It has been some time between Budo Blog/Bulletin posts and sitting here at the very start of the new year, I though that it would be good to share with the Club’s members and friends what has been happening over the past few months.
When last I posted we were in preparation for a visit by Jason Griffiths, renshi, out to support the Toowoomba Street Fiesta, and planning a trip to Brisbane to train at the Brisbane Kendo Club. That was back in October …
We successfully accomplished all three events, and hosted a Queensland Kendo Renmei summer seminar to boot. We also have three new Iaido yudansha with Clint D. Tamara K. and Sean T. successfully challenging for shodan.
However, the Club is facing an uncertain set of circumstances going into the new year.
In November, the University had signalled that there will be significant changes this year to the use of the Clive Berghofer Recreation Centre. The reasons for this remain unclear, despite having continually asked for clarification and justification from the Student Guild and Facilities Management at the University. To be quite frank, the responses that we have received are logically inconsistent and lacking any significant detail, aside from vague references to “efficiencies” and “preferences of the University”.
To be clear, there was no consultation or discussion with the Club prior to the announced changes, and whatever decision making process undertaken by Facilities Management was done without any knowledge of what the Club does or how it operated.
The long and short of what we are facing is that we can only use the CBRC while there are reception staff at the front desk (from 8:30am till 8:30pm). This means that we cannot train Saturday, and that we are only able to fit one session of training in on Tuesday and Thursday nights. This will mean reducing from six time slots supporting 11 classes a week down to two time slots supporting three classes.
We were also requested by Facilities Management to hand back all keys/access cards before Christmas, with the result being we have lost direct access to the Club’s equipment, and from this point forward must seek assistance to use any of the things that facilitate our training.
To be clear this has all been simply framed as a “preference” of the University. There is no reason that the Club has been provided as to why arrangements that have been in place for the past three and a half years had to change. In fact, the December seminar was run in exactly the same manner as previous seminars we hosted in 2021/22 with the Club operating on its own recognisance, so certainly there has been no legitimate concern about how we have operated the facility in the past.
As I am sure everyone reading this will appreciate, if this were to be the reality for the Club going forward, there will be massive changes to what we can support. Gone will be the opportunity for members who come in from as far afield as Stanthorpe, Warwick, Laidley and Gatton to train on a Saturday and get home at a reasonable hour.
We will have to make very hard decisions regarding which disciplines actually survive this bottleneck, as we simply cannot make these mathematics work to continue to support all of the disciplines that people have dedicated hundreds of hours over many years to nurture.
We are meeting this Wednesday (3 January) to have a face to face meeting with individuals from Facilities Management, The Student Guild, and what has now become of Student’s Services. I suppose we can only see what this might bring. However, on past experience over the fifteen years the Club has operated I am quite sceptical of there being any significant change of position on the part of the university.
It means that for the first time in the Club’s existence, we will not be able to hold our multi-disciplinary Kagami Biraki (New Year’s “breaking of the seal” shared training session). The CBRC reopens on the 8th, so our first potential classes will start on the 9th at the earliest — if we are able to figure out how the access to our equipment is going to be managed. I will have to let everyone know next week once we have had the meeting and sorted out how we are going to proceed.
We are currently trying to work through a variety of contingency plans. Some contingencies may have us moving location to a place, and at a time and date yet to be determined. Others will have us travelling to Brisbane to train with senior folk there. For some, we may have to put Club disciplines into hibernation until a clear path opens up. The only things we can say with certainly is that January will be a very uncertain month for the Club.
Clubs like BBRD existing because of the support that we have as a wider community, not just the current active members. I would like to think that as the haze clears and we can see a clearer path forwards, that we will be able to count on your support as we attempt to lobby the University, or help us to look for a new home where we can once again support all our disciplines under one roof.
We have survived as a Club through a number of challenges over the years, and I am certain that we have the capacity to do so again this time. Our strength is always our members and wider circle of friends, motivated by the desire to provide the opportunity for people to access high quality training in a wide variety of disciplines, to find what suits them best and enjoy the many benefits of training in the martial arts.
As always, I will look forward to seeing you in the dojo, whenever and wherever that might be next.