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17-Jan-2008: January 2008 Newsletter
Happy New Year Sensei Andre and Sensei Daphne would like to wish all our students and their families a very Happy New Year 2008. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and looked forward to returning to training. Congratulations Following a reflection on the year we must firstly give Congratulations to our first ever Shodan Grade at the Dojo. Dario Caruso one of our adult students, that most of you will know, passed his Shodan grade, 1st Degree Black Belt at the recent GKI Winter Gasshuku in December 2007.
Kids Christmas Party Our final event of the year 2007 was the kids Christmas party. As last year it was very well attended with all the students joining in the fun. We again played the traditional games although musical statues was done to kata, great fun!
There was plenty to eat and drink so thank you to all the parents that helped out. A special thanks to Emma Anstee who wrote the names of each child on their cup cake, they were delicious! Student of the Year 2007 Following the nominations during the year for student of the month we had to decide the Student of the Year award for 2007. The award ceremony took place at the Christmas party. The decision was very difficult and close to call but in the end congratulations to: 1st Place - Steven Brown Most Improved Awards At the Christmas party we also had to decide awards
for the most improved Junior and Senior student. The decisions were on
performance during the year taking into account overall ability and
attitude towards the dojo and member students. Again each decision was
very close, but in the end congratulations to: 1st Place Senior - Richard Evans Tesco Vouchers Once again thank you to everyone for collecting the Tesco vouchers. We announced late that we were collecting but still nearly got 700 vouchers. We will bank these, as this will enable us to add them to this year’s collection and hopefully purchase better equipment. New Affiliation Just before Christmas we mentioned that after giving 14 years service to the GKI we resigned our posts at the recent AGM in December and then resigned from the organisation. We will miss all our friends from the GKI and wish them all the very best for the future. Our interest was to go back to our roots where we started some years ago and affiliate with the worldwide organisation called the International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karate Federation, IOGKF, under Chief Instructor Morio Higaonna Shihan, 10th Degree Black Belt. We have trained with Higaonna Sensei on many occasions with the most recent being September 2007 whereby the personal training he gave us was outstanding and awe-inspiring. To enable this affiliation the Dojo has to be affiliated to a UK Chief instructor and UK association. The natural choice after many years of welcome training with Sensei George Andrews, 7th Degree Black Belt was the Okinawa Traditional Goju-Ryu Karate-Do Association, OTGKA. This will allow us to attend monthly courses at the Hombu Dojo under the watchful eye of Sensei George. We will also have regular weekly training with our new instructor Linda Marchant Sensei, 6th Degree Black Belt. Websites Just a reminder about the dojo web site: www.camberleymartialarts.com as this will keep you updated on information regarding the dojo. Monthly Subscriptions Attached is a leaflet detailing our monthly subscriptions as there is a slight increase on the daily fee but the monthly subscriptions in place for last year remain the same. Friendly Competition We have been invited to a friendly inter-dojo competition with our new instructor Sensei Linda Marchant. The date to look out for is Sunday 9th March 2008 and will probably also include two local OTGKA Dojo’s around the Tooting area. Gradings The Grading dates for this Year have yet to be set so keep training hard and we will announce the first grading for 2008 shortly. |
