Community resources, Gloucestershire Resource Centre and City Works, Gloucester

Using the centre: GymNation

GymNation is a registered charity that runs a fully equipped gymnasium used by over 100 people a week. It is now based at a former commercial gym at the City Works. Its main client group are the residents of the Barton and Tredworth area, where City Works is sited. But their aim is to encourage social interaction across cultural, generational and social divides. As well as a place to meet and work out, it also provides courses leading to an NVQ in fitness instruction and links out to play schemes, mother and toddler groups and advocacy services.

Its development worker Imran Atcha remembers how things were before they first approached City Works: 'We were a rag-tag group no one wanted to know. A few friends with bits and pieces of equipment we had bought ourselves, meeting in a friend's garage or an empty shop.' As the group started to grow they began to look for somewhere larger to meet. 'At one point we were meeting in a disused shower room and another time we used a church hall. We really needed somewhere permanent!'

The group, then consisting of young Asian men calling themselves 'GymAsian', heard that Gloucestershire Resource Centre had bought the City Works site and might have some space that they could use. 'It was just an empty factory unit at first, but they let us use it rent-free while we got established. There has been no turning back,' he says.

'The facility has been more than just somewhere to meet for our own activities. We have been able to network with loads of different groups using the City Works. They have given is us ideas and encouragement to grow. The Gloucestershire Resource Centre team helped us with early funding applications. They helped us to take over the premises we now occupy from a commercial gym that was here previously.'

GymNation has used City Works to place itself at the centre of the community. 'This is a great space at the heart of the city,' says Atcha. 'We have been able to work with a lot of different people here. Some of our members are professional body builders but we also have links to local schools, asylum seekers groups, the families of prisoners and the Youth Offenders Service. Some offenders have served their community service orders working with us.'

Atcha feels that the flexibility of the City Works site helped GymNation succeed in assisting people return to education and employment. 'We have been working with Young Gloucestershire and the Adult Education Team to run fitness instructor courses to NVQ level. I don't think these would have been as popular if they had involved going into schools or colleges. Many of the people taking part had a bad experience of schooling. City Works had fully equipped classrooms we could use, so it was just like coming to the gym as usual.'

Unlike many of the other tenants of City Works, GymNation has negotiated a lease, rather than the usual licence agreement. This is because the premises are integral to the project and having a lease allows for longer term funding arrangements. Lin Mathews remembers: 'They really hustled us to get through the door. This is a really impressive group of energetic people. They have put a lot of work into the site as well as their own project and have done a lot to challenge preconceptions about bodybuilders and helped to improve community links.'