Gymnastics clubs/Fees

Akrasia

Hi everyone.

There isn't a gymnastics forum on Boards and loads of the clubs around the country don't have websites or fees posted.

My daughter is mad into gymnastics but I think her local club are fleecing us with her term fees.

She is in a competitive training squad, currently training 4.5 hours a week and paying 25 euros per week or 375 for a 15 week term.

There's a competition coming up that she really wants to do and they require that she does another 1.5 hours a week training but they want her to pay a tenner a week extra to cover this class. That would bring her fees up to €525 euros for a 15 week term.

I know that to be competitive at gymnastics she would need to train by way more than 6 hours a week, but the pricing structure for her club would mean that would cost us €780 for a term training 12 hours a week or €900 euros a term for 15 hours a week.

The only other gymnastics clubs I can find that have their prices online are significantly cheaper at all levels

One club that I recognise from competitions (so at a comparable level to my daughters club) charge less per month for 12+ hours of classes than my daughter is currently paying for 4.5 hours of classes.

Can other parents please let me know if we are being totally fleeced or if our fees are closer to standard fees and this other club is unusually cheap?

shesty

Not competitive here at all, but the two clubs in our area start at 110eur for ten week term, or 160 for a term (feb-june) for younger kids-if that helps??

Akrasia

shesty wrote: »

Not competitive here at all, but the two clubs in our area start at 110eur for ten week term, or 160 for a term (feb-june) for younger kids-if that helps??

Thanks for the reply. Feb to June is a long term, seems to cover at least 20 weeks which would put the price of €160 at close to 8 euros per class (presumably hour long classes), Our club's term is between Jan and April, with another shorter 8 week term from April to June

Usually the way these things work is that the recreational/non competitive classes are for an hour or an hour and a half per week, and they pay the highest hourly rate.

So, a recreational class could pay about 9/10/11 euros an hour, while the kids who are training harder, competing for the club, and therefore representing the club, pay a lower hourly rate.

For my daughters club, the highest rate is €11ph which is for recreational classes but they also charge this rate to all competitive gymnasts 'for the first hour' in a week

Actually, here's their 2018/2019 pricing structure.

1st hour = €11
between 1 and 5 hours = €4ph
> 5 and 10 hours = €3:50ph
>10 hours = €3ph

This is the pricing structure and it is confusing. What I thought they meant was, everyone pays €11 for the 1st hour, and then anything above that depends on how many hours they train per week, so if they did 12 hours, it would be €11 + €33 which would be €44 per week.

That would make sense and be fair to the kids who are prepared to dedicate so much of their time to training to represent the club, and the parents who spend so much time driving them back and forth to training and to competitions etc.

But actually, the pricing structure is worse than I initially thought, it's actually €11 for hour 1
then €20 for hours 2-5
then €14 for hours 5-10
and €6 for hour 11 and 12
Which adds up to 51 per week or €765 for the 15 week term

Comparing this to the other club which I mentioned in the OP, a 12 hour per week competitive term fee would cost 23.80 per week.

I don't know if this other club is just super cheap and are a massive outlier and our kids fees are normal, of if my child's club is much more expensive compared to other gymnastics clubs.

Big Bag of Chips

I suppose one way to look at it is you are being charged roughly €5 per hour for her. That's fairly cheap by any standards. It's just the fact that she's doing so many hours. My kids aren't sporty but are musical and into drama. One music class works out at €18 for half an hour. Drama work out at €15 for 2 hours. But these are only once a week.

When you start adding all the hours your daughter is doing that's where the money is obviously adding up. You should approach the club and tell them your daughter really enjoys it and you are happy to see her progressing so well but you are finding the cost to be very prohibitive and ask them is there any arrangement you can come to.

My children do dancing and their teacher is very good in that she charges me for 1 class a week and charges much less (or often times nothing at all) for extra classes.

Akrasia

Big Bag of Chips wrote: »

I suppose one way to look at it is you are being charged roughly €5 per hour for her. That's fairly cheap by any standards. It's just the fact that she's doing so many hours. My kids aren't sporty but are musical and into drama. One music class works out at €18 for half an hour. Drama work out at €15 for 2 hours. But these are only once a week.

When you start adding all the hours your daughter is doing that's where the money is obviously adding up. You should approach the club and tell them your daughter really enjoys it and you are happy to see her progressing so well but you are finding the cost to be very prohibitive and ask them is there any arrangement you can come to.

My children do dancing and their teacher is very good in that she charges me for 1 class a week and charges much less (or often times nothing at all) for extra classes.

I get what you're saying. My son is learning guitar and it's 15 euros for a half an hour class per week for him

Yeah, I know that there are costs that need to be covered and we always knew it was an expensive sport to get involved in, but when I looked up the price structure of other clubs and saw that her gym seems to be so much more expensive, I need to know if we're being exploited here or if these are reasonable fees.

shesty

Yes they are hour long classes,and recreational.Seems confusing alright.We have a ballet class for 90eur for ten weeks, hour long classes (seems very reasonable), piano classes just under 300eur a term (a school term, basically), and swimming classes at 90eur every ten weeks for a 45 min class.

It probably is the number of hours that's making it add up for you.