Acrobatic | Scottish club wins regional award
Elevate Acro Gymnastics Club has won Scottish ClubSport’s 2025 Club of the Year award. The club has only been in operation since the beginning of the year but has already made a huge impact on their local community.
Elevate formed to allow gymnasts in West Lothian to continue to be involved in gymnastics. This came after the closure of the previous local gym, Astro Gymnastics Club. Since then, they have hosted hundreds of lessons across multiple facilities. They have gone into schools to teach the sport to children, and have also put on after school clubs and lunch clubs.
Bronwen Smyth, Elevate’s chairperson, said that she and her colleagues are delighted to have earned this honour. “We are thrilled to have been awarded Club of the Year by Scottish ClubSport. It’s a significant achievement for the club after only setting up in January and launching in March of this year.
“The judging committee were impressed with just how much we’ve delivered for young people in West Lothian in such a short space of time, despite running classes from six different locations.”
They have been well supported by the gymnasts and their parents. Thousands of pounds has been raised by them to help run the club. Smyth believes all the money raised and the hours of commitment have been worth it.
“It has been a full on nine months to get the club to where it is today,” she claimed. “It has only been possible due to the commitment, enthusiasm and support of our gymnasts, their families and local community alongside the ten coaches, the operations manager, a committee of volunteer charity trustees and parent fundraisers.
“We’ve raised nearly £20,000 through gymnast and parent led fundraising. We have also secured several small grants to help the club buy much needed equipment. We’ve delivered more than 13,000 session places since we opened in March and have run after school and lunch clubs in four schools.”
Come mid-November, Elevate could have a pair of these trophies on their mantlepiece. They are one of the finalists for Scottish Gymnastics’ 2025 Club of the year award. Smyth and Elevate’s head coach, Nicole Higginson, are also up for the Spirit of gymnastics award.
“We were delighted to hear about our nominations for two Scottish Gymnastics awards,” Elevate’s chair added. “I’m sure we are up against some strong competition but look forward to the awards event in November.”
The full list of nominees is now available to view. Click the link below to find out more.