A brief update from the JudoScotland Chair Marc Preston on activity in January.
Dear Members,
This year’s Scottish Open was held on 18-19 January at sportscotland’s National Centre in Largs. We enjoyed the largest participation in decades and introduced Adapted and Vision Impaired categories who brought an additional buzz to the weekend.. It was an excellent event and I especially liked the medal presentation room – I thought it was absolutely world class!
As with every event, we are going through a review process to identify any areas where we can make improvements.
Whilst we were there it was great to see Andrew Scoular, British Judo’s CEO as well as a couple of former British Judo Chairs – Kerrith Brown and Densign White – both world class judoka with too many honours/medals to mention. It was great catching up with old friends!
On a personal level, I was awarded my 7th Dan by Rick Kenney. I’d particularly like to thank everyone who took me through 2 years of Kata – too many of you to mention – but you know who you are thank you so much!
Also a big well done to John Watt for achieving his 7th Dan Qualification.
Special congratulations to Eddie Cassidy who was inducted into the JudoScotland Hall of Fame. During my time as Chair this was one of the most poignant and enjoyable experiences I can remember, awarding Eddie this special accolade, with his family in attendance to help him celebrate.
Later in the month I spent a full day down at the British Judo National Training Centre at Walsall. I used my time getting to know and understand all aspects of how the organisation operates. I was especially impressed by their world class training and sports facilities. Two aspects that particularly stood out were the specialist ‘pod’ that gives you all the benefits of training at high altitude. Also the facilities they have that are dedicated specifically for people coming back from major ACL injury. It’s incredible how things have moved on.
Overall, it was a very interesting, positive and productive day. I’m looking forward to working with our British Judo colleagues over the next couple of years, and making sure that both organisations are aligned going forward.
On 23rd January, Judith and myself joined a session led by sportscotland for Scottish Governing Body CEOs and Chairs. In his address, Forbes Dunlop, sportcotland CEO identified that there were expected to be financial challenges facing the sports sector in general moving forward. I will keep you updated of any further developments here.
Just in the last day or so, we heard that Loretta Cusack-Doyle has achieved the incredible award of 9th Dan. It was presented to her by Marius Vizer, IJF President, at the recent Paris Grand Slam Tournament. Loretta is the first female judoka in Britain to achieve this tremendous accolade. Very well done Loretta – and another great step up for Scottish judo!
I’m also delighted to announce that Peter Gardiner, 7th Dan, has been given a JudoScotland Lifetime Membership for his exceptional services to our sport – congratulations Peter!
And that’s about it! I’m looking forward to catching up with you all at the upcoming Scottish All Stars Championship at Ravenscraig next weekend!
Marc Preston
7th Dan