NEWSLETTER 12th July 2001

Hi All

This last term has been a little quieter – everyone had put their heads down and gotten on with some hard practise and improvements have followed all round.

A lot has gone on behind the scenes though: Helena and I have felt that the time has been right to appoint some of the higher senior grades to the position of instructor: these people are Claire Wilkinson, Nick Wilkinson and Tony Pearce. Assistant instructors have also been appointed: Corey Crosland and Bashar Humadi. Assistant instructors have the same status as instructors, but without the responsibility of their own students.

The junior group has now been split into several subgroups, each with its own instructor. These instructors are now responsible for the planning and implementation of their own group sessions and each instructor is responsible for the awarding of merit badges within their junior group.

Helena and I will still take the whole junior group from time to time, just for the sake of change: but this way, it is hoped that each junior will get more quality personal attention.

Also, it is meant that we have, at last, felt that we have developed a means whereby we could re-introduce merit badges. Merit badges have worked very well for us in the past and we feel very sure that everyone will find them a useful way to get ready for their next grades.  

The badges will once again function as a pre-requisite for grades, the idea being that each instructor will inform Helena, or myself when a junior student has achieved all the badges that make them eligible to attempt the next grade.

Each badge costs $2 and parents will be invoiced for the badges achieved in the beginning of the next term. This will commence as from next term, and therefore, all badges achieve last term will not be charged for.  

At a national level, we, the Waikato region of Karate New Zealand have at last been successful in forming our own nationally recognised region. Previously, we have been part of the Auckland region.

Forming the new region means that all regional competitions will now be much more locally held and even though we are not a competition oriented style, I think that we could all have a lot of fun proving our superiority over other clubs J.

Robbie Smith is the chairman of our new region and he is stated that he is very keen to have much more of a free exchange of ideas and techniques at a non-competition level. This means that we can expect far more guest instructors and/or club visits – we will keep you all informed. Helena and I both welcome this development!

Also remember to keep checking out our web site. It is updated regularly and there is heaps of information that is of benefits to all students: www.bugeikan.com.

We have also gone into partnership with Planet Free NZ to provide all our members with Internet access. 40-hour access per month costs $12.00 and unlimited access costs $25.00 per month. This partnership means that all of our members can have a karate club e-mail address, eg: your.name@bugeikan.com.

I will have application forms available at each training session, or they will also shortly be posted at our web site. Please check out Planet’s web site to see all the different deals available: www.hnpl.net.

Congratulations go to the following participants of the club Kata Competition:

Orange belt and above:

• Gold – Kent Petersen

• Silver – Keegan Downey

• Bronze – Rhea Petersen

Yellow belt and below:

• Gold – Mark Strachan

• Silver – Emma Corban

• Bronze – Haylee Hutton

• Bronze – Terri Hutton