DJC 2nd Birthday Party & InterClub Festival

Wow doesn't two years fly by when you are having fun!

Drake held our now traditional Birthday Party and Inter-club festival at our Tavistock Dojo on Sunday the 22nd of April

with almost 70 attendees it was a bit of a logistical nightmare to get everything in place, luckily DJC has a wonderful team of Committee members and volunteers who not specifically but were there to shift mats(mostly Dan) and set up tables, download scoring programs, shift podiums, remember to pick up medals and certificates and get caught buying suspicioulsy cheap frozen cakes from Tescos and passing them off as your own baking!

By 10.30 all had gathered and were ready for the off, we had players of all ages from 5 to 50 across all of our sites, Plymouth, Tavistock, Ashburton and Tavistock School.

Many of us oldies think of the very first Lifecentre Vs Tavistock Team event when we were still members of PJC as the 'birth' of DJC. One of the things that struck Charles and I at that original event(with its 10 attendees) was that it fostered a wonderful club and social atmosphere, a feeling of togetherness that we hadn't banked on. Im pleased to say that this continues to this day, everyone gets an opportunity to chat to each other(including parents), players who perhaps do not train with with each other on a weekly basis get to have a 'pull-around' and most importantly our younger players can see the development that they will themselves go through throughout their Judo pathway via the achievements and demonstrations of our older juniors

There are too many individuals to thank but a special thanks to Dan for basically spearheading the entire event, this event really has become his baby(an unwanted baby perhaps lol), Andrea, Claire K and Jess for food prep and general awesomeness, Ros for working with me on the table, Kate and Mark for prepping players, Charles for his officiating and table skills, to Mike and Mandy from Ashburton who always make a supreme effort to be involved in club events, Tony for his podium and generally getting stuck in. Mike for officiating, tabling and award presenting and even to Andy Hay who helped with the Admin from all the way from Northern Ireland

And a special thanks indeed to our Vice-President Christine Gallie 7th Dan who presented all the awards and presented the two recently achieved Dan grades

With all the award presenting this also gave us the opportunity to use our special medal presentation bowl 'The Whitfield Dish' - which was hand made and donated to Drake Judo Club by Pete Whitfield 2nd Dan, I'm happy to say it looked wonderful and made the whole presentation sparkle just a little bit more than usual

And also to everyone who assisted today, it does not go un-noted and these days simply would not take place without you

Lastly as you may or may not know Jake and Alanna have been selected to fight in Cardiff against a 'Dream Team' of British Judo legends all to raise money for the Brain Tumour charity, they took a bucket around today and our very generous members donated over £80! so thank you so much for that.

We will hopefully be raising more funds for this wonderful cause over the next few weeks so look out for more opportunities to donate!