History of Hawks
‘Up from the ashes grow the roses of success’ R.Sherman
The club was originally started in 1979 in Seaton in Devon by the current directors Mike & Elaine May. It was then known as Hawks Gymnastics Club & was linked to the family business, Hawkeshyde Motel. Uniquely all three of the May children became International gymnasts ~ Stephen, numerous international assignments including representing G.B. at the World Student Games in 1983; Helen, Junior English International & Senior G.B. International; and Olympian James who was British & Commonwealth Games Champion and represented G.B. extensively on the World stage.
With an already established reputation for producing gymnastics excellence at club, county, regional, national & international level the May family moved to Bristol in 1987 to concentrate their efforts on gymnastics.
The old Co-op building was purchased & works begun to convert it into a state of the art gymnastics centre. A week away from opening the building was gutted by a devastating fire ~ with the building in ruins; dreams shattered, no jobs, & financially stretched the future looked bleak.
However the love of the sport & the overwhelming support of the local community spurred us all on to try to rebuild. Slowly up from the ashes rose ‘Bristol Hawks Gymnastics’.
The official opening by John Atkinson MBE was in August 1992 & featured Commonwealth Gold medallist our own James May just back from representing G.B. in the finals at the Barcelona Olympic Games.
Since then the club has gone from strength to strength. Mike is the brains behind the business success and Elaine is both a top class coach and International Brevet Judge. Stephen, with his professional knowledge of the financial world, is the executive director of the club and James is an International Brevet Judge.
The family ‘firm’ was further strengthened in 1997 with the marriage of Head of Men’s Artistic gymnastics, Sean Potter [former English International gymnast and high performance men’s coach] & Head Coach, Helen May. In 1998 Helen became one of the first coaches in the country to achieve the new International Performance Coaching Award.
Through out the years we have continued to produce champions at all levels & currently our gymnasts compete from club up to international level.
In 2004 our gymnast Rhian Pugh won the first ever European gold medal for a British woman at the Junior European Championships in Amsterdam.
We are committed to achieving high standards through further development. The awarding of a Community Club Development Grant at the end of 2004 enabled us to upgrade our facility and helped us to achieve ‘Gym Mark’ accreditation [British Gymnastics Quality Kite Mark] in May 2005. Our coaching team has gone from strength to strength and we are currently looking to recruit more high level coaches to our team.
Our 20year involvement in gymnastics in Bristol has come from our passionate belief in the value of our sport as a force for good. Whether as a path to excellence or as a fun leisure activity gymnastics has a lot to offer children.
For the future we aim to increase participation and expand our team.
We would like to continue to be officially recognised as a high level quality club providing unique opportunities for local children to reach their full potential in the sport of gymnastics and to foster a lifelong healthy involvement in sport.
