On Saturday at our Whitehaven dojo, we presented our 2018 Student of the Year awards to a packed hall of fellow members, parents, friends and supporters. It is with great pleasure to announce that the junior award was given to Euan Renkin-Chare (3rd Kyu) and the senior award to Elaine Ashford (1st Kyu). 

Our Student of the Year Award has been running since our group began back in 2004 and is considered both a special honour and great achievement.  It is presented to karate students who have shown outstanding qualities and whose commitment, dedication and selflessness act as an inspiration to all other members.

What makes our student of the year award so special is that the final decision is influenced by every member of the group.  Each year, a poll is conducted, along with suitability assessments and a dedicated meeting with instructors at our various clubs. Using this information as a guide, our Chief Instructor makes the final decision. 

CHARITY DONATION
As part of our awards poll, we also asked members to select a local and national charity close to their hearts. The selections are compiled and placed into a box for one of each to be chosen at random by our new winners.  The two charities will receive a sizeable donation from our Community Fund.

​The charities chosen this year were:

• Siiboo (supporting nursery education in the former British colony The Gambia)
• Amnesty International (supporting humanity and human rights)

More information about these charity donations will be released in a future news piece. 

On behalf of everyone in the group, we would like to take this opportunity to congratulate both Elaine and Euan on achieving our 2018 Student of the Year Award and their lifelong induction into our our dojo Hall of Fame. We'd also like to thank everyone who took time out of their day to take part in our awards presentation - your support is always very much appreciated.

Next year for our 15th Anniversary we'll be making some changes to our annual awards presentation and due to our membership growth in recent years, offering individual club accolades alongside Student of the Year. Keep your eyes peeled for these exciting developments!  

We were very proud to award eight grade promotions yesterday evening following assessment at our Cleator dojo. As usual, everyone worked exceptionally hard to prepare for the event and it was a pleasure to see that work paying off.

A special mention goes to 6-year old Reggie McGrady who was unsuccessful at his last grading, but has been single-minded every week since to improve. And what an improvement it was - he should be very proud of himself, as I'm sure his parents are!

Also, special congratulations goes out to Christine Coleman, who I'm sure won't mind us mentioning that even at 69-years young, she is still pushing boundaries and taking on new challenges - what an inspiration!

Both Reggie and Christine clearly show that the benefits of traditional karate training can be enjoyed by pretty much everyone and exemplify perfectly the strong ethos we share at our dojo.

Congratulations to you all and see you back in class again soon :-)