Following discussions by the National Committee and at the Annual General Meeting in Chester, the BAF committee now includes 2 Member Representatives. Voted by the membership at the AGM, Karolina Packo and Tom Curry are now members of the National Committee with the specific roles of making the NC more accessible to all BAF members. They are aiming to provide an easy and confidential route to get ideas and views to the NC and also to feed information from the NC to the membership. In a changing world with ever more distractions the BAF needs to adapt to new technologies and ideas and the NC and its members should be responsive. Karolina and Tom will be making this happen! …with your help of course.
Introducing your new MemberReps – who can be contacted directly via MemberReps@bafonline.org.uk
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Karolina Packo
My Aikido journey started in Gdansk, Poland in 1999. I know many agree that Aikido is very addictive and I got hooked very quickly. Obviously then, on moving to UK the first thing I did was to find a dojo!
Fast forward to 2018 and Aikido is of course a big part of my life. To many of us Aikido is much more than a martial art; it’s a way of life. Being a member of the BAF has not only given me the opportunity to train with some of the best instructors but also make some wonderful, life long friendships. I would love for more people to discover Aikido and start their own exciting journeys.
I hope that as a Members Representative on the National Committee of the BAF I will be able to do just that; create opportunities for others to find out about Aikido (and try it!), help the BAF to grow but also encourage BAF members to get involved in making the BAF bigger and better. So if you have any concerns or ideas get in touch. We would love to hear from you. More than that, we need to hear from you! We make the BAF so let us all get involved!
Karolina
Member Representative of the BAF
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Tom Curry
From an early start doing Taekwondo at the age of 7yrs my Martial Art career in Aikido began while working at the University. Joining the Bristol University Aikido Club was a new experience and has given me many opportunities to study under talented instructors, most notably with Kanetsuka Sensei. My present focus is in developing fitness and flexibility to better enable practice, with about 7 hours of classes a week and additional fitness training every day. Having started when I was 7 my plan is to carry on until I’m 77 – at the very least! Aikido is so complex it presents endless challenges but enabling others to train and improve is something I find particularly rewarding.
Outside of the Dojo I feel the recent changes to the BAF committee structure to introduce Members Representatives is a great opportunity. I hope I can be an effective representative for all BAF members and ensure that there is no mystery about what happens on the National Committee. The BAF exists for its members, and cannot exist without them. It’s important everyone is represented fairly.
Thanks again for the support given to me and I look forward to helping everyone.
Tom
Member Representative of the BAF