A WOKING gym club has been voted runner-up in British Gymnastics’ Club of the Year award for the second time in three years.

Prime Acrobatics at Heather Farm on Horsell Common beat more than 1,500 clubs across the country to win the accolade for exceptional services for the local community in gymnastics, acrobatics and circus skills.

Clem Malcolmson, who set up the club in 2012, described the award as “a real shot in the arm” and “pretty impressive”.

“It just shows our variety of programmes. We start with kiddies at four months old with our Fun4Baby classes, and go all the way though to youngsters, teenagers and youths up to adult classes. We also have special needs classes.

“The club has about 1,600 members with 1,000 plus on the waiting list.”

Prime Acrobatics, which was also British Gymnastics’ Club of the Year runner-up in 2019, incorporates circus skills into its programmes, with two former lead coaches at Cirque du Soleil on its staff.

The club has recently developed a programme of more than 120 home videos entitled Prime Online.

Clem has lived and worked in the area since 1970 and was a school physical education teacher for more than 14 years.

He has formed several gymnastics clubs, including the Woking Gymnastics Club, which produced many British Artistic Gymnastics champions who competed at the Commonwealth and Olympic Games and the European and World Championships.

Clem has been national team coach at several of these events and has been named a Master Coach of Great Britain.

He devised Kindergym, a gymnastics pre-school programme widely used throughout centres across the country.