Once again, the Club has made an incredibly good showing at the Uni Games. With these weekends, I always measure success against three criteria — first, whether Club members go above an beyond in service to ensure that the weekend goes smoothly for both competitors and volunteers. Second, that everyone who participates from the Club has both a fun and a valuable time. Third, that we have a modicum of success in the field of competition.
On all measures we did incredibly well. We were highly commended by a number of people, including Kendo Competition Manager Dave Fitzgibbon on the role we played to ensure that the event ran smoothly. We had tremendous fun both Friday and Saturday night at the shared accomodation (with Isaacs Sensei in great form as usual), and goodwill keiko gave us a fantastic opportunity to receive feedback from the out-of-state senior sensei. And both USQ competitors did amazingly well, with Jack Baker winning Bronze in the under 73Kg Judo competition, and Kateena Martin in her very first National event winning one of her pool matches with two decisive Men cuts. So under the terms of the incentive agreement, there are three cherry ripes heading her way!
A weekend like this always leaves us looking forward to next year, next time. We shall certainly see if we can build numbers of competitors for the next event, and continue to do what we love.