The PCYC is about to reopen its building on Dawson Street (next to Trinity) after a painstaking rebuild. However, like many businesses, they are building back better, not only in terms of materials but also in terms of what services they are offering.

Greg Ironfield is the PCYC Club Manager and is excited about the day the doors can finally swing open.

"We're getting towards the end of the renovation side of the rebuild. We've probably got another week and a half, maybe two weeks, to put in a sound system, electronics, NBN and Wi-Fi set up."

"On the other side of things, we're finalising our classes for Term 2, they'll be opening up, hopefully, before we open so we can get our bookings started for Term 2 and we were hoping to run maybe a few little classes before that. And if time allows we'll just do a bit of 'come and try' just to get the kids back in and active before the new term starts."

You can email Greg and the team at [email protected] or check out their Facebook page here.

If you have participated or registered with the PCYC before, Greg has your name on a list. "Once we get some solid dates and some class information I can get in touch with everyone directly."

The PCYC was inundated with floodwater on February 28 2022 with water reaching the second floor for the first time in the club's history. The damage was severe, not only to the building but also to the PCYC equipment, most of which had to be thrown out. The loss of one of Lismore's major venues has had parents at a loose end.

"Pre-flood, if you take gymnastics as an example, we held three nights of gymnastics so we probably had about 200 kids a week. But now, we will probably have about 500 or 600."

"Parents have been doing it tough, they're desperate for our programs to open up again. The response we've had is incredible, there's a good amount of support for the club but also a demand that we'll be able to meet."

With this rebuild, how have you built back better?

"The ideology that we've used is anything downstairs can be moved upstairs. In the 2017 floods, we lost downstairs but it didn't come up as high as the second floor."

"It will mean that there won't be the same activities that we did run downstairs, for example, there won't be the heavy gym equipment or the machines and things like that that we used in our gym, we'll just be using hand weights and the like for our classes."

"We will just have to adapt, we will have to look for different groups to work with but we're talking about working with mothers groups now, we're talking about working with people with disabilities and also with our homeschool friends, they've been in touch with us asking if we can put programs together? So we can do for them some gymnastics, some gym and fitness using the hand weights and all that sort of stuff downstairs."

The real piece de resistance for the newly rebuilt Lismore PCYC is the gymnastics equipment on the second floor. Greg mentioned that it probably hadn't been renewed since 1971 when the building was opened so because of the flood damage they had funding to replace the severely damaged equipment and now they have state-of-the-heart Olympic standard equipment.

"The kids and the parents are going to get a very big surprise. We're excited, it's so really, really impressive."

"The whole floor space is now bigger too. We used to be what they call set-up/pack-down gymnastics so we used to set it up for a couple of nights and then pull it down for other activities. Now it's purpose-built, we've knocked out the stage and the storeroom areas to handle that. So, that's opened up that area to enable us to have like parkour (free movement gymnastics) and ninja frame."

There are now a lot of separate rooms in the Lismore PCYC which will be utilised for different purposes. The kitchen has now been moved downstairs which has created some space.

"We've just converted that space to what we're calling a multipurpose room that I'm hoping to get some aerobics, some yoga, pilates, and probably dance, I might get some bars and things put in there. That's part of our fit-out request, so we'll just see what happens there."

"We've also had a lot of interest in hiring these rooms. There's obviously a shortage of meeting rooms and office space at the moment in town and we're ideally situated just on the edge of town so we've had inquiries both ways, like someone to lease part of the building to run a business and others to hire."

Downstairs, you will notice the epoxy concrete floor ready for the next flood but also some changes from what was in that space.

"As I said, the weights have gone. We had a beautiful dojo at the far right-hand side, which was again, probably Olympic class but all those mats have been destroyed, obviously. We now have a rollout judo mat. So, it'll cover the same amount of floor but we can roll it back up and then actually use that room for other activities, which is really, really handy as we can run our vacation care from that room now."

"We can also run Safer Drivers courses there because we will have a projector and screen in that room. Again, it's good for meetings and conferences, it's a very large room that one."

"The boxing gym on the other side we're hoping to get back to the same way that it was. So, we'll have different bags at each station for boxing and kickboxing in one room and aikido and karate in the other room.

As you can imagine all of the improvements cost a lot of money. The PCYC was insured before the flood so the equipment is replaced through insurance, however, as is the case around Lismore, they can no longer be insured for the future.

The State Government generously gave the Lismore PCYC $230,000 to assist with flood trauma, people with a disability, Aboriginal/First Nations kids and supporting funding for the PCYC Nations of Origin Tournament for the next few years.

Greg explained that the PCYC is a charitable organization that receives a minimum amount of funding for managers' wages, but it doesn't cover all of that cost.

"Profit for purpose is how we need to operate now. We run our classes to make money to keep the facility open and support our courses and our programs that we run with the police (Fit For Life) that are not funded but we need to support those kids, those often at risk, but our side of it is running the classes to make the money to be sustainable, basically."

It also means more fundraising activities throughout the year.

"We actually have a fundraising activity that's just started up now called Star Jump which is our major fundraiser. The money that we raise is club based now, which is really good. Previously, it would just all go to head office but now it's all club based. We also have a giant Christmas raffle usually at the Workers Club, hopefully, they'll be open by Christmas. We get a lot of good support from our local service clubs, our Rotary's and our Lion's Clubs have been very good to us particularly last year when we were closed. We got some lovely donations, big donations, like five grand, that's a lot of money for those guys."

"We need to fundraise. That's a very important part of what we do here."

There is no exact opening date for Greg, Erin, Emily and the rest of the team, it is difficult to predict when materials and trades can complete the finishing touches but the end of March is the goal. Just in time for the PCYC Holiday Program over the school holidays and the return of Vocation Care for Term 2.

Since we chatted, Greg has told the Lismore App that minimal gymnastic classes will start on Monday.

As mentioned earlier, if you have any questions about what is happening at the PCYC you can email Greg and the team at [email protected] or check out their Facebook page here.