On April 3rd, the English Karate Federation (a 'working title' I believe) was inaugurated as the new official governing body for England.

Key to this was the decision that no board members of Karate England (KE 2005 Ltd) would be elligible for board membership.

Leaders of all English Karate associations were invited. Some declined. Most didn't. There were the world-renowned elders of English Karate like Terry Wingrove, Ticky Donovan and John Van Weenan, associations like the JKA and AMA as well as representatives of smaller associations like myself (TEMAA).

Personally I found the meeting a little slow-moving. With too many getting bogged down in the name of the association, the ins and outs of WKF membership and whether or not a squad will be ready in time for the next competition.

There were issues I would have liked addressed. I tried my best but competition for the mic was intense:

1) If the new governing body is to be inclusive of all English Karate, why do we spend so much time just focussing on the squad competitors - what about those teaching technical based "Karate Jutsu" or Uchinadi?

2) What will be done to promote Karate as an activity in the 20th century - not just as cheap babysitters?

It occured to me that I was committing to an association that may very well do little to help the traditional non sporting Karate-ka, but I felt I must give this fledgling group the benefit of the doubt at its inception. So hopefully, where the English Karate Governing Body and Karate England failed, the English Karate Federation shall succeed.

Anyway, enough waffling from me. Here's the official report off the new website.


English Karate Federation Inaugral Meeting Report and Questionnaire - 12:30pm - 3rd April 2007
Report

The meeting was convened at Holiday Inn, Birmingham on Sunday 1st April from 1-00pm and was attended by various Association representitives, athletes, instructors, parents and speakers from Karate in England and Karate Sport England, in total 98 people attended the General meeting.

Prior to the General meeting a meeting was held of members of the defunct KE(2005)Ltd at which Mr Greg Durant gave a financial report.

The general meeting started with Terry Wingrove welcoming everyone and introducing Carl Lindley as the proposed Chair for the meeting which was unanimously agreed and proved an excellent choice. John Bell from Karate in England was introduced and he read his statement “ A new structure for Karate in England” then took a series of questions regarding his proposed format which produced a heated debate on the validity of specific parts of the statement.

Following John Bell the meeting heard a statement from Andrew Dix of Towergate a potential sponsor who explained his company’s ideas to simplify the maze and confusion of Insurance on offer to karate-ka. Then the meeting heard from Mollie Samuels of Karate Sport England which focussed on the specific needs of the athletes and the stated need from KSE that it needed to be an autonimous group that worked with the governing body but needed to be administered by the Sports administrators in a much more direct way than in the past. Mollie was questioned by Ticky Donovan on the practicalities of realising this aim considering the big financial burden to run competitive Karate at any and every level.

At this point the Chair said the meeting was getting distracted by the detail which should be debated later in the afternoon.

A major issue was the future role of former directors of KE(2005)Ltd in any new body,this was debated from many points of view but the unanimous resolution of the meeting was that NO former Director of KE(2005)Ltd would be eligible to sit on the board of the new body based on a NO CONFIDENCE vote by the meeting although they would be welcome as members.

Another matter that needed clarification was Englands membership of the WKF which was explained by Mike Dinsdale many times who made two statements to clarify the issue 1) The WKF selected a National body to represent a particular country NOT the other way round so that the WKF was NOT interested in the internal politics of any country. 2) Regarding membership of any other World body such as WUKO,WKC etc this was NOT acceptable to WKF as “the WKF is like a club,if you want to be a member then you must accept the rules”. The meeting voted unanimously to adopt the rules of the WKF with the intention of participating in WKF events.

The next issue was to consider if a study group should be set-up to examine the needs of any future governing body. This took up a lot of time with both Mike Dinsdale and John Gillian repeadedly bringing the attention of the meeting to the fact that you need to know the requirements of the various groups,Associations etc so that a study group would have core-requirements to work with. It was finally agreed that to save time, money and to concentrate the required information a questionnaire would be sent to ALL and EVERY karate Association,group or interested party to obtain the necessary information which would be collated and distributed to alll interested parties. Terry Wingrove was asked by the floor if he would continue developing the website and also if he was prepared to collate the information gathered from the questionnaires, which he agreed to do.

Next there was a proposal to change the name from KARATE ENGLAND which Ticky Donovan said now had a bad conotation, he suggested ENGLISH KARATE FEDERATION which was seconded by Peter Allen who said that “Federation” was used in most countries in Europe regarding a governing body. This name was adopted by the floor and within 30 mins Terry Wingrove announced that the new website www.englishkaratefederation.com was operating with an automatic feed from the former www.karate-england.org. A round of applause was given to Aaron Milan-Vega the webmaster who was attending the meeting as a representitive.

The final decision was to hold the next meeting on Sunday 3rd June at the same venue The Holiday Inn, Birmingham Airport at 1-00pm.
.....................................................................................

The founder members of the English Karate Federation are as follows:

SHOTOKAN KARATE ASSOCIATION
AMA
ISHINRYU
KARATE DO INTERNATIONAL
FIGHTERS INC.
GAKUSHUIN KARATE
RYOSHIN KARATE
THE EMPIRE MARTIAL ARTS ASSOCIATION
KAMA
KMAC
ZANSHIN KAI GREAT BRITAIN
BKA
EKKA
HENKA-RYU
SENSHINKAI
BRITISH KARATE CHOJINKAI
MUJUSHIN KARATE
WESTERN KARATE UNION
BMA (KARATE)
WADO UK
KENYUKAI
BRITISH WADO-RYU KARATE UNION
SHORAI KARATE DO INTERNATIONAL
HEIAN RYU KARATE GROUP
GENDAI KARATE ASSOCIATION
TISKA
AIWA
SRKA
SHINDOKAI
ENGLISH KARATE ORGANISATION
EKKA KARATE ASSOCIATION
ENGLISH SHOTOKAN ACADEMY
BIKO
TASK
TYGA KARATE INTERNATIONAL
JIN SEI KAI
BTKA
KAIZEN CENTRAL KARATE FEDERATION
KOFUKAN
TKA
GENDAI KARATE ASSOCIATION
SHIKON
UNITED KINGDOM KARATE-DO WADO-KAI
EKK
YGKA
WIKF ENGLAND
KAMA
UNITED ENGLISH KARATE FEDERATION
KAZEN KAI
NWKA
UKKW
KDS
ELKAI KARATE
HKK
JKA ENGLAND