The End Of Our First Year
Well here we are...
As i have previously mentioned, when i woke up on New Years day i wouldn't have thought in a million years i would be writing and publishing this blog post on a new Judo club website.
But yet here we are, i recently re-read my 'statement' that i sent in February announcing that i had decided to leave PJC and start my own small club which would operate out of the life centre, despite what some people have said and will still say it was a very difficult decision and one i didn't take lightly, very shortly after this Charles also made the decision to secede and on the 25th of February we launched
One of the things which was abundantly clear was that we would not be able to run Drake Judo Club ourselves and we were over whelmed by the offers of help form our very new members and parents which got us of the ground running,
We have run our little club with the ethos that communication is king and organisation is saintly!
A few highlights from our first year
- Our launch! in Plymouth and Tavistock
- Gemma Gibbons Masterclass
- Our Interclub Festivals
- Drake being represented at Competitions
- Hosting Devon Training and having our first players selected to represent Devon
- Hosting alongside Hoshi, Bradley Stoke Judo Club for the weekend
- Building relationships with other clubs and areas
- Having lots of awesome guest coaches from local clubs
- Having Corey join our team of coaches
- Having Mike Nugent become our Head Coach
- Launch Sho grade syllabus and hold 3 of our own gradings, finishing the year with 1 green belt, 2 orange belts, 10 yellow belts and an army of red and sho
- Starting our senior class in Tavistock and getting a band of weekend warrior Dads(and mums) together
- Having started with just Charles and myself we now have 5 Dan Grad(black belt) coaches including two females(Go Ros and Corey!)
- Our end of year Presentation
One of the things Charles and I spoke about was that we would have to accept that our membership would be low initially and that we would have to concentrate on recruitment moving forward, We have been blown way with the amount of children that have joined our club and at most recent count we had ticked over 50 junior members and a dozen or so seniors a fantastic effort and and wonderful base with which to push on from.
We have also had a dozen or so Senior members join our club and this will be something that will be sure to swell in 2017
We have been able to enter a number of competitions this year, something we hope to build on for next year, our final medal tally is as follows
At External Competition
Gold: 13
Silver: 9
Bronze: 9
At Internal Competition
Gold:16
Silver:18
Bronze:29
All in all this year has blown away any preconcieved expectations that Charles and I had when we sat in Costa Coffee on a cold February lunchtime to discuss the starting of a club, I truly believe that if we stick together and continue with our ethos and hard work we will continue our success and dwarf our achievements this year, None of our coaches or volunteers get paid in anything other than gratitude and the rewarding smiles we see every week
Yours in Judo
Ross
Chairman
1st Dan
