Keep your comments polite, on topic and succinct. Play nice and everyone benefits!.
Just a quick word of congratulations to Club member Cat and the team at her business, Excavation Equipment, for being recognised in the services category of the Australian Small Business Champions Award over the weekend.
Cat went down to Sydney this weekend on behalf of the business to collect the award. Well done, and we'll look forward to seeing you back at training this week!
Just a quick notification to say that in accordance with the Club's constitution, the Annual General Meeting was held on Saturday. Reports from the various Executive members, including the discipline and activity coordinators will be made available online shortly.
Elections for the Executive positions of President, Secretary, Treasurer and General Member reappointed Michael, Matt G, Sian and Brady to those respective positions.
On behalf of the renewed Executive, I would like to thank everyone's contributions over the past twelve months and look forward to an even more productive and enjoyable time in the twelve months ahead.
Just a quick reminder that this Thursday is Toowoomba Show holiday, and as a consequence, we will be taking a break from training that night.
Given that Tuesday will be the last training session in the month, can I ask that folk please bring an old t-shirt that they don't mind being bent out of shape as we will be going through some shime wasa that can be successfully applied without the aid of a heavy jacket.
Just a quick reminder this week that the Club's Taste Tester kicks off this Saturday at 2 pm with Jujutsu. We will be following that with the Club's AGM at 4 pm.
Just a few administrative matters are a result. First, could you please ensure that you have paid your 2017 dues no later than Friday, and either e-mail your completed membership form to enquiries@bbrd.org.au or hand them in to your discipline coordinator at training this week.
Second, the MEAC dojo clean will now start at 1 pm so that the Taste Testers can have a sanitary facility to train in.
Third, for this week, Jujutsu will be integrated as part of the Taste Tester, so if you are a regular class member, please come along and lend a hand.
Finally, make sure that you spread the word through your networks about this, as we would love to see as many new folk come and get a feel for what we all love to do!
Congratulations to Ittoshinkan Arnis 5th Dan and all round nice guy Dave Da Silva and his partner Jodie on the arrival of their first child on the 25th of March. Both Alera Mae and Jodie are reportedly doing well, and now begins the next chapter for them all!
It might be some time before we see Dave back up the hill to run a seminar, but I wanted to reiterate that we would always love to see him when available!
On behalf of the Club, I would like to pass on deepest condolences to the Tootle family for the passing of Clyde Tootel.
Clyde was father to Aaron, Ryan and Lauren, husband to Letitia, a long standing member of the Queensland Ambulence Service, having been OIC at the Crows Nest station for 25 years. Aaron and his wife Reina have both been long time members of the Toowoomba Kendo community, and Reina an Australian University Games champion, representing USQ in 2009.
Clyde had been battling from ill health for some time, but his death sudden and unexpected while away on a caravanning trip with Letitia and friends.
I will post more details regarding memorial services and other arrangements for those interested when they become available.
I'd like to offer my thanks to the stalwart crew that participated in this year's USQ Toowoomba celebration of Harmony Day. Thanks to Brady, Eric, Matt G and Sian for turning up, setting up, talking to the public and generally having a good time. In true Harmony Day spirit, the weather even cleared and held for the day! And for once I ended up on the winning side of the annual "tug of peace".
We even managed a few more expressions of interest in various Club activities.
The next major public even that the Club is scheduled to participate in will be the Toowoomba Languages and Cultures Festival in August, so we will wait with anticipation to again share our passions with the wider Toowoomba community!
In line with the requirements set out in the Club's constitution, we shall be holding the Annual General Meeting at 4pm on Saturday April 1 at the Mort Estate Activity Centre (MEAC) right after the conclusion of the first Taste Tester session for the year.
Could I ask that you please attend, as we need to ensure that we are quorate for important business such as confirming the Club's Executive, and receiving the official reports from the Club's office bearers.
To aid this, could you please ensure that you have paid your membership dues for the 2017 year, and that you have filled in a Membership application/renewal form for this year. Everyone must complete this form, which can be found at http://www.bbrd.org.au/s/BBRD-membership-form-Current-Feb-2017.pdf
Please hand in completed forms to your sensei at training or e-mail to enquiries@bbrd.org.au
If you are paying by direct bank transfer, please ensure that you include the reference "YOURNAME 2017 memb" so that we can more easily track these payments.
A separate e-mail will be going out later today with more details.
The 2017 Semester 1 Taste Tester series will commence on Saturday April 1 kicking off with Jujutsu. A full timetable of the weekend series will be e-mailed to everyone later this week, including a link for how to pay for the sessions you are interested in. Taste tester sessions will run from 2–4 pm and will cover a wide spread of activities supported by the Club. It will run through for the remainder of the USQ semester, barring the Easter long weekend where we will be hosting open seminars by Andrew Seyderhelm and Kurt Graham.
In signing up to the Taste Tester. Participants are also granted general Club membership, which they can convert to full participant membership at any stage.
If you are interested in a single session, the cost is $30; for two sessions it will be $50; for up to five sessions it will be $60; and for the whole series it will be $75.
Look for details in your e-mail in-box and on the BBRD Facebook page in the coming week!
I'm excited to provide more details regarding the Easter weekend seminars that the Club will be hosting.
First up will be a Systema seminar delivered by Andrew Seyderhelm on Easter Friday (14 April) on the theme of Slavic movement — how the particular movement patterns that are found within Systema approaches help to range, close the gap and engage with opponents. The seminar will run from 2.30–4.30 pm and will be open to all who are interested.
Andrew was a foundation member of BBRD and I have always found his seminars extremely valuable due to their careful planning, interesting conception and good physical challenge. Recently, Andrew has been training in Canberra with a System group that follows the Kadochnikov syllabus and aproachs, rather than the Vasilliev/Ryabko branch of Systema. He has said that it is much more closely aligned to the type of training he experienced in the early days of Systema in the West, and more applicable to real-world situations than the direction that some branches of the Systema family have moved towards.
The second seminar will be a two session event delivered by Kurt Graham, kyoshi 7DAN on the Saturday. The first session will be 9.30–11.00 am and will cover aspects in the new Arnis Escrima syllabus. The second session from 11.30 am–1.00 pm will focus on concepts in Japanese Jujutsu. Again, these sessions will both be open to the wider community and all are welcome.
Kurt sensei hardly needs introduction to the BBRD community. As one of the premier martial arts exponents in the world, his real-world approach and thorough experience in traditional Japanese bujutsu is rarely matched.
As an extra special event for current BBRD jujutsu practitioners, there will be a third session in the afternoon from 2.00-4.00 pm that will exclusively focus on Ittoshinkan Core bujutsu drills, and act as the first gasshuku for the ITSK organisation. We expect to have some of the ITSK's other senior instructors at the Saturday event, including Jason Griffiths sensei from Brisbane, and Mike Hendrikse sensei who will be travelling from New Zealand to attend.
Prices for the open parts of the weekend are:
BBRD Members: $30 per session or $60 for all three sessions
General Public: $40 per session or $90 for all three sessions
Lunch on Saturday will be an additional $5
For the Gasshuku, which I strongly recommend that all BBRD jujutsu practitioners attend, the session will be $15.
This represents exceptional value given I have seen seminars of similar caliber range into the hundreds of dollars to participate.
I look forward to seeing a full MEAC over the Easter weekend!
Keep your comments polite, on topic and succinct. Play nice and everyone benefits!.