It's home sweet home at last for gym stars

A COMMUNITY centre on a Weston housing estate has become home to a top gymnastics club.The centre, in Langford Road on the Potteries estate, will carry on being used by community groups, but will also be the permanent home of Weston Aerobic Gymnastics Club.Several club members represent Great Britain at competitions around the world and plans are already in place for the British gymnastics squad to use the centre for training sessions.Club owner Debbie Saunders, who competed at the 1995 world championships in San Diego, has taken over the lease of the community centre from North Somerset Council. The 43-year-old runs the club with her husband Nigel, who has just returned from China where he headed the delegation for the world championships.She said: "We've got the talent and the coaches and now we've got a permanent gymnastics centre."We started 15 years ago using schools halls and have grown and evolved from there."Five years ago we started getting ready to move into our own centre, but it has taken a long time to finally get it."We've got about 200 members and have fun and competitive classes for all levels, ages and abilities."With the British squad training here we will get gymnasts from all over the country visiting Weston and input from top professional coaches."We hope to have a good number of members taking part in the world championships in two years."The community centre has a huge hall and meeting rooms and we're keen to build on the number of groups which use the centre already."The club is the only one in the area that has gymmark status, is a kite mark given by the British Gymnastics Association and Sport England to reassure parents their children are in a safe environment.