Glenn's News Page

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Annual BBQ/Picnic will be held at Wendlebury Village Hall on Sunday 29th June starting at 12:30 and finishing about 4pm.  Come along and bring your family with you to meet and socialize with other memebers of the club.  This is an opportunity to get to know who not only the coaches and committee members but also hopefully be able to enjoy some food and games with the mothers and fathers of some of your daughter or son's friends.  Bring along any games you think others might enjoy and of course some food to throw on the barbie.  Soft drinks and some crisps etc with be supplied by the club but you need to bring your own BBQ food and maybe a side dish to share.  We have not been that lucky with the weather over the past few years but the numbers who have turned up has gotten bigger.  This is for the whole club not just the competition squads so lets make this a year to remember.....LET'S PARTY!!!

Oxfordshire County Championships 18th May 2008

What a great day! The atmosphere was really relaxed, even Sam and Gemma, who normally suffer badly with competitioon nerves, were relaxed and confident.  I think this is because they were in the same group as Daisy who is so relaxed and has a way of smiling and making the others feel at ease.  Many of the girls were trying out new moves which they had been working on over the past few months.  It was good to see Bicester gymnasts showing very strong routines and inproving on most of their individual apparatus scores.

Leah Plant, competing at Level 5, had a very good day with good scores on all pieces scoring 42.15 qualifying for the Southern Region Final in June but sadly not good enough to get on the podium.  Managing to get on the podium for a bronze medal was Tabitha Saltzer at Level 5 and Jess Pitts at Level 4.  Tabitha scoring a fantastic 44.20 and Jess also finishing with a cracking score of 44.0

We had seven girls getting scores which qualified them for the Regional Final in June. They were, as mentioned above, Leah Plant and joining her will be, at Level 4, Amy Deller,  Jess Pitts, Annabelle Clifton, Amy Plant and Chloe Banks.  Qulifying at Level 3 with 41.65 was Harriet Bruce.

Worth mentioning is that both Tabitha Saltzer and Daisy Ryan-Pont (42.80) both scored high enough to qualify for region but sadly they are both above the maximum age for the levels they competed.

Rose's National Invitational

A listing of the medal winners can be found on the Arabian Web site.  www.arabiangym.com  On the home page click on the picture of the Rose's Competition, this will take you to the competition information.

Address: Grove House Barn, King Sutton Road, Warkworth, Banbury, OX17 2AQ

Congratulation Abbi and Leah

Well done to both girls and their coaches, Maya and Becca, for getting to the Regional Club Grade 6 & 5 Finals.  Both performed well in this very high standard competition.  There were some excellent routines from girls from clubs all over Southern England and two from Jersey Island.

Abbi placed 29th out of the top 39 gymnasts in the Southern Region competing at Club Grade 6.  Leah placed 24th out of the top 34 gymnast in the Southern Region competing at Club Grade 5.  WELL DONE ABBI AND LEAH!!!!

Abbi Durrant and Leah Plant reach Southern Region Finals

Well done Abbi for not only passing grade 6 but getting a score of 57.55 and earning a Distinction and a place in the Southern Region finals on 13th April.  Joining her at the finals but at grade 5 is Leah Plant who scored 54.30.  A score of 53.0 was needed to go through to Regional finals.  Congratulations to Katie Absom, score 52.65 and Katie Harris, score 51.00, both passing grade 5.

Glenn steps down as Head Coach

After 10 years as Head Coach at the club I have decided it is time for me to step down and let someone else take on the task.  I have thoroughly enjoyed the past 10 years and seen many young girls pass through the club, grow up and move on to University or into the working environment. 

I will remain at the club coaching the higher level gymnast as a senior club coach but will pass on the roll of head coach to Maya, who will need to be elected in at a extraordinary meeting, who will guide the club into the future.  I wish her all the best and will give her all my support.

Club Grade 4, 2 and 1 Passes at Milton Keynes Gymnastics Centre on Sunday 2 March 2008

Well done to Amy Deller, Tabitha Saltzer and Jess Pitts on passing Club Grade 4. Well done Harriet Bruce on passing Club Grade 2 and Daisy Ryan-Pont on reaching the top and passing Club Grade 1.

 CLUB CHAMPIONSHIPS 2008

This years competition was an enjoyable, well run day.  Everyone I have spoken to said they really thought the day went well and the children enjoyed the whole experience.  The competition was actually spot on schedule until the presentations, where there were a few problems because some of the scores had not been passed to Mike and Nick.  Things were sorted in the end and medals and trophies were presented and we finished giving us 15 minutes to vacate the building.

This years Trophy winners were:

Recreational Champion 2008 - Tessa McCormack?

Elite Champion 2008 - Harriet Bruce.

Intermidiate senior champion -  Chloe Banks.

Intermidiate junior champion -  Annabelle Clifton. 

Highest Squad Range and conditioning - Annabelle Clifton.

Novice Champion, Margret Adams Shield -  Leah Plant.

The Upton Shield Highest Rec Floor and Vault - Richard Cadle.

Rec Boys 9 - 11 Toby Webber;  Rec Boys 12+ - Richard Cadle; Rec 12+ - Ruth de la Querra; Rec 10 -11, Lea Mclaughlin; Rec 8 -9, Eve Linfoot; Rec 5 -7, Tessa McCormack?

The "John Goodgame Trophy" is normally awarded to a gymnast selected by the gymnasts,by secret vote, who they feel deserves it because of the improvements they have achieved, the dedication given to their training and the help given to the club and other gymnasts.  This year it was decided that the coaches would select the gymnast, taking out the popularity vote.  We found it very hard to make our decision, as we look not only at the squad gymnasts but the recreational gymnasts too.  There were several gymnast who made the short list but standing out was Amy Plant who only moved out of the recreational sessions into the squad sessions full time in September 2007.  Amy works very hard at trying to catch up to the other girls at her level and was recently chosen to represent Bicester as part of the Level 4 team competing in the "Tulip Invitational" at Spalding's new Gymnastic Centre (see report below).

The judges had very nice things to say about all of the routines they saw and said how much they enjoyed judging, except for the cold.

Well done to everyone!!!!!!!

TEAMS ENJOY DAY AT SPALDING & DISTRICT GYMNASTICS CLUB'S TULIP INVITATIONAL

A Level 4 team consisting of Amy Plant, Chloe Banks and Tabitha Saltzer and a Level 3 team consisting of Daisy Ryan-Pont, Sam Brock and Gemma Sole travelled the 89 miles from Bicester to Spalding for their first "Tulip Invitational" competition.  This was the first competition held in their new fully equipped facility.  The atmosphere was relaxed and very friendly. Spalding and Bicester both had one team at each level and Arabian had one team in Level 3 and two in Level 4.  Arabian was giving their youngest competitive gymnast there first competition after working very hard with over the past month with Sam, their coach.

Our Level 4 team was quickly put together just for this competition.  It was Amy's first major competition since joining the competiton squads full time in September 2007.  Tabitha was also competiting the first time on all four pieces at Level 4.  Chloe tied 5th highest overall score with Ellie Hewitt from Arabian.  The team only placed 4th due to the fact we only had 3 team members and the team score was best 4 scores and two of the beams were judged as short routines due to falls. 

Our Level 3 team started on vault and did Ok,seeing as vault is not any of the girls favourite piece.  Bars started good with Daisy performing a lovely flowing routine finishing with a backaway which she hasn't performed before in a competition.  Gemma completed her "Mo" but struggled with the long upstart after it.  Sam also was doing fine but failed to get her long upstart, which is unusual for her, and need assitance to restart her routine losing her valuable points.  She did finish with her tucked backaway which she has been working on.  We were hoping for good tidy beam routines and things were looking good with Daisy sticking her flick but coming off on her forward roll.  Poor Sam was doing well until she missed her footing and had a really hard fall, which would have put most gymnast off, but she bravely got back up and finished her routine.  Sadly, the fall shook her up and she ended up with a low score due to a short routine.  The floors all went well except for Gemma landing hard out of her handspring front and hurting her ankle and giving .80 pt deduction for a fall.  They ended up in 3rd place.

Inspite of the mishaps, I think, they all enjoyed the competition.  They were told to use it as a practice competition to try out and test the skills they have been working on for the Club Championships which is being held on Sunday 27th January .

MERRY CHRISTMAS - HAPPY NEW YEAR - HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!!!

Lincolnshire Invitational Team Championships, Sunday 4th November 2007

West Lindsey Leisure Centre, The Avenue, Gainsborough, Linc. DN21 1EP

Level 4 Team: Chloe Banks, Morgan Broom, Jess Pitts, Tabitha Salzer and Amy Plant (Reserve)3rd Place!

Level 3 Team: Daisy Ryan-Pont, Harriet Bruce, Georgie Long, Gemma Sole3rd Place!

10 Medals won at Oxon Individual Apparatus Championships Sunday 28th October 2007

The day started with the younger squads competing both at Level 5 in age and Level 5 out of age.  This was the first Major Competition for the "In Age" gymnasts and nerves and strange surroundings got the best of them on Vault.  Katie Abson was the first of the 3 to compete on vault managing to score 9.60 and winning a Silver medal. Sadly, after winning a trophy for their vaults at the county 8 and Under competition earlier this year both Leah and Lucy baulked on both of their attempts voiding their vaults.  Both Leah Plant and Lucy Hunter competed on Beam placing 6th and 7th respectively. Katie's second piece was Floor where she placed 8th.

Also competing at Level 5 but in the "Out of Age" category were Kaite Harris, Brodie McKay?-Logan, Hana Ayers, Annabelle Clifton, Tabitha Salzer and Emily Harris.  All the girls did really well with most scoring over 10 points on botyh their pieces which, is now possible under the new FIG rules.  There were 23 gymnasts competing at this level making it hard to get in the top 3.  The only one to manage with impressive scores on both her pieces was ~Tabitha, scoring 11.20 on Vault and 11.05 on Bars for 2 Gold medals.

Competing at Level 4 In Age, 9 years old, was Amy Deller scoring 10.30 on Bars and 10.70 on Beam winning her Gold medals on both pieces.  This was Amy's first competition an hopfully she will continue to work hard and manage to be a strong contender at future county and regional events.

We had 4 girls competing at Level 4 out of age, these were Morgan Broom, Georgie Long, Chloe Banks and Jess Pitts.  All scoring 10.5 or higher 5 of these were over 11pts and one was a well earned 12.15 pts.  Scoring this mark with her lovely floor routine with a spanish theme was Chloe Banks winning her the Gold medal.

Last but by all means not least were our Level 3 out of age competitors.  These were Harriet Bruce, Daisy Ryan-Pont and Gemma Sole.   Harriet scored 11.65 vault and 11.50 floor winning her 2 Silver medals.  Daisy scored 11.10 bars and 11.20 beam winning her a Silver and Bronze respectively.  Although Gemma didn't win any medals she has improved both her scores from the county championships held back in June.  Gemma is 2 years younger than Harriet and has only recently come back to training after suffering a broken wrist during training at her old club.

She is the CHAMPION !!!

News Flash!!!!! I have recieved good news that Susan Blunsden has become a BRITISH  VETERAN CHAMPION today at the Veteran's competition at Ipswich.  I will put more news on the website as and when I get the reports from my roving reporters (the gymnasts and parents who went down to support her).  WELL DONE SUSAN !!!!

Annual Membership / Insurance  is due NOW!

Please make sure you have paid by Saturday 29th September 2007, as any child who's Annual Membership/Insurance fee is not paid by 1st October will be uninsured.

Susan Blunsden will be competing on Saturday 22nd September in the British Gymnastics VETERANS COMPETITION.  Susan use to train as a recreational gymnast at Bicester & District Gymnastics Club and is now one of the longest serving and valued coaches in the club.  I think she has a very good chance of achieving a place on the podium.  Susan has been going up to Arabian Gym Club on Friday evenings during the adult training sessions to brush up on her skills.  A-bars has been causing her a bit of concern and blisters but I think she will do OK. Daisy has taught her her old floor routine and she has managed to "Stick" her back-somi dismount off the beam so I believe, as she does, as long as she can perform good clean routines she has a good chance of bringing home at least one medal. It is hard to tell what the competition is going to be like but she is going to have a small group of supporters going down to Ipswich to cheer her on.  Good Luck! 

Oxfordshire General Gym Competition Cancelled.

It has been decided that due to Holidays and lack time to prepare for this competition we would cancel the 14th October competition at Bicester.  There has been a suggestion to reschedule the competition to November and to another venue as the Bicester Sports Centre will be in the first phase of refurbishment.

 8 and Under Teams success at County League

Two teams were entered into the recent Oxfordshire County Gymnastics Association's 8 and Under League competitons on Saturday 7th July 2007.

Both teams did really well showing good style and technique.  Maya and Becca have been working exceptionally hard with their girls getting them ready for this and future competitions. 

Team 1 consisted of Katie Abson and Leah Plant.  Both did really well and won the Team Vault trophy.  Leah had the highest vault score of the day.  Team 2 was made up of Lucy Hunter who had competed at the last competition was teamed up with Abbi Durrant the youngest and newest member of the Development squad.  All the girls did really well on the day and Maya, Becca and I are proud of them.  I would like to say how we are expecially proud of Abbi.  Abbi is the youngest and newest member of the development squad having only been invited up on trial in April.  Abbi has worked very hard catching up to the rest of the squad, especially on bars where she put in 110% effort the week before the competition and learnt her straddle on undershoot dismount from the bar. 

They will be competing again on October 6th at Abingdon Gym Club hoping to better their scores.

(note: I tried to insert a photo but was unsuccessful so will have to see if Mike can do it for me.)

Family Barbacue / AGM 15 July 2007

The weather was not as good as last year but that didn't dampen the friendly atmosphere of those who turned up.  The children all seemed to enjoy themselves.  The Airtrack was a popular attraction  as were the carrousel and swings.  Nick, Michael and Glenn started out with the puzzle of putting up the first gazebo taking about 20 minutes.  When the rain did start and the second gazebo was required Nick and Andrew were professionals by that time and managed to errect it in about 5 minutes. 

During the AGM the existing committee was re-elected unanimously.

Read more, and see pictures, at:
AGM-BBQ-2007/AGM-BBQ-2007.html

IT'S A BOY!!!

CONGRADULATIONS MAYA AND NEIL!

Toby Joseph arrived at 8:58am on the 4th of July, 2007 (that's the American blood in his veins) He weighed in at 7lb 11oz. fully alert and looking around to find out what was going on.  Dad actually said he felt like doing "cartwheels".  Mum was very happy and excited but things turned for the worse and she had to be rushed back down for emergency blood transfusion due to the umbilical cord breaking inside her during the forceps delivery.  She is back on the ward now and feeling better.  This makes me Grandad Glenn, which I am very proud to be.

Daisy Places 8th at Southern Region Out of Age Levels Championships

All five gymnasts who competed on Sunday at Phoenix Gym Club did really well and both Glenn and Angela were proud of their efforts.  Daisy, Harriet, Gemma and Morgan all bettered their previous scores from the county competition.  Chloe would have done so too but, the "Dreaded Vault Demon" came back to haunt her.  After managing to get a very good vault score on the 3rd of June at county and spending hours training over the past few weeks overcoming her baulking at the last minute we thought we had it sorted.  Sadly, the DEMON  reared it's ugly head and got her again and she baulked on both her vaults giving her a big score of 0.00.   It's a shame because she did really well on the other 3 pieces and would have finish with a decent overall score and actually placed 4th on A-Bars and 5th on Floor, Level 4.  Harriet placed 5th on Vault, Level 3 and Daisy tied 4th on A-Bars, Level 3.

The differences in the scores from the Regional Finals and the County Championships were:

Daisy    +0.45,     Harriet    +0.70,     Gemma    +3.70,   Morgan    +5.20    Chloe    -3.80 (could have been +5.60 if she had done her vault)

5 QUALIFY FOR REGIONAL FINALS

The club had 8 gymnasts in the Oxfordshire County Championships held at Phoenix Gym Club, Maidenhead, Berks. on Sunday 3 June 2007.  The three younger gymnasts competing at Level 5 Out of Age Seniors, Hana Ayers, Annablelle Clifton and Tabitha Saltzer all did very well placing 3rd, 2nd and  5th respectively.

Later in the afternoon things were hotting up both inside the gym and outside making it a very sticky competition for the older gymnasts competing at Level 4 Out of Age Seniors and Level 3 Out of Age Junior and Seniors.  Chloe Banks and Morgan Broom both competing at level 4 did very well.  Chloe having the 3rd highest score on vault and bars and Morgan highest floor score and finishing 3rd and 4th overall respectively and qualifing for south Regional Finals on 24th June 2007.

Gemma Sole competing level 3 OOA Junior finished 5th overall qualifying for SR final.  Daisy Ryan-Pont had the highest bar score, Level 3 OOA Senior and placed 3rd overall.    Also competing at level 3 OOA Senior was Harriet Bruce who  placed overall 5th.  All three level 3 gymnasts qualified for SR Finals.

Go to the home page and click on Gallery  to see report and photo.

LOADS OF MEDALS......

Bicester gymnast had an overall good day at the Rose's National Invitational Competition hosted by the Arabian School of Gymnastics, Bletchley, Milton Keynes on Sunday 6th May 2007.

The competition was very tough from all the clubs from afar as Linconshire.  The young gymnasts competing in the "Rambling Rose" did very well.  One of the coaches from up north was overheard asking "who are those girls in the blue leotards?  They are really neat and tidy".   When I heard another coach say "those are Glenn's gymnasts" I really felt proud for them and the coaches who have helped get them ready for this competition. 

 As the day went on the competition got tougher and tougher. There were three girls in the "Tea Rose" section with Katie Midson winning a medal. I think the "Wild Rose" section had the largest number of entries making this the toughest round for our girls.  When asked if they enjoyed themselves the answer was "Yes we enjoyed better than the last competition" sadly no medals were won but, it is going out there and having a go and showing the parents what they have personally achieved. Again at the "Moss Rose" level which is the first level of the more capable gymnasts we only had one girl  entered, Savannah Dodds, who was up against some very tidy gymnast.  Savannah didn't win any medals but has only been with the club for a few months and is promising young gymnast. We had eleven gymnasts in the "Tudor Rose" level but I will have to come back with the medal winners as I can't remember who won what at this time.  In "Mary Rose" the hardest level we had three gymnast and I believe one Gold medal for Daisy Ryan-Pont.

Results and photos to be added soon.

8 and Under Team Bring Home Trophey!

New Treasurer and Membership Secretary

The Cliftons have volunteered to fill these two posts.  Andrew was duly elected via an extraordinary online meeting and Debra has passed the books over to him.

Amanda Clifton will now be handling all the membership details and controlling our waiting list.  Her contact details are

Harriet Bruce Passes her Grade 3...It was an early start for the girls who had to be down at Basingstoke by 8:30am for registration.  The competiton was diferent than we were use to as the girls were split into groups warming up 1/2 of the grade 4's and 1/2 of the grade3's then having to wait 14 minutes before moving to the next piece to warmup meaning that they didn't actually start competing until almost 11:30am. I also believe the judging was very hard for this level of gymnastics and the younger girls were suffering badly with nerves so sadly didn't manage to score high enough to pass.  We now know what we need to work on for next year and for the levels coming up in June.

After some really bad "baulking" during the warm-ups on Vault both Natalie Bond and Chloe Banks managed to pull themselves together and get decent scores on Vault.  Tabitha had good scores for her floor and vault but, as suspected, her bars were missing too many elements and her beam score was too low for her to be able to make the required 40 points to pass. Georgie Long having put in an enormous effort of training over the past few weeks performed a lovely bar routine including her back-away dismount for the first time in competition.  I don't know what we did to the beam judge, but she murdered Georgie giving her only 5.55, making it impossible for her to make up the points required to pass.  All I could see is that, after a fall doing her back walkover,her jumps and leaps were not as good as during her warm-up and the judge didn't count them.  Distiction next year! 

While Leah was down in Maidenhead competing her sister, Amy, was up in Milton Keynes at the Kingston Centre also competing in the Inter County Invitational Competition.  Along with Amy were Ruth de la Querra, Charlotte Peterson and Rosie Potter who all did really well and all brought home medals.

  

Glenn