College prepares for milestone event
After a two-year hiatus, Horsham Calisthenics College is ready to host hundreds of competitors at its 40th annual competition.
The three-day event will start on Friday morning and finish on Sunday afternoon at Horsham Town Hall.
Principal coach Kylie Hermans said the club was ready to celebrate its 40th competition in 2020, but because of the pandemic, it was cancelled.
“We then got ready to celebrate again last year, and it looked like it was going ahead up until a couple of weeks before,” she said.
“It is so exciting to finally be back in the theatre, ready to host our competition again.”
Mrs Hermans said the competition was also the club’s major fundraiser for the year.
“We’ve missed out on that vital income for the past two years, which has made things difficult,” she said.
“Hopefully that is all behind us now and we can just focus on getting all of our competitors on stage.”
About 350 competitors and their families will travel to Horsham for the event.
“We have teams coming from places like Bendigo, Mildura, Warrnambool and Mt Gambier to compete,” Mrs Hermans said.
She said Wimmera residents often did not realise the boost the competition gives to the economy.
“People stay in the region for the entire weekend, so they spend money on accommodation, food and petrol,” she said.
“Our competition benefits many businesses in Horsham.”
The competition will feature its highest ever number of solo competitors this year, with 181 entries.
“We are extremely reliant on our volunteers to run this competition and I thank everyone who has put their hand up to help out,” Mrs Hermans said. Sub-junior teams will compete on Friday, junior teams and intermediate teams will compete on Saturday and senior teams will compete on Sunday.
Solo competitors will be across the entire weekend.
An extra special part of the competition weekend is having Horsham’s tinies perform a display.
“For many of them, it’s their first time ever on stage and it’s always very exciting for them,” Mrs Hermans said.
The college also has a senior team this year for the first time in five years.
Mrs Hermans said this year’s competition was extra special because of the 40-year milestone.
“There have been some wonderful memories made and shared over the past 40 years and it’s wonderful to see our annual competition still going strong after all this time,” she said.