Samurai Judo Club's 2012 London Olympics hopeful Kate Walker has been voted the Kidderminster Shuttle Sports Personality of 2008.

for the full report please click below:
http://www.kidderminstershuttle.co.uk/sport/4020626.Walker_wins_Sports_Personality/

The plans have been drawn up for the new dojo the club is planning to build on a site that belongs to a social club. Outline planning permission has already bean granted (see news story below), further details will follow on the project as it develops.

Samurai Judo Club Premises Project

Amanda Curley who passed her Area Refereeing Award on the 10th February fast tracked her way to National 'C' status within one year. At the Heart of England Championships 2008 at the National Indoor Arena, Birmingham, under the watchful eyes of assessors from the National Refereeing Commission, including the examinations co-ordinator, passed her theory and practical examination for the National 'C' Refereeing Award.

We need your VOTE!
Kate Walker from Samurai JC, Kidderminster has been nominated for Kidderminster Shuttle Sports Personality for 2008.
She is up against:
Claire Cashmore - Paralympic Bronze Medallist - Swimming
Drew Neal - Double European Medallist - Kickboxing
Tony Brown - Five Times World Champion - Powerlifting
Ashley Breese - Got on to the British Children's Squad - Alpine Skiing

The link to follow to vote for Kate is below:
http://www.kidderminstershuttle.co.uk/sport/ballots/

Sarah Newbury, Chair of Samurai Judo Club, was assessed as she ran the 2008 British Championships on 11th & 12th October 2008 at iceSheffield.
The event flowed flawlessly and Sarah was appropriately given a high standard mark and positive feedback and ultimately awarded the highest grade that technical officials can be awarded; the Competition Controller Award.

A committee of Wyre Forest District Planning Councillors unanimously granted outline planning permission for Samurai's proposed new premises. The new site, situated 1.5 miles away from the current premises is located adjacent to the Gilt Edge Social Club and Leisure Centre. This site has adequate space for a large 2 olympic mat sized venue with full safety recommendations, 2 mezzanine viewing galleries and hundreds of car park spaces.
Plans are currently being drawn up in order to apply for full planning permission, as soon as we have them we will publish them.

2 Samurai Officials grabbed the BJA Officials of the Year 2008 Awards at the BJA Volunteer and Elite Player Awards Ceremony on 21st September 2008.
Sarah Newbury & Stefan Newbury were awarded the BJA Official of the Year and the BJA Young Official of the Year Awards presented at the Awards Dinner at the GB Judo World Cup for Women 2008 at the National Indoor Arena, Birmingham.
At samurai we are extremely proud of the quality of officials we recruit, if you are interested in becoming a competition official get in touch with us (samuraijudoclub@yahoo.co.uk) or Simon Buttery, BJA Volunteer Manager.

Sue Hancocks who trains alongside and often with her two daughters, is the lead coach in a new session the Samurai are setting up for younger children, targeting ages from 6 to 8. “We wanted a session that would cater specifically for the needs of those ages, rather than just dumping them in with the mainstream beginner group,” explained Sue. “We’re planning a course that will be more suited to their age, so that in the long term they’ll become better players and also get more out of it in the short term. It’s my first time as a lead coach for a session, but the club’s chief coach is helping me plan it all and we’re looking at movement, balance, spatial awareness and co-ordination work from other sports to supplement the judo. My third and youngest daughter, aged 6, is raring to start and we’ve got quite a few other youngsters interested.”

The session will run on Thursdays from 6.20 p.m. to 7.20 p.m. at the Samurai dojo in Lisle Avenue , starting on August 14th. For details or any other information about the Samurai club and its activities, telephone 0776 1122977


Sue (Left) with 2 daughters Charis (Centre) and Milly (Right)

Our strong refereeing team just keeps growing!
So far in 2008 we have had 4 new additions to the senior refereeing ranks at 4 different events.

The first on the 3rd February at the Midlands Under 20 Open, Katherine Lloyd Jones transferred from Junior Grade 3 to Senior Area with excellent marks.
The second on the 10th February at the Midlands Senior Grading, Amanda Curley - also club secretary - passed the practical assessment of the Area Referee Award.
The third on the 27th April at the Midland Area Kyu Grades Championships, one of the clubs Junior Coaches, Rachel Griffiths, passed her area exam.
The fourth on 21st June at the Cheshire Closed Championships, Mike Welch passed his area exam.
We are extremely proud of all of our refereeing team - anyone interested in refereeing should contact their area's director of referees.

Samurai Judo Club was awarded the Sports Club of the Year 2008 at this years Sports Awards ceremony for the 2 counties on the 6th March 2008.
Clubs were nominated from the 7 districts that make up Herefordshire & Worcestershire, and three clubs made it to the shortlist, having been shortlisted on 2 previous occasions, it was third time lucky.
The presentation was made at the Bank House Hotel, Bransford, Club Chairman Sarah Newbury accepted the award on behalf of the club.

Samurai Judo Club has been chosen as Wyre Forest Sports Club Of The Year for the THIRD YEAR RUNNING. Also Tom Walker Junior Sportsman Of The Year and Grant Jones Senior Sportsman Of The Year.
Kelly Edwards has also been nominated for Wyre Forest Sports Personality 2007, to vote online please follow the link below, voting ends 9th January 2008: Click here to vote for Kelly.

Kidderminster's Samurai Judo Club have scooped another award by becoming only the second judo club in Great Britain to gain Clubmark Gold.

The Clubmark awards are the government's kitemark for sports clubs. Although the criteria vary from sport, in judo the system is arranged into three levels, with bronze at the lowest level and gold at the top. In order to gain the awards, the club has to demonstrate outstanding qualities of leadership, coaching, administration, care of players including child welfare, activity in a variety of fields, offer varied and appropriate opportunities to all players, and have high quality facilities.

The Samurai were hoping to be the first judo club to take gold; but were pipped by Dartford Judo Club, which has full time staff and recently built new premises costing 4.3 million pounds. However, they were still pleased to be only the second club to gain the award.

Founded in 1979, the Samurai quickly became Worcestershire's premier judo club, a position they maintain to this day, and then became one of the top five or six out of the hundred clubs in the Midlands in terms of competition results, with numerous British champions and even world masters medalists. In many of the smaller martial arts and karate variations, a 'world medalist' is not too difficult to achieve where the world federation consists of only a small number of clubs, but in judo, which is unified throughout the world because of its inclusion in the Olympics, there are (for example) over a million players in France and Germany alone, and eight million in Japan, so the opposition is much stronger.

Talking of the Olympics, the Samurai have two players in pole position to go to London 2012, with Kate Walker and Kelly Edwards both top of the British rankings in their respective weight categories, and both having recently won golds at both the British Junior Trials and British Senior Trials.

However, in the less competitive areas of judo, the Samurai are seen as very possibly the best club in Britain . In competition organizing, they have three of the country's main events organizers in the Newbury family, who also wrote the computer system now being used at most of the country's top events, whilst club president Malcolm Limrick was for many years chair of the National Competitions Commission and chief coach Andrew Haffner is regarded by many as the country's top events expert. In refereeing, club coach Keith Merrick is one of only eight current international referees in Britain, and the club has the largest group of qualified adult referees of any club in the country; but their even bigger achievement here is their squad of junior referees, the envy of most clubs, with over a dozen high standard junior referees.

The Samurai's own competitions are very highly regarded and well attended. Their flagship event, the Bev Price Teams, was held recently and attracted players from China, Poland, Portugal, France, Italy and Australia as well as all over Britain. Even the smaller events they hold at their own premises often attract players from hundreds of miles away, as well as teams from Austria, New Zealand, Spain and South Africa in recent years.

Kata, the formal demonstration part of judo, is also something the club have a strong history of, with three former British Senior Kata Champions amongst their coaches and three British Junior Kata Champions as well. Currently their main kata stars are junior twins Rachel And Sally Moon, who took silver in two katas at this year's British Championships.

Another area the Clubmark assessors were impressed by is the club's structure of sessions. The juniors have separate sessions for beginners, less experienced players, more experienced players and ambitious competitors, whilst the older juniors and seniors also have separate sessions for beginners and advanced players. Usually the advanced senior session will have around a dozen black belts on the mat, evenly split between male and female, as well as another dozen players aiming for the same level.

Although they already have good facilities, the Samurai are hoping to build their own even more impressive premises in the next year or so, and are currently applying for planning permission. Not only will this enable them to extend their current 140-strong membership, it will also attract major competitions and squads into the area. Several of the British national judo squads have already expressed an interest in using the facility and it could also be used as a training base for some of the foreign teams competing in the 2012 Olympics.

The club also feels that it is very important to support the local community. In recent years alone they have raised thousands of pounds for Kemp Hospice, Blakebrook School , Good Hope Hospital , Macmillan Nurses, Rhydd Covert and a number of children's charities. Although they have put their charity activities on hold whilst they raise the money needed for their new premises, they still donated small sums to a number of local causes this year.

Young Samurai referee, Annabel Webb made the leap from Area to National 'C' Referee on Sunday 11th November 2007 at the North West Area Senior Grading, St Helens. Under the scrutiny of 2 Senior National Referees, Graham Bayley and Jean Knowles, Annabel passed both the theory and the practical elements to secure promotion and join the ranks of National 'C' Referees at the club.

Well done Annabel!

The club has donated £30, plus extra contributions from Malcolm Limrick, Simon Cooper and Andrew Haffner, to the fund for Danny Sanders' chair Kidderminster Shuttle or Plea for Danny
Of the £300 we raised at our last charity competition, we have now spent £280, as follows:

Owen Lowery Fund £100
Totty Family Appeal £30
Paul Meese Memorial Fund £120
Danny Saunders Chair Fund £30


We have £20 left, which we will hold until we see a suitable cause to donate to. Unfortunately, because our focus is currently on raising money for the new premises, we won't be able to top up the fund with another charity competition for a while, but we will get back to it eventually.


Sarah Newbury, Chair.

 

After being successful in the past three elections for Worcestershire County Coach, Andrew Haffner has now been appointed Worcestershire County Coach by the Midland Area Committee. Anyone interested in Worcestershire County Judo should visit the website here.

Samurai Chairman, Sarah Newbury, Provisional Competition Controller;has been selected as a member of the new National Technical Officials Commission.

Congratulations Sarah!

8 Samurai referees, under the instruction of Dave Stanley IJF A Paralympic Referee, qualify as Visually Impaired Judo Referees at the Midland Area VI Referees Course. The first course of its kind in the Midland Area was hosted by Samurai, the course which included interactive DVD presentations was thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended. The Samurai would like to extend its greatest thanks to Dave.

The Samurai attendees were: Carol Leverton, Stefan Newbury, Ben Newbury, Craig Wilkes, Amanda Curley-Floyd, Sally Moon, Rachel Moon and Charis Hancocks.

Chief Coach of Samurai Judo Club, Andrew Haffner, under the watchful eyes of the National Referee Assessors, was awarded the National 'B' Refereeing Award.
At the Kent International Senior Open on the 23rd & 24th June 2007 at the National Sports Centre, Crystal palace, Andrew aced the theory examination with 100% mark, and due to his excellent ability to appreciate the technical aspects of judo he gained an excellent mark in the practical examination.
The promotion was well worth the wait as a mere 26 years as a National 'C' Referee, the examination scores has earned Andrew his place amongst the top levels of national referees.

The British Judo Association has awarded Samurai Judo Club the Silver Clubmark Award.
As one of only 6 clubs in the UK and the first in the Midland Area to be awarded the Silver Award we are extremely pleased.
This prestigious award is given only to sports clubs who demonstrate excellence in a wide range of fields including: Duty of Care and Child Protection, Coaching and Competition, Sports Equity and Ethics and Club Management.

From Thursday 12th April to Saturday 14th April 2007 Samurai Judo Club played host to a squad of five New Zealand players on their tour of the UK.
The players took part in our Thursday Elite Squad training Session and took part in the Sasakawa Junior Open which was run by Samurai on Satudrday 14th, full results here.
The squad from Nippon Judo Schools in Auckland, New Zealand thoroughly enjoyed their visit, picking up 3 Golds, 1 Silver and 2 Bronzes. They also demonstrated the depth of their knowledge by demonstrating the Nage No Kata brilliantly with very little preparation; Samurai retaliated by two Senior Club Coaches and former British Kata Champions, Carol Leverton and Andrew Haffner, demonstrating the Katame No Kata.
The event was thoroughly enjoyed by all and we extend our warmest wishes to the club for the future.

On March 14th 2007 Samurai were represented twice at the 2007 sports awards for the two counties.
After being voted the Club of the Year in the Wyre Forest District Sports Awards, the club was then one of three clubs nominated for the Club of the Year Award out of all the districts in Herefordshire & Worcestershire.
Kate Walker was also one of three nominees for the Junior Female Sports Personality of the Year Award, after winning the award last year she was pipped to the post this year.

Unfortunately due to planning permission problems with the new premises, it has set our project back a whole year. All events hosted by Samurai Judo Club will be therefore in the current location for all of 2007. Unfortunately the situation is out of our control, thank you for bearing with us. Hopefully we will be in our new premises by 2008.

Thanks to all the entrants to Samurai Judo Club's annual Charity Tournament in July 2006 we were able to donate £100 to the Owen Lowery Fund.
Owen Lowery was a British judo champion and an Olympic hopeful. He was left totally paralysed after a judo benefit match at the age of 18 in the mid 80's. Owen is now 37 and in September his carer did a wingwalk (thats when you're strapped on top of a bi-plane while it performs stunts) and also did a tandem parachute jump trying to raise money for him so that he can buy a new computer. Owen is doing an M.A. at University in creative writing and could also do with a page turner, this piece of equipment would be a dream to Owen he doesn't get full time care and can only read his books when there is someone with him to turn the pages.
If you can donate anything to the Owen Lowery Fund please contact his carer,
Jayne Winstanley: maadfrytjayne@btinternet.com.
More information of Owen's story can be found here.

Samurai Judo Club has been chosen as the Wyre Forest District Sports Club of the Year for the Third time. After being chosen for this award in 2003 and 2005, we didn't apply in 2004!

Kate Walker has also been selected as the district's Junior Sportswoman of the year for the third consecutive year.

Samurai Judo Club is extremely pleased to announce that we have been awarded the Sport England Clubmark Award and the British Judo Association Bronze Club Award. This prestigious award is given only to sports clubs who demonstrate excellence in the following fields: Duty of Care and Child Protection, Coaching and Competition, Sports Equity and Ethics and Club Management.
Part of the club's development to achieve this award, a number of coach and volunteer education courses had to be attended, I would like to thank the following club members who attended these: Stuart Lane, Carol Leverton, Andrew Haffner, Sarah Newbury, Malcolm Limrick and Stefan Newbury.

Samurai Judo achieved yet another huge success on the refereeing front last weekend at the Junior & Senior British Closed Championships 2006 held at the English Institute of Sport - Sheffield. Carol Leverton who is also a Senior Coach at Samurai was assessed for her National 'A' Referee Award; under the scrutiny of the National Refereeing Commission, Carol achieved what was described by the commission as an 'outstanding' score for her practical assessment and a 100% score on her theory examination.
This now means that Samurai has at least 1 referee at every refereeing grade from IJF 'B' right down to Junior Grade 1 referees, a great achievement for any club. This also means that Carol is now the highest grade female referee the Midland Area has ever had.

Congratulations Carol!!

On November 19th at the Rod Lane Memorial Senior Kyu Grades Championships, Samurai Area Referee, Ben Newbury's refereeing was being assessed under the watchful eye of Neil Lawcock, IJF Referee and Member of the National Refereeing Commission. Ben passed the assessment and joins the ranks of the National 'C' Referees in the club. Annabel Webb also passed the assessment for her Area Referee Award, a new member of the growing Samurai refereeing team. It was very fitting indeed, the memorial event was for Rod Lane who died in November 2004 was a key referee at Samurai.

It is with pleasure that we announce the forthcoming opening of our new dojo at the end of February 2007.
Click here for more details.