Basingstoke’s Shin Gi Tai Martial Arts Academy celebrated a double national success with the Mayor of Basingstoke and Deane, Cllr Dan Putty presenting a National Award to the Club. He was accompanied by Susan Parker and Amy Sambell from Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council and Heather Windust from Sport Hampshire and Isle of Wight. In addition Chris Doherty 6^th Dan The British Judo Association’s Regional Technical Officer was on hand, to present another award and to teach a Judo Masterclass.

Shin Gi Tai Martial Arts Academy is the only Sports Club in the Country to have been awarded two Clubmark Quality Accreditations firstly through the British Council for Chinese Martial Arts (Tai Chi and Kung Fu) and also through The British Judo Association (Judo.)

Clubmark is Sport England’s prestigious Quality Kitemark showing that a club provides consistently high quality sports provision to both adults and children. Clubs are tested and have verifiable standards across a number of different areas, but all fall under the four major headings of:-

• The playing programme
• Duty of care and welfare
• Knowing your club and it’s community and
• Club Management.

Sport England recognises and values the commitment made by sports clubs to develop high quality, welcoming environments for young participants. The development of clubs that encourage young people and adults to take-up sport, improve their talents, possibly play a leadership role and give them the option to initiate and maintain life-long participation in sport is an essential part of supporting the sporting infrastructure in England.

The Mayor of Basingstoke and Deane, Cllr Dan Putty said:

“I’m delighted that Shin Gi Tai Martial Arts Academy is the only club in the country to have achieved a double Clubmark award.  It demonstrates that the club is a safe, rewarding and fulfilling place for participants of all ages and I hope many more local residents will enjoy the opportunities on offer.  Congratulations to everyone involved.”

In order to gain these accreditations, Shin Gi Tai had had to be externally assessed and audited by people who came in, reviewed policies and procedures to make sure that they are safe, sensible to use and realistic. The external assessors also spoke with the coaches, members and parents  to ascertain their views on the club and what it does well and what it could improve. The roles of the assessor also encompassed challenging coaching lesson plans and actually watching a lesson in progress and asking questions of the coach post class. All of these things help the assessors to determine and ensure that the Club is consistently delivering high quality coaching with properly prepared and qualified coaches. Each awarding body has to complete it’s own assessment, so it was a busy process for the Basingstoke based Martial Arts club.

Chris Doherty 6^th Dan from the The British Judo Association (BJA) who came along to teach a Masterclass to club members commented

“The BJA regards Clubmark as the minimum standard that clubs should be striving to achieve in their operation of teaching high quality Judo as such it has integrated it into the BJA Club Recognition Scheme. Within Hampshire County there are only four clubs that are currently Clubmark accredited with Shin Gi Tai Martial Arts Academy becoming the fifth.

Shin Gi Tai Martial Arts is a relatively new club to the BJA  and has worked proactively to integrate itself within the BJA’s framework including ensuring that coaches are BJA qualified and that they attend necessary courses and events to help their learning process. In addition the club has worked hard with a Senior Examiner to raise their standards to ensure that all of their members meet the technical standards for their respective grades.

During the past year the club has worked in particular with Peter Beard, The BJA’s Service Manager for Hampshire, to review and test their procedures to ensure that they meet all and in many cases exceed the minimum standards necessary to achieve Clubmark accreditation. 

I’d like to congratulate Shin Gi Tai on achieving Clubmark and look forward to their continued growth and Judo development.”

Once the official presentations were over, Chris Doherty ran the Judo Masterclass for members of Shin Gi Tai. Participants in Judo, Karate and Kung Fu all trained together in the class. Chris ran through a number of different ways to hold ones opponent down and also how to escape from different holds in turn. This was a good lesson from an International level player and coach and one that all the participants learnt a lot from and were eager to go and practice their new skills.

It was announced that in conjunction with The British Judo Association and Sport Hampshire and Isle of Wight subsidising costs that to celebrate the clubs Clubmark success that they would be running a new adults beginners Judo course for 10 weeks at a cost of £25 including a new Judo uniform. For further information visit https://www.basingstokekarate.com/beginners-judo-course