Dokan Karate Club

Sunday the 20th of November found me hosting our association tournament with 187 people entered, which equated to about 500 entries. Four areas well ran and supervised by quality wukf official referees aided by Dokan volunteer judges and table staff. The set up and efficiency of the day is a credit to all those people who gave up their time to make it work. The feedback has been wonderful and virtually everyone enjoyed the day. A sincere thank you to my helpers, our Refs, and all the parents for supporting the event. 85 of my own Dokan club students setting the best of examples, done me and their parents proud . And let’s not forget my friend John Bearby photographer extraordinaire who a lot of these photos were taken by. Also thank you to Monika Baxter for making a superb video of the event.

The hours I put in to setting up a tournament far outweighs the financial benefits, there’s an easier way to make a penny as they say. But when you listen to the students all talking excitedly after the event and you see the multitudes of Facebook posts from proud parents then the whole thing becomes worthwhile. The whole club linked together to help this event flow, along with six external WUKF referees there were nine Dokan judges and ten table staff, four runners with trophies and medals etc and my wife and daughter on the door and shop. Setting up saw over twenty volunteers turn up to put the mats etc down, we worked as an efficient unit and finished the event by 3.30pm.

We raised approximately £1200 for the club funds and raised the moral and confidence of hundreds of students, many of whom were competing for the first time.