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Welcome back for another season of traditional karate training. Karate BC endeavours to meet the needs of each of its member clubs and in order to do that we need to have regular, two-way communication with clubs and members. We send out printed newsletters and electronic newsletters to keep you up-to-date on what is happening in the clubs around the province, how members have excelled in their karate training, some very inspiring personal stories, as well as what is happening on the national karate scene. We hope that these vehicles meet your needs but we also realize that communication needs to be more than just newsletters. To that end, our new Executive Director, Bob Tuss, is making the effort to get around to the zones in the province in the coming months to meet you face-to-face and hear what karate is like in your zone, how you see Karate BC impacting you, where you would like to see the relationship with your provincial organization evolve, and any other messages you feel are important to you. Bob will be on Vancouver Island October third, and in the Okanagan on the 18th, for just such a meeting and he is more than willing to hear from you when would be a good time to meet with you and your zone. Give him a call. Karate BC has embraced the “Zone” concept in order to make our Provincial Championships the highlight tournament in our province, to foster pride in your region (zone), to help develop coaches, administrators and officials at the zone level by providing more opportunities to practice these skills. I would like to share with you how one zone (zone 6) has taken up this challenge to perhaps serve as a bit of a model for other zones if they feel it may work in their area. Zone 6 has a Board of Directors who meet generally twice during the season. I have had the pleasure of being President of this group and can tell you that no one person has to do it all: we have people willing to share the load and it benefits us all. Beside myself on the Board we have Harvey Robinson (VP), Charles LaVertu (Secretary), Loretta Schwab (Director), Pam Ross (Director), Fernando Correia (God and BC Games Coordinator). We have a coaching staff that currently consists of Roy Tippenhauer, Pam Ross and Kraig Devlin. They will be planning training sessions every 5 weeks or so up to the Provincial championships. We regularly have between 50 and 60 trainees that range in skill level from novice to national champion. Last season we had one “Super Sunday” when we also included a referees/scorekeepers course. We did this to help streamline the number of weekends people felt were given over to karate so on this one day Roy and his crew worked with athletes of various levels (some only trained half-day, others full-day) while Fernando and Loretta ran a scorekeepers clinic for those parents who drove their children to the training session. It worked very well and we trained over half of the scorekeepers we needed for our zone playoffs at the same time. The revenues generated by these training sessions not only cover the cost of the gym rental, some training equipment, as well as expenses for coaches, we also are able to pay an honorarium to the coaches as a token THANK YOU for sharing both their expertise and time with Zone 6 athletes. In addition to the above, we have a surplus each year and we have decided to financially recognize those athletes who have made it on to the BC Team and on to the National Team. Our Board recognizes the tremendous costs both in time and financial resources to those individuals and families who devote themselves to the pursuit of excellence. By cooperating, dojos on Vancouver Island give those individuals interested in pursuing sport karate extra training needed to do well provincially. By cooperating, instructors share knowledge and skills for the betterment of athletes and the dojo. And finally, by cooperating we build a sense of community – called Vancouver Island Karate Society. Perhaps such a model may work for you in your community. Dan Wallis |
