UK Coaching Week 2025 | Caithness Gymnastics Club
Caithness Gymnastics Club coaches are devoted to providing children in rural areas with the opportunity to participate in gymnastics. In order to celebrate UK Coaching Week 2025, we chatted to them to about their passion for coaching.
Coach Kyla Moodie said:
“We all have different qualities that feed into the club. Whether it be planning in advance, changing things on the spot, great routine ideas or just thinking about things differently. All together we really are a good wee team.”
Following their waiting list reaching 60 children, the club successfully applied for the club satellite fund in May 2024. The club then set up classes at Bettyhill Village Hall. A club satellite is additional to a club’s existing venue(s). It responds to an identified community need for gymnastics in a specific area. Funding up to £7500 is available thanks to sportscotland. With the funding the club secured a range of equipment that 40 gymnasts benefit from.
Kyla said:
“The demand was in the area and knowing there was very little equipment the satellite fund was perfect.”
I was able to purchase mats, a vault, a floor, a beam, a springboard, hand apparatus, wedges, podiums and also a stereo. This has helped massively as there was very limited equipment.”
If not for the dedication of the coaches who balance coaching with their day jobs this equipment would not be able to serve its purpose.
Kyla said:
“All of us in the club work nine to five jobs. Our gym classes run from five to nine on Tuesday and Thursday so the journey to the gym is a rush. Dinner on a Thursday night is a late one.”
For coach Shona Whitson, the determination to make sure gymnasts in the area have the chance to train is born out of her lifelong love for gymnastics. Shona said:
“I got into coaching as gymnastics has always been in my heart. When I was a young gymnast and came from a family of seven, my mum was a single parent, she could not afford the insurance for me to attend any longer at gymnastics. I continued my own journey of gymnastics tumbling up and down the long corridor of Miller Academy School.
“When an opportunity became available to me to become a preschool gymnastics coach, I cartwheeled into it. I loved every minute of it and after a couple of years of being a preschool coach, Kerry asked if I would like to give a hand at the gym. Attending the level 1 artistic and rhythmic course in Inverness with all the coaches from our wonderful club was the best time with the best people who have become my best gym family.”
Evidently, parents of gymnasts who attend classes do not underestimate the hard work everyone at the club puts in. Amongst the positive feedback provided to the club, club manager Kerry Trueman said:
“The one that sticks out for me is a wee girl we had many years ago. Because we included her in our classes, it meant that she didn’t have to go to weekly physio sessions for her cerebral palsy. Weekly sessions with us were fun and she was with her friends doing the same things as them and her doctors were delighted that she was active. That was lovely to hear, and it has stayed with me for all this time.”
For anyone who is thinking about becoming a coach, Kyla’s advice is “Spend time in a gym and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Sometimes the kids give you the best answers.”
Feeling inspired? Check out the club coaching vacancies on our careers page and find your next dream role. You can also learn more about UK Coaching Week on their website.