Following a successful Group Development Fund application, Emma Broadley, President of Royal Holloway Trampolining Club, tells us how the extra funds have helped them move forward as a club.
Royal Holloway Trampolining Club were lucky enough to be awarded a grant from the Group Development Fund 2018. We used the £300 grant to put towards the purchase of a new push-in mat.
Why a new push mat?
A push-in mat used for trampolining is a mat which you can jump on while on the trampoline, or have pushed onto the trampoline when you are learning a new move. The mat is essential as it allows members to gain confidence with new moves and perfect them. It is especially useful when learning moves that land on your front and back, as these could easily cause injury if you do them straight onto the trampoline without practicing.
Additionally, it is extremely useful when learning somersaults. Most of the people who join Trampolining have the main goal of learning how to do a somersault. With a push-in mat we are able to do the progressions of somersaults such as front landings, forward rolls and forward turnovers safely and then move onto doing somersaults more confidently.
Once you get to much higher level training you always have a push-in mat on standby at the side of the trampoline in case it is needed, and so it is good practice for us to have one. Participants can also have the mat pushed in, for example when they are working on perfecting a move or when linking moves together in a routine. Therefore, every member of our club will benefit from this new mat as no matter what level they are at, they can use the mat to help them learn a new skill or give them the confidence to perfect an old one safely.
A push-in mat gives some people more confidence, as often fear of injury prevents people from trying new moves while trampolining. Our new push-in mat allows our members to try moves they otherwise wouldn’t be confident to attempt. This will allow all of our members to learn new moves and progress which will reinforce their enthusiasm for the sport as they feel a sense of achievement and progression.
We already had two push-in mats but we have three trampolines, and so one trampoline had to go without a mat meaning our members couldn’t always practice all of the moves that they would like to. Now we have the mat, we have no restrictions of not having enough mats so everyone can get involved.
How the new push mat has helped us
We have more people competing than we ever have before this year with almost double the number we had last year. Therefore, the new mat has helped increase our membership as more people are able to learn new moves such as somersaults. We are able to have more new members learning more new moves with our new push-in mat.
Our club will also have a wider breadth of opportunity for our core purpose as they will be able to learn more new moves which will allow them to develop their skill, and help our membership retention as members will feel they are improving. Members will be more engaged as no matter what level they are at, or whether they want to compete or not, they will need a mat for something, and so with an extra mat they will able to progress more and consequently be more enthusiastic towards our sport. Therefore, the new mat will be used for the inclusion of all members of our club and any new members we have in the future. This will have long lasting use for the club and far reaching benefits for our current and future members (competitive and non-competitive).
Emma Broadley // President, Royal Holloway Trampolining Club