Second call: Expression of Interest for Harassment Contact Officer

I want to put in a second call out for anyone interested in filling the role as the Club’s Harassment Contact Officer.

This is an important role to fill in the Club as it is central to our ability to provide duty of care to members in circumstances where our ordinary procedures unfortunately fail us.

You do not require any special experience or training, as this will be provided to you. You just need to be the type of person that others are comfortable enough to approach if they have a serious concern about behaviour or other issues that they feel uncomfortable about.

Please consider if you might be able to do this. It is a job with a very small workload that is incredibly important for us to ensure that every member is properly protected, and can trust that there is an independent process where their concerns will be heard.

Please e-mail me directly at michael.baczynski@bbrd.org.au, or call and have a chat on 04 1144 2081

Update of member details for reaffiliation

Just once last quick call for everyone to let us know your USQ Student ID (whether you are a current student or an alumni) or your USQ Staff ID number.

Most of you have done so, which is great, but if you have not yet, can you please do this by Close of Business today so that we can square this away with USQ Student Life.

Thanks in advance!

Iaido Update

This week’s drop in temperature has not deterred some of our clubs most dedicated members, many of us braving the cold on Saturday afternoon to participate in a virtual dojo session of both Kendo Suburi and Iaido. Having our classes online has provided an opportunity to those members who have moved away as well as friends in the broader community to join our classes. This has meant that we have seen a very welcome spike in numbers and it has been wonderful to see so many faces on-screen. Both familiar and new to the club.

Adapting to this new style of training has come with its challenges, whether it be from uncooperative technology, finding space in our own homes and yards to safely swing a sword (and convincing those who share that space to let us do so), poor internet connections or less than ideal weather. Despite this there has been an amazing effort from everyone to continue to show up.

It was a pleasure to have Tom Johnson Sensei also join our session to offer much valued and appreciated feedback. I look forward to once again having the opportunity to travel down to the Pine Mountain Dojo to train with him once the restrictions allow us to do so.

Thank you to everyone who have been signing on and contributing to the classes, great effort everyone and hope to see you next week!

Change to Saturday Kendo and Iaido online sessions

In acknowledgement that we are rapidly heading towards the winter solstice, from this week we will be starting online classes for both Kendo suburi and Iaido a little earlier.

Kick off times for Kendo will now be 3.00 pm and Iaido at 3.30 pm, so that for the majority of us who are training outside, we do not run out of light by the end of the session. I shall update the Club’s COVID-19 page to reflect this later today.

With COVID-19 restrictions slowly easing, we may look to take a trip down the hill to train with Tom sensei when we can, so keep an eye open for that!

COVID-19 update

With government updates each Friday, I thought it important to provide an update regarding what this means for the Club.

Although restrictions are steadily being eased, we are still some time away from reopening classes at BBRD. While some other martial arts Clubs are returning as of this week to limited and socially distanced training, our best advice is still that for the majority of our Club’s activities, we are unlikely to be able to get back to training till July.

There will be some exceptions to this, and at yesterdays Executive meeting, we discussed a return to Taiko in the coming weeks. Additionally, advice from the Australian Iaido and Jodo boards have suggested that a return to training is possible, which may make a trip to Pine Mountain to tracing with Tom sensei feasible. I will provide another update next week as our plans for the return become more firm.

Stay well, everyone, and in the interim I hope to continue seeing you in the online classes!

Re-affiliation time

USQ Student life has changed its Club’s re-affiliation processes this year so we are needing to have all of the associated paperwork in with them by the end of June.

One of the things we have been asked to provide is a full breakdown of the Club’s membership into USQ Students, Alumni, USQ Staff, and general community members.

Over the next week we will be updating the membership details to reflect this and we will be asking if you could forward our relevant student/staff number (especially as an alumnus) so that we can provide that information. All current financial members will be receiving an e-mail from Grant V in his role as Treasurer to check if the details we have for you are currently correct, and to provide an update where they are not.

Thanks for your cooperation with this, and we shall look forward to our continued relationship and support from Student Life.

Looking for a harassment contact officer

One of the things that we discussed at the Executive meeting yesterday was jobs allocations/portfolio responsibilities for everyone on the Exec. Among the things we discussed was the role of a harassment contact officer, which Sian C has been filling for much of the Club’s existence, and wishes to step down to take a well deserved break from.

The Club had always been an inclusive organisation, and we take seriously our commitment to ensuring that it is a safe place for folk to train in and be part of the wider social community of. I would be great to think that everyone who is a signed up member or supporter would actively work to create it this. Unfortunately, over the years, there have been a few less than stellar moments where the Club’s executive have had to deal with the consequences of people behaving badly.

The harassment contact officer (HCO) is a first point of call for anyone who has an issue with the way that they have been treated by another Club member. This might be a fellow student in a class, and Instructor, or an Executive member. The Club falls under the ambit of USQs framework regarding harassment and bullying, and as such the HCO can help to navigate that process.

We are looking for someone to step into that role. You do not need to have any prior background or training as this will be provided to you. You just need to be someone that others trust sufficiently to come to regarding sensitive matters, and have a capacity to be empathetic, discrete, process focused, and fair minded. We are specifically looking for someone outside the existing Executive to provide sufficient distance from the group of elected executives/instructors/coordinators, so that the processes, should it involve one of these members, can be seen as being appropriately distanced from them.

If you think that you could do this very important job, could you please send an expression of interest to me as President ASAP, and we would like to ensure that this role is being filled.

Timeline for lifting of COVID-19 restrictions

I hope that everyone had a lovely weekend, and for those that were able, yesterday’s celebration for Mother’s Day was made a little easier with the relaxation of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.

With the Federal and State government announcements on Friday, we now have a road map for the easing of restrictions. In approximately four week increments, all going well, we ought to be returning to something more approximating normal over the next few months.

Of course, these developments do bend our attentions to when we as a Club may be able to return to our usual training. The relevant category for our activities is community sport, with a sub category of non-contact or contact. The Australian Institute of Sports has put out parallel guidelines based around Olympic sports to set out what type of training can be done in those sports at each of the three staged outlined. While the current spread of disciplines we support does not strictly match the AIS list, there are sufficient overlaps to guide us regarding what we can do.

Specifically, any discipline that involves bodily contact, including Jujutsu, Kendo and Systema cannot be back to usual programming until we hit Stage 3 of the roadmap. This places us into July at the earliest before we can go back to regular training in those spaces. Taiko, Iaido, FlexiFit, and (possibly) ZKR Jodo could technically return to regular training in Stage 2 (mid June), but we have to be mindful of potential hiccups to that timeline if there is a further spike in cases over coming weeks as restrictions recede.

We will be discussing our return to training plans at this weekend’s Executive meeting, and will be able to flesh out our planned return more fully in next week’s Budo Bulletin. Personally, I am still keen to offer online participation in some of our key disciplines via a “virtual dojo” set up once we go back fully. It had been great to see old friends return regularly to classes, and I certainly want to be able to continue that.

Have a great week everyone. Hope to see you over the video link in our various sessions and I’m eager for each step we take closer to restarting our classes.

New feature for members

It is nice to kick off this week with a slow start this morning on this Labour Day holiday rather than participate in my usual 8 am lecture time slot. We seemed to have missed the frost this morning in Toowoomba, but I’m sure that as the weeks progress we will be relishing the change of season.

It has been great to continue to see new faces in the online classes, even though our outdoor Saturday afternoons are becoming a little colder and darker for Kendo and iaido. We will be using our SMS and Facebook Chat channels to keep you up to date with our Zoom log-ins and other matters relevant to a particular class.

This week I am hoping to roll out to current financial members a new(ish) feature of our Martialytics database. For each of the disciplines I teach, I will be uploading content for people to view, including curriculum documents, short “how to” videos, and other content of interest.

You should be receiving an e-mail later this week (most likely by Wednesday) to invite you to access that content. If you haven’t seen it by Thursday, could you check your spam folder (just in case), and if not there contact me directly. It will mean that either our e-mail record for you is incorrect, or you are not entered into the database correctly.

We are also planning an Executive meeting this weekend, so if you have any questions, comments, or concerns about your training or the Club, please feed them through to the relevant discipline coordinator and/or instructor.

Have a great week everyone, and Ill look forward to seeing you over the camera, or in our various social media channels!

Online classes in full swing

It has been great to see people take up the opportunity to participate in the various online classes that the Club is offering.

We would like to extend the invitation to all Club members, friends and the wider community to participate in these sessions. For existing members, you can purchase a “10-pack” of classes for $20 either via the Club website or direct debit into the Club’s bank account. For people new to the Club, you can pay your basic Club membership ($15 for USQ Students or full time students from any institution, $20 for general community members) you will get 5 free sessions. After those sessions, you will be expected to pay the balance of your discipline/insurance dues and a “10 pack” to continue training. And for people not wishing to join the Club (yet) you can purchase a 10-pack for $35.

We are running all of our sessions via Zoom, and our current timetable is:

• Monday: Jujutsu 6.00 – 6.50 pm

• Tuesday: Systema 7.00–8.00 pm

• Thursday: Jujutsu 6.00 – 6.50 pm

• Saturday: Systema 11.00am–12.00 pm
  Kendo Suburi 3.15–4.00pm
  Iaido 4.00–5.00 pm

• Sunday: FlexiFit 5.30–6.30 pm

Depending on interest and availability we will also be looking to add Jodo kihon tandoku dosa, and Arnis cane twirling into the weekly schedule.

In order to participate, you will need to ensure that you have sufficient safe space to train in, and, for the QKR trio, serviceable equipment. For those new to kendo, iaido, or jodo, you will be able to loan either a shinai, a bokken and obi or a jo by putting down a deposit of $30 on each item you are loaning.

If you would like to participate, please do not hesitate to contact the relevant instructor or discipline coordinator:

Systema: Michael Conroy

Jujutsu: Michael Baczynski or Brady Albrand

Kendo: Michael Baczynski or Sean Thompson

Iaido: Michael Baczynski or Tracy Campbell

FlexiFit, Arnis or Jodo: Michael Baczynski

They will also then put you on the e-mail distribution list and provide you with the Zoom link and passwords necessary to get into the classes.

I hope to see you over the camera soon!