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About Us

Club Committee

Every year at the end of January we hold our AGM, where we report on the finances of the club and also what has happened at the club during the previous calendar year.

After the AGM we hold our annual awards ceremony for the judoka, charting the successes of the year for them.

The committee members come up for re-election every year and our current committee are:

We welcome new members to the committee, so if you would like to give a few hours a month, please get in touch with any of the current officers.

History of Newent Judo Club

From 2009 to 2016 the club assisted Gloucestershire County Judo in the running of the Gloucestershire Junior Open competition which was held at the Newent Leisure Centre. This competition was a very successful event over the years, attracting players from across the country and having to turn some away because of over subscription. However because of lack of voluntary support from the other clubs in the county in running the event, it was decided to wait till new volunteers came forward to run it again.

On the 3rd of October 2008 the club was presented with a certificate for the Bronze Clubmark award. Densign White, BJA chairman and a 7th Dan who represented Great Britain on the World, European and Olympic stage coached the session for the evening, before formally presenting the club with their certificate. Della Campbell accepted the certificate on behalf of those who gave up their time to achieve Bronze status.

In 2011 the club successfully revalidated their Bronze Clubmark award for another 3 years. As it came up for renewal in 2014 the club committee decided that the Clubmark scheme was not right for the club and decided to not renew it.

The club was originally run by Newent Leisure Centre, Bryan Butler took over the coaching in 1991.

Newent Judo Club became an independent concern in 2000 when the committee was set up and applied for a Sport for all grant to obtain judo mats. The 120 square metres of mat arrived in October 2001.

The club is run by volunteers who are dedicated to ensure that the club is open to all and run to the highest standards. The Clubmark award was a formal recognition of this.

Newent Judo is a small friendly club with about 20-30 judo participants, which has five coaches; Bryan has coached since 1990, Elaine O'Connell a former GB junior judoka who joined in 1996 started coaching in 2004, Chris Giglio and Izzy Butler both did their qualifications in 2014, and Mike Woodham who gained his level 2 in 2021.

The club draws members from Newent, the Forest of Dean, Ledbury and Gloucester. The club has had some success on the competition front at local, area and national level. All players achieve success at gradings on a regular basis.