News and Notices

There are announcements for the dates of various courses on the SAUK events page.

There are few details at the moment, simply dates and locations, presumably acting as place holders for planned courses.

Ok, that's it. We're now closed for the Chrismas break and the next class will be on

Monday 9th January

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish a Merry Christmas to all our students, both past and present, as well friends of the Fudokai Aikido Dojo and to hope we all have a Happy (and prosperous) New Year.

Ok, so it's well before Christmas but, with losing the Owen Barnes room to the Blood Transfusion Service this week, I thought it a good idea to bring forward the club's traditional Christmas dinner.

At least by having a club dinner at this time means we're not competing with all the other clubs, work's dos etc. for tables so I had no problems booking a table at the Malaysian Delights in Norwich for a large group. The other advantage of the timing is that some of the club's members work in catering or other businesses which become extremely busy in the time leading up to Christmas and have great difficulty finding the time to get along to the meal.

I've just received an email to say that an old Aikido friend, Paul Mitton, has died recently.

At the moment I don't have full details except that he died from pancreatic cancer on the 9th of November I believe.

Paul was the founder and leading light of the Bath Aikido Society, known as "Furo Ryu Aikido" (which translates as Hot Bath Aikido - giving some insight into Paul's mischevious character).

Paul was a regular attender at the NAF Summer Schools in Warminster, living in his little VW camper van.

He was always fun to train with, indeed, Paul was definitely one of those who trained "with a joyful heart".

The class on Monday 31st October was swelled by a group of students visiting from the Fakenham club.

Phil, a student at Fakenham, has been working with us for some time but, like so many others at the moment, is having to belt tighten. The upshot is that, rather then come in his own transport every week he's coming once a fortnight with one or more fellow students from Fakenham in a car-sharing exercise.

Tonight we had 5 extra students visiting from Fakenham, including Robert, one of the intructors, outnumbering our local students.