SMAC Newsletter

Swale Martial Arts Club

Welcome to 2013

 I have divided the Newsletter into 2 parts I have put the positive things to the fore

Hopefully we will have a better year then last the death of Lyn Costa left us all devastated but I know she would want Keith to get stuck into work at the Club.

Junior events were poorly supported in 2012 with maybe two exceptions 1) Keith Family Judo night

2) MS Judo Competition, which was held at the Dojo this attracted 70 junior Judo players we were expecting 30. This was so successful we are running a big tournament in March at the Swallows I hope you can all attend

The senior section is going from strength to strength with the Judo/Sombo Tuesday and the MMA class on a Wednesday being a major success story. Several members of the club were selected for the European and World Sombo Championships and Jamie Marzetti won a Bronze in the World u21 Kurash Championships. MMA fighter won medals at a local tournament in Gillingham

 

So what of 2013 well we have Keith back with us and have George Loscombe taking over the 7 to 8 spot on a Tuesday, he has been taking over from Keith for the last couple of months. Keith asked George to take over the spot so he could liaise a lot more with the parents, keeping them up to date with current events.

Michael Hutchinson is starting a new Junior MMA Class on a Monday at 7pm with Martin Clarke attempting to revive CombatSombo on a Monday at 8pm

 

John and Colin will continue to run Judo and Sombo Instructors courses along with grading’s etc. We will also be organising a Freestyle Olympic Wrestling Instructors course and maybe a Greco Roman course.

The Club members biggest moan is that articles do not get printed in the local press well I am sorry to say we have no control over what they wish to publish and what clubs they favour, we do have minimal success with the Sittingbourne News with 25% of our stories being printed.

 

Plus we have kept the prices at the same level as last year, so let hope you all supports us and try get more people to attend because without you support we can not survive

 

 

 

The one thing I hope is that the hype over the Olympics Games quietens down, although it was a spectacular event, the so-called Olympic legacy has had no impact on the club what so ever in fact the success of some Olympic Sports has had a detrimental effect on lots of other sports. 148 Sports are recognised by Sport England. In the 2016 there will be 29 Olympic Sports. UKSport Four Olympic sports have had their funding cut to nothing by UK Sport following their failure to challenge for medals at the London Olympics in 2012, one of which is Wrestling something our Warriors Grappling Club is active in, Judo which is one of our sports has had its funding cut from £7.5 million to £6.8 million (I wonder where all that’s going to go).

 

My point is that this government is making Sport a political tool it is only funding success rather then getting more people involved in sports all sports. The government should support all sports and future sports, because there will be many more new sports, who would have thought Dodge Ball would be recognised and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is not. Interestingly enough the Top two recipients of government funding are rowing and cycling, how many working people can afford either, how many velodromes are there in Kent?

For some years now a Club Mark has been the in thing for the Sports Bureaucrats and the clubs that are affiliated to SMAC have tried to accommodate the idea. Sittingbourne Judo Society tried the BJA Club Mark system. This lasted 4 years with out success the BJA had I believe 5 different people in charge of the this region and each would change the goal post, the last straw came we we had to select a non Judo person to attend a Volunteers Course in Sheffield yes a course to become a Volunteer. The Warriors are in the process in obtaining a KCC Club mark, which so far this has taken over 2 years. In February 2012 we had a visit to see how the Classes were run, the two assessors had no idea of what we do but they were extremely complimentary about our premises, the standard of teaching and the general atmosphere in the club, Yet we could not pass us as we did not have enough information on our notice board with in 24 hours this was rectified, now a 5ft x 5ft notice board full of paperwork is in the stair way. Have you read this? The paper work was also on our web site. When I complained in October that no progress was being made I was informed that a lot of our certificates are out of date? Well they was not when we started the process. I have now hand this over to my son John, as I am not happy about a lot of things that are involved in Club Mark the main two are the unnecessary bureaucracy and the fact they have given Club Mark to organisations that allow children to Kick and Punch each other at the age of 3 years.

The good thing that 3 organisations we belong to the International Budo Federation, British CombatSombo Association and British Sombo Federation are in the process of bringing there own Independent Club Mark scheme in to operation which will take all the useful positive parts from the Government Club Mark scheme to help develop their own system

Finally at present SMAC gets 80% rate relief as Community Amateur Sports Club, this one of the few things the last government done of any good as it is a legally obligation and we also get 20% from SBC but rumours are abound stating that this maybe stopped and could cost the Club several thousands of pounds something we can not afford.