May 252017
 

With thanks to Clare Scott, Communications Consultant, CJS Communication & Marketing.

A long trip south proved more than worthwhile for a group of north-east wrestlers, with several among their number ascending all the way to the medallists’ podium.

Wrestlers from Oldmeldrum-based V Wrestling Academy won a number of medals at the recent English Junior Wrestling Championships at Thames Valley Athletic Centre in Eton.

11-year-old Colby Taylor struck gold in the 41k category. His fellow club members Leon Etko and Erin Mortimer added to V Wrestling’s medal haul taking silver and bronze in the 37k and 67k categories respectively.

There was further success for V Wrestling Academy in the Veterans’ Championships, which took place over the same weekend. Club member Keith Mortimer returned to Aberdeenshire with a silver medal in the 90k category.

Head coach Vio Etko accompanied the team along with his fellow coach Nicolae Cojocaru.

He said:

“This was a long trip to make for some of our younger wrestlers but they certainly rose to the occasion.

“As well as showing commitment and focus while competing, they all demonstrated great team spirit and camaraderie. The medals are the icing on the cake of a really great developmental experience.”

Leon Etko (12) repeated his silver medal success with a second placing in the 35k category of the recent International Tournament Calarasi Cup in Moldova.

Leon’s achievement in Moldova replicates that of his father and coach Vio Etko, who won the silver medal 25 years prior in the same event.

V Wrestling Academy is based at ETKO Sports Academy in Oldmeldrum. Head coach Vio Etko is a seven-time British wrestling champion and the current Commonwealth Games bronze medal holder. He is also a former winner of Aberdeenshire Sport Council’s Coach of the Year award.

Further information on V Wrestling Academy’s coaching programmes is available by calling ETKO Sports Academy on 01651 873876.

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Nov 122015
 

NKF 2015 (2)By Charlie Abel.

The National Karate Federation, Kumite Championships for 2015, held in Aberdeen at Cults Academy, were a great success.
The club had been preparing hard for the event that inspired over 200 people from both Shotokan and Wado to take part.

We were very lucky to have Lady Bruce in attendance as a special guest and she was very pleased to be given the honour of presenting the medals and trophies to the winners.

The day before the competition a referee seminar was held, instructed by Chris Davidson, our own WKC referee and chaired by Ronnie Watt.

Senior members of the NKF squad and executive committee took part and became fully qualified NKF officials for NKF competitions. The club would like to thank them for their hard work and for their assistance in running the competition so efficiently on the following day.

Back on the day when they first entered Ronnie’s dojo, many of the competitors never imagined they’d become karate champions.

NKF 2015 (4)The years of hard training have began to pay off, transforming some of the most unlikely people into confident athletes who have now began to realise the benefit of years of hard training. Karate never fails to inspire those of a certain character and will surprise the humblest of people.

Our Aberdeen club is very proud to have run such a successful tournament off it’s own back with no funding other than the entry fee which helped cover the cost of medals and trophies and hall hire.

This success is, yet again, testament to the hard work put in by the members under the expert eye of Ronnie Watt (8th Dan) OBE ORS who would like to thank the NKF members for their continued dedication to training real karate.

Here are the results:

Men’s Kumite

1st John McInnes
2nd Thomas Phillip
3rd Allrezar Bashar
3rd Craig Russell

Women’s Kumite

1st Chloe Calder
2nd Angela Mcintyre
3rd Carole Kelman
3rd Vivienne Grant

Boys 14-17 Kumite

1st Greg Brimmner
2nd Alasdair Russell
3rd Awi MacDonald

Girls 14-17 Kumite

1st Chelsea Stott
2nd Jack A Lynn Walker
3rd Shannon Morrison

Boys 10-13 Brown/Black

1st Benedict Bruce
2nd Ben Porter
3rd Naman
3rd Andrew Bonner

Girls 10-13 Brown/Black

1st Leah Provan
2nd Leila Adair
3rd Ellie Douglas
3rd Stephanie Ross

Boys 10-13 Kyu

1st Jack Mitchell
2nd Ryan Dreczkowski
3rd Lewis Mcintyre
3rd Nicholas Heny

Girls 10-13 Kyu

1st Megan Hunter
2nd Maggie Pirie
3rd Lauren Lesley

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Nov 102015
 

Ronnie Watt and Alain Verbeek By Charlie Abel.

Ronnie Watt’s National Karate Federation have returned from Berk, France where an international open competition was held on the 25th of October 2015.
The competition was hosted by French instructor Alain Verbeek (6th Dan).
Alain’s club trains in the doctrines of Alain’s late instructor, Taiji Kase (9th Dan). Kase is a widely respected Japanese Karate legend.

Our Aberdeen based NKF team did exceptionally well during the competition returning with 4 international medals against some stiff competition which included 1 Gold and 3 Silver – Nissara Kirk taking the Gold and 2 Bronze, and John McInnes taking a Silver.

There were 150 competitors in all so Ronnie and his squad can hold their heads high.

A special training course was held the day before the competition. Participants in the course enjoyed 6 hours of karate training the day before the competition from 4 different karate masters. Participants travelled from around Europe to reach Berck for this rare opportunity with competitors from Germany, Austria, Scotland, France and many from Brittany.

KarateFranceShihan Ronnie Watt (8th Dan) from Aberdeen focused on speed technique to score points in kumite. Sensei Alain Verbeek  (6th dan) demonstrated Kase-ha sparring tactics, using various knife hand attacks in response to an attacker. Sensei Christian Le Romancer (Brittany) demonstrated bunkai and emphasised the importance of Kime (power, focus).

Sensei Dieter Langer (3rd Dan) from Germany demonstrated the structures behind the kata and the importance of form over strength.

Also present was the wife and daughter of Taiji Kase. They will soon publish a much anticipated book detailing the life and legend that was Taiji Kase. Kase was also a frequent visitor to Aberdeen and a close friend of Ronnie Watt.

Alain Verbeek has studied Karate for over 45 years and in this time Ronnie and Alain have become great friends.

At the end of the festival and competition Alain was surprised to receive a Samurai SHOGUN award for his service to karate and promotion of friendship between Scotland and France. The award was given after the closing ceremony of the competition in front of many guests and VIP’s including Chieko Kase (wife) and Sachiko Kase (daughter), the Mayor of Berk and the ambassador of Japan in France, Yoichi Suzuki.

The Auld Alliance is still strong. The NKF would like to thank the French families that hosted the NKF squad and for showing them such great hospitality.

warshell

After the tournament Ronnie and his NKF squad were invited to the Berck town hall to be treated to a special civic reception hosted by the Mayor of Berck, a senior MP and other VIPs from the area.

Ronnie was presented with a medal by the Mayor of Berk for promoting friendship and culture between France and Scotland through Karate.

Ronnie was also presented with a very special gift, from the people of Inverness, France.

This was an unexploded world war one shell (pictured right), encased in a special hand made box.

It had been fired into the area where the Scottish soldiers had fought, many giving their lives to fight for the freedom of France in the Great War, 1915.

Ronnie said he was “deeply moved” by this special gift.

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Aug 152014
 

Flag_of_the_Commonwealth_of_NationssqBy Dr Eilidh Whiteford, MP for Banff and Buchan.

It was with a tinge of sadness that I watched the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony earlier this week. The Games have brought Glasgow, and Scotland, into the world’s limelight in a way which no one could have anticipated.

Prince Imran of the Commonwealth Games Federation said it best when he described the games as “amazing”, and “the best games ever.”

The 2014 Commonwealth Games were, to use the Prince’s own words “pure, dead brilliant”. 1.2 million tickets were sold, and Scotland welcomed hundreds of thousands of tourists and visitors from near and far.

The event has been an unqualified success in every sense of the word; and our athletes – and organisers – have done Scotland proud.

Besides the excitement associated with the actual competition, however, there was another, hugely important element which set our games apart as something special. It was the fact that, over the course of the games, the charity drive by UNICEF managed to raise £5 million – a record breaking amount, which will help transform lives in poorer Commonwealth countries through sport and education.

Credit must be given to the notable Scottish actors and sporting heroes who helped publicise the event – and to everyone who contributed.

In the warm, euphoric afterglow of the games, however, it’s important to bear in mind what hasn’t changed. Scotland – and Glasgow in particular – still hosts some of the most deprived areas in Europe, and some of that UNICEF money will be targeted at some of our nation’s poorest communities too.

For me, one of the best aspects of the games was the involvement if such an inclusive and diverse range of athletes.

From 13 year old Erraid Davies from Shetland who won a bronze in the para-swimming to the  ‘more mature’ competitors who did us proud winning a whole raft of medals in the bowling, people of all ages were taking part in the games, showing us all that it’s not just the young and super-fit who can excel in sport.

The other great thing is that there has been a big investment in sport and recreation facilities across Scotland as part of the Commonwealth Games legacy project, including here in the North-east.

Too often in the past major sporting events have diverted resources away from grassroots sporting activities, but instead the Commonwealth Games has seen new investment in facilities to encourage more of us (myself included!) to get a bit more active.  The other great benefits of the Commonwealth Games have been in hundreds of new jobs, apprenticeships, and regeneration in the run up to the games, and the sharp increase in tourism over recent weeks.

Team Scotland excelled themselves to win more medals than ever before in front of a home crowd, surpassing even the most optimistic expectations, and the City of Glasgow delivered an event everyone in Scotland can be proud of.

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[Aberdeen Voice accepts and welcomes contributions from all sides/angles pertaining to any issue. Views and opinions expressed in any article are entirely those of the writer/contributor, and inclusion in our publication does not constitute support or endorsement of these by Aberdeen Voice as an organisation or any of its team members.]

Nov 082011
 

With Remembrance Sunday approaching fast and the wearing of a poppy being de rigueur for every stuffed shirt and empty suit on TV, Voice’s Dave Watt thinks about 11 November.  

11 November falls on a Friday this year, so the dead will have to wait until Sunday to be remembered, as the powers that be don’t seem to think that remembering them on the actual Armistice Day would be convenient.
I mean, businesses might lose a whole two minutes profit and think what a disaster that would be for our thriving economy. After all, big business interests shovel money into party funds and one and a quarter million dead servicemen and women don’t. So, balls to them.

Armistice Day on 11 November was originally meant to signal the end of The War to End Wars, back in a time when that phrase wouldn’t bring forth a cynical snigger.

In fact, on my grandfather’s medals, hanging in a frame in my hallway, it refers to The Great War For Civilisation which shows that there were politicians in the 1920s capable of coming out with the same kind of drivel as George W Bush did with his ludicrous War on Terror ten years ago.

Presumably, at some time in the future there will be a War For Straight Bananas or a War For Fashionable Sandals or something equally weird.

Hopefully, this year will not feature such irretrievable tat as the Royal British Legion inviting The Saturdays to frolic half-naked in a sea of poppies or getting the judges on X Factor to wear grotesque poppy fashion items – two tasteless frolics which inspired ex-SAS soldier Ben Griffin to describe them as ‘stunts to trivialise, normalise and satirise war’. Griffin, in fact, went on to state that remembrance has been turned into ‘a month long drum roll of support for current wars’, a point of view it is increasingly difficult to disagree with.

My grandfather joined up in 1914 in the surge of patriotism engendered by Germany illegally invading Belgium; my uncle joined up in 1939 when Hitler illegally subjugated Poland. Presumably, if Tony Blair had been Prime Minister in 1914, we’d have joined in the illegal invasion and attacked tiny Belgium as we did with impoverished third world Afghanistan, not one of whose citizens had previously done us the slightest harm.

Then again, if Tony had been in charge in 1939 he’d surely have produced some shoddy dossiers to our gullible Parliament showing how those dastardly Poles were all set to attack peace-loving Nazi Germany and that they had weapons of mass destruction concealed in Cracow and Gdansk which could be deployed within 45 minutes.

Yes, if good old Tony had been on the case then, we could nowadays watch Wellington bombers joining the Stukas strafing the women and kids in Warsaw on World at War on Yesterday – with a suitably solemn voice-over courtesy of Laurence Olivier. God, wouldn’t that make us just so proud of ourselves?

No, the bottom line is that we’re not the Good Guys helping the Underdog against the Bully any more. We’re something quite different now.

If you were wondering what happened to my uncle and grandfather in their wars, my uncle died in Normandy in 1944 after fighting in North Africa, Italy and Sicily. My grandfather survived four years in the trenches but was wounded and mustard-gassed in 1918. The mustard gas steadily and horribly eroded his lungs over the years and he eventually died in 1955 aged 56, so the War for Civilisation got him in the end.

I also had a relative on board HMS Hood when the Bismarck sank her in the Denmark Straits in May 1941. He was not one of the three survivors.

It’s interesting to think that if my three relations had survived wars and lived until now that their reward from a grateful country would be to have some pampered ex-public schoolboy Tories and Lib Dems cutting their fuel allowances by £100 this winter.

I’ll have my own two minutes silence for my relations and all the rest – the ones who came back and the ones who didn’t.

On Friday.

Photo Credits –
Row Of Crosses © Mediaonela | Dreamstime.com  
Poppy At Newe July 2011 © Elaine Andrews

Sep 082011
 

Aberdeen Chorus of Sweet Adelines, one of the most successful medal-winning Barbershop choruses in the UK, returned from Edinburgh recently  – their third successive year there – hailing their show at the Fringe a triumph. Marketing and Publicity Officer Linda Allan tells us more.

Despite their many adventures on the way there, including thunder storms, mini flash floods on the motorway, a rescue by the A.A., cancelled trains and problems with the staging, all the intrepid lady pirates made it to the venue to the obvious delight of the enthusiastic audience, who gave a standing ovation claiming the show Adventure On The High Cs was “the best one yet”

Now Aberdonians will also get a chance to see these intrepid women display their pirattitude as Adventure On The High Cs will form part of their show in the Music Hall on Friday 16 September at 7:30pm.

Audiences will be treated to a very varied performance, with glimpses of Abba, flashing cutlasses, Gilbert and Sullivan, humorous ditties, and traditional Scottish airs, including a very special arrangement of The Northern Lights.

Sharing the stage this year will be the local successful trio of Fifth Dimension with their special blend of magic and humour which is sure to engage and astound the audience.  Spectators will also be treated to enthralling performances by dancers from the very successful Sharon Gill School of Dance.

Tickets £12 (£10) are available from
Aberdeen Box Office on 01224 641122
www.boxofficeaberdeen.com

Free singing lessons

In addition to their Music Hall show the chorus is offering a free 4-week singing course to women. These lessons will take place on Mon 24 Oct, Mon 7 Nov, Mon 21 Nov, and Mon 28 Nov 2011 at 7:30pm in the Britannia Hotel, Bucksburn.

Participants will receive tuition on breathing and posture, vocal production and performing skills in a warm and friendly atmosphere. All course materials – music and learning CDs will be provided – there is no need to be able to read music – but you need to enjoy singing!

For more information contact us via the website www.aberdeenchorus.co.uk