamatea, in tumbling, were the five who might be able to compete on the international stage this year.
In the meantime, the club aimed to make the most of opportunities to attract people to the sport and increase membership.
