Children’s gymnastics club moves into perfect home

A CHILDREN’s gymnastics club in Henley has moved into new dedicated premises.

Vision Gymnastics has taken over a purpose-use building at Henley Business School’s Greenlands campus off Marlow Road.

It used to be Angie Best’s Metaphysical Gym, which closed in October 2022 after 10 years.

Children, parents and coaches celebrated the move with an opening event featuring cake, balloons and games.

The gym has a new sprung floor and a fast track, which is a trampoline runway used for tumbling, and provides the club with a permanent space for its full-size bars, high beam and vaulting table.

Previously the club operated from the Christ Church Centre in Reading Road and Henley leisure centre and the children used portable equipment which took an hour to set up and take down each time. Katie Johnson, 28, who founded the club, said it would now be able to take more children and increase the number of classes from the 23 it has currently.

She said: “We’ve been running for four years and had a waiting list that we can now fulfil as we will be running seven days a week.

“Some people have been waiting for a year for a class and now we’ve just got so much more time.

“This will give the children the chance to progress further because we’ve got a sprung floor and a fast track.

“It will give our squad kids more training time and we can strive towards higher-level competitions.”

Miss Johnson has been coaching for more than 10 years and worked at Kennylands Gymnastics Club in Sonning Common for five years before starting her own club in 2019.

She said: “I started with two classes a week and now I think we’ve got more than 300 members.”

Miss Johnson said that it had taken three months to set up the new facility and the move was completed the day before opening.

“It used to be a squash court and a gym so we had to knock down two walls to make it one,” she said.

“It has been a year in the making. It was a parent who mentioned this place.

“It used to be a gym so I came and viewed it last January and I signed the contract in September.”

Miss Johnson said the new facility would hopefully enable the club’s members to thrive competitively.

One gymnast, 12-year-old Sophia Powell, recently achieved sixth place in a competition for the South region. Miss Johnson said: “She was only training seven hours a week and she got a silver medal on the bar and sixth overall.

“I feel like this is kind of just the start for us. Now we’ve got this facility we can really strive and do more.

“Our parents are so supportive. They’re all excited and happy that the children can do more
gymnastics.”

Miss Johnson started the club with the help of two other instructors, Ellie West and Kristina Nicholls, and now has a staff of 12.

She said: “Now my vision is to have a safe, happy, nurturing environment where the kids can learn. That’s kind of my ethos.”

Angie Best co-founded Metaphysical with her partner Mark Miller in 2012 and trained clients of the school as well as students from Reading University, which owns it.