By Colin MacGillivray

More than six months after January’s Grass Flat fire rendered its facility unusable, Natimuk and District Gymnastic Club is preparing to throw its doors open to members once again.

While the fire only burned a small section of the club’s Sudholz Street gym, smoke damage ruined most of its equipment.

The club arranged for many junior members to undertake part-time training at other clubs, including at Stawell, while work to refurbish the gym was underway.

Head coach Lynette Morrow said there would be cause for celebration when the club welcomed members back on Monday.

“We’re coming home. We’re all very excited,” she said.

“It’s a good feeling to be back. We’ll start on the 20th with limited numbers due to the limited equipment we’ve got set up.

“We’ll stop the travelling and be able to open the door to more kids.”

The club is yet to replace the full range of equipment it lost in the fire, but Mrs Morrow said other Victorian gymnastics clubs had donated gear for members to use.

“It’s all secondhand gear from clubs that are updating or clubs that are doing a whole revamp. They’ve kindly donated the matting to us, and it’s what’s getting us back in the door,” she said.

Mrs Morrow said the unique scenario also presented the club with an opportunity to refresh its setup.

“With the layout, obviously we’re not going to be able to replace all of our equipment, so we’re thinking about what we can replace and what we change up to be more updated so that we have better facilities in the long run,” she said.

“It’s a different layout for the kids. It’ll be a bit of a new look.

“And of course we’ll continue to improve as we fundraise and get more money.”

Mrs Morrow said the biggest winners were the club’s youngest members.

“I know there are a lot of kids who have really missed it, so it will be great to get back to some normality and some routine,” she said.

“The second half of the year for our juniors is competition season, so it looks like we’ll be able to tap into that now, where we didn’t think that was possible.

“Our plan is to still run our November competition and probably attend four or five other invitational competitions.” 

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