News for 2008

The party on the 19th was a great event, lots of games and things to eat and then Bryan did his annual Father Christmas impersonation and handed out loads of sweets and chocolate to everyone. Remember no judo over the christmas holidays, back fighting fit on the 9th January 2009.

Bryan having been shortlisted for the Active Gloucestershire 'Young Peoples Coach of the Year' award, was a runner up for the award on the night. Well Done Bryan, better luck next time.
Rhys attended the TOURNOI INTERNATIONAL DE HARNES (France) on the 7th December, this was a very popular competition with about 1000 participants from all over Europe, Rhys had 48 in his group alone. Elaine went along as coach and Andrew as support, unfortunately Rhys' first fight was against a brown belt who went all out against him and on losing this fight Rhys was out of the competition. Rhys was able to have a good view of the rest of the fights in his group and this gave him the opportunity to get to grips with how the judoka are fighting on the continent. Rhys will have learnt a lot from this outing to a very large competition, something we don't see very often in the UK.

The Gloucestershire team did very well at this competition, we had two Newent players taking part.

Gloucestershire got Gold in the 0-6th mon under 12 boys event.

Gloucestershire got Gold in the 7-18th mon 12-16 years girls event. Georgia Newton fought at -32kg in this group.

Gloucestershire got Silver in the 7-18th mon under 12 boys event.

Gloucestershire got Silver in the 7-18th mon 12-16 years boys event. Rhys Long fought at -42kg in this group.

Gloucestershire got Bronze in the 0-6th mon under 12 girls event.

If you go to the county training you too could be selected to take part in this event in the future.

Kameron Butler - 2nd Mon
Rebecca Norris - 1st Mon

If any club members are on facebook then add Newent judo club as a friend and you will be able to see a whole load of pictures from the Clubmark evening. I will try and load some on the website as well for those of you not on facebook.

Nominations for awards will be presented by Olympic swimmer and broadcaster Sharron Davies MBE, on Thursday 27th November at Cheltenham Racecourse. A tremendous number of nominations were received which reflects the dedication and great work of clubs, volunteers, coaches, officials and teachers across the County. A selection of representatives from sporting backgrounds around the county have now reviewed over 100 nominations and Bryan was one of those short listed.

Carrie Nicholls - Silver
Brodie Nicholls - Bronze
Reports from the competition:
About the judo competition, Carrie had 4 fights and got into the finals and then lost, won 3 lost 1. Brodie had 3 fights and got into the semi-finals and then lost, won 1 lost 2. Carrie came away with Silver and Brodie got bronze.
Brodie

Rhys had 3 fights altogether, in his pool he won 2 fights and then had to take part in a knockout, here he was beaten by the silver medalist and so did not progress any further in the competition.
Andrew

Tonight 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.
Some club history - Bryan Butler took over Newent Judo Club in 1991, since then the club has grown and prospered.
The club was originally run by Newent Leisure Centre and became an independent concern in 2000 when they 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 is a formal recognition of this.
Newent Judo is a small friendly club with about 30 judo participants, which has two coaches; Bryan has coached for 18 years and Elaine O'Connell a former junior judoka who joined in 1996, started coaching in 2004.
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.

Here is your chance to follow our top level players.

4 members of the club travelled to the training day at Bradley Stoke today and returned with medals in hand.
Luke Baker - Gold
Alexandra Parnell - Silver
Helena Parnell - Bronze
Rhys Long - Bronze

Medals from the Bradley Stoke training day - July 13th

Luke had an excellent day, beating off opposition that he had lost to previously. Dad, John was helping do the timings, but managed to take a few moments out to photograph Luke's excellent hold down.
It was Alexandra and Helena's first outing from the club, they were both a bit nervous but took up the challenge. Alexandra had a very close fight against the gold medallist and Helena's last fight was a brilliant fight, which she lost on the ref's decision. The girls parents, Mike and Katrina kept their cool helping with the timings while their girls fought.
Rhys, now quite a seasoned player at Bradley Stoke was pooled with some tough opposition. These fights will have given Rhys ideas of where he needs to improve his judo.

Well done to them all.

Three members of the club travelled to Cardiff for a competitive grading today, Brodie went up to 10th mon.

The West of England Open was held at Gloucester GL1 Leisure Centre today. We had 4 entries:
Bryan Butler entered -90kg mens.
Rhys Long entered -38kg 12-16 year old boys.
Carrie Nicholls entered -40Kg Under 12 year old girls.
Brodie Nicholls entered +40kg Under 12 year old girls.
Bryan was first to fight, his first fight was long and drawn out with points going up to both players, eventually with only seconds left on the clock the combatants were locked in a strength battle, who would be the first to crumble? sadly Bryan lost the battle. His second fight took its time again but to a roar from the local crowd he scored a lovely ippon. Now he was through to the semi-final, his opponent looked strong in his initial fights and so he was against Bryan who lost and had to settle for bronze.
Next to fight was Carrie, she put up a good fight against both her opponents and came away with a bronze as well.
Brodie closely followed her sister onto the mat. She had a tough group a round-robin of 5 players. She fought hard but did not take a medal this time.
Lastly after a long wait Rhys took to the mat. Like Brodie he had players from all over the country in his group, which was quite big so he was in a knockout. After a first round bye, his next fight was tough and he lost it, putting him into the repachage. This was the fight for the bronze medal, another tough fight, as were all the fights of the Western area players in this group as none of them managed to grab any medals.
All in all a very tiring weekend, the mats have had their annual outing to Gloucester and are now back home in Newent, Thanks to Bryan, Izzy, Chris G, Elaine, Gary, Lorraine, Graham(Leisure Centre manager) and the others from the Forest Clubs who gave their time this weekend to sort the mats out.
See the pictures on the Gallery

Della received the certificate today. We are hoping to get someone special to come to the club to present the award to us. Watch this space!

Many thanks to Della and her helpers for the work they have done to help us achieve this award.

Three members of the club travelled to Cardiff for a competitive grading today and they all did very well.
Luke Baldwin - 7th Mon
Brodie Nicholls - 9th Mon
Carrie Nicholls - 10th Mon

4 members of the club travelled to the training day at Bradley Stoke today and returned with medals in hand.
Kameron Butler - Silver
Brodie Nicholls - Silver
Luke Baker - Bronze
Charlie Collard - Bronze

Kameron fought really well winning two of his fights with Wazari. Brodie fought solidly as usual, the promise of gold is not far off. Luke missed out on a fight-off for the gold after being a wazari up in one of his fights, but was Ipponed in the dying seconds. It was Charlie's first outing at a competition after only about 6 lessons and although he needed the first two fights to get his head around the situation he fought well in the last two fights.

Kameron Butler - 1st Mon
Paige Fletcher - 1st Mon
Daniel Norris - 1st Mon
Peter Roberts - 1st Mon
Luke Baker - 2nd Mon
Alexandra Parnell - 4th Mon
Helena Parnell - 4th Mon
Damien James - 5th Mon
Evan Barber - 6th Mon

After many delays, weather finally allowing we finished off the Awards ceremonies on the 27th February.

Certificates of participation:
Harriet Campbell
Iain Campbell
Adam Collier
Aaron George
Daniel Norris
Joshua Osborn
Guy Osborn
Issy Prickett
Peter Roberts

Certificates of achievement:
Luke Baker : Gained his 1st mon and the following medal at BSJC Nov training day = bronze.
Luke Baldwin : Gained his 6th mon and the following medals: BSJC Feb training = bronze, BSJC Jun training = bronze, with good attendance.
Evan Barber : Gained his 5th mon and the following medals: BSJC Feb training = silver, BSJC Nov training = silver, with good attendance.
Izzy Butler : gained medals at BSJC Jun training = bronze, West of England u48kg = bronze, BSJC Nov training = silver.
Kameron Butler : gained medals at BSJC Jun training = bronze, BSJC Nov training = silver.
Paige Fletcher : gained medals at BSJC Feb training = Gold, BSJC Nov training = silver.
Damien James : Gained his 4th mon and the following medals: BSJC Jun training = gold.
Rhys Long : Gained his 9th mon and the following medals: BSJC Feb training = bronze, BSJC Jun training = silver, BSJC Nov training = silver, West of England teams = bronze, with good attendance.
Georgia Newton : Gained her 8th mon and the following medal: BSJC Jun training = bronze, with good attendance.
Lawrence Newton : Gained his 13th mon and the following medals: BSJC Jun training = gold, West of England teams = bronze, with good attendance.
Brodie Nicholls : Gained her 8th mon and the following medals: BSJC Feb training = bronze, BSJC Jun training = bronze, BSJC Nov training = silver.
Carrie Nicholls : Gained her 8th mon and the following medals: BSJC Feb training = silver, BSJC Jun training = gold, BSJC Nov training = silver.
Alexandra Parnell : Gained her 3rd mon.
Helena Parnell : Gained her 3rd mon.
Kristian Williams : Gained his 6th mon.

Attendance:
Damien James : First 41/48
Brodie Nicholls : Second 38/48
Carrie Nicholls : Third 37/48
Charlie Collard : Excellent attendance (100%) since starting in November.

Trophies:

Most improved boy : Damien James

Most improved girl : Brodie Nicholls

Coach player of the year : Rhys Long

Club player of the year : Lawrence Newton

Well done to them all.