By Danielle Kutchel
Undoubtedly, 2020 has not been the year any of us expected.
For the Narre Warren Calisthenics Club, it was to be a year of new beginnings with the opening of their new dance studio.
A grand opening was held at the beginning of the year and classes commenced, with plans for fundraisers to help support the club as in normal years.
But these best-laid plans were derailed by the pandemic, and the club has found itself struggling.
Prior to the establishment of the new studio, the club had always hired other halls for their events, with additional money spent on storage facilities for costumes and props.
The studio changed all of this, giving them a proper home for events as well as room for all of the club’s needs.
The advent of the pandemic saw the club shut down face-to-face classes for the majority of the year.
Zoom classes have become the norm, and involve a lot of effort on the part of coaches to put together – but they’re no replacement.
Meanwhile, students and their families have been asked to contribute what they could in terms of fees.
“Covid has been financially touch on our members – they’ve been amazing and paid what they could in fees, but lots of people have lost their job or may be the only income earner in their house,” explained Jacqueline Crichton, part of the club’s fundraising committee.
“It affected the fees we were getting, which help maintain our rent, rates, gas and electricity.”
In ordinary years the club holds regular fundraising events to cover the shortfall in expenses – but again, Covid has put the kibosh on that.
The club decided to start a Go Fund Me to help raise funds to cover their costs.
It was something they mulled over for a while – as Ms Crichton explained, one of the main concerns for the committee was that they didn’t want to place pressure on their struggling members.
But they were heartened to see members embrace the fundraiser, giving as much as they could to keep the calisthenics club afloat.
“It was eye opening to see how many people supported us. It made us all quite emotional,” she said.
And it couldn’t have come at a better time, she added, as lockdown extended the club’s physical closure and threatened its very survival in a year that should have been one of their biggest.
“It was almost a last resort for us. We’re at the point now where we don’t want to lose all our hard work and we don’t want to sacrifice everything,” Ms Crichton said.
“It’s very hard to say we’re going to lose everything, but it’s not something that’s completely off the table.
“We don’t want to fold; we’ve been around for over 50 years. We don’t want our first year in our own studio to be the end of Narre Warren Calisthenics.”
Funds raised will go towards covering the rent on the studio, which has been reduced thanks to a supportive landlord.
And, Ms Crichton said, the club may still be able to reach its goal in years to come: to keep the studio running and increase the number of members.
To donate, please go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-support-our-studio
