After 16 years as an affiliated UniSQ Club, BBRD was unceremoniously deregistered by the Student Guild on Friday.
The proximal causes of this were a list of reaffiliation criteria that we would always find impossible to meet, including having an Executive fully staffed by current studying UniSQ students, the effective hand over of Club assets to the Guild, and an insistence that we abandon our current financial systems and instead funnel money through the Guild’s payment system (while paying handsomely for the “privilege”).
This came on top of having blind sided the Club with a more-than-half reduction to our training schedule at the start of this year, the “generous” suggestion that we could restore our times by paying an effective $75 an hour, and the dragging on for months the drip feed of information and continued spurious claims from the University/Guild end of things.
In the end, we were dumped in a terse five sentence email that opened with the meaningless opening of “hoping we were well” before giving us less than four days to move all traces of the Club from University property.
No mention of the years of service to the University community and the active role we have played in promoting it. No mention of the University Games medals won in Kendo and Judo over the years. No mention of the role the Club has played in helping to connect alumni to the University.
This past twelve months has been draining. Personally, I have felt utterly disrespected through what has transpired. And the hard work that has been put in over more than a decade and a half seems like it has been burnt to ash and cinders. Because of having to deal with the consequences of the Guild/University’s decisions, I have felt completely unready to attempt the three senior grading opportunities in Jujutsu, Kendo and Iaido I had hoped to sit this year. And honestly, at times over the past nine months it has felt like I may never regain the momentum to even have a stab at these opportunities in the future.
However, what keeps me going are the values we espouse and the symbols we use to represent ourselves at BBRD.
Unlike the University, we retain the phoenix as the core Club symbol. This is a reminder that through adversity we can regather and reform to do what we have always set out to achieve: Providing the community with the opportunity to find challenge and reward through the practice of the martial arts. And I remind myself of the Club’s dojo kun— integrity, perseverance, and compassion— to motivate myself to stick the course and do my best, because all I have control over are my own actions and being honest in myself to know I aim to deliver my best.
We are currently homeless, and we are going to find it difficult in the short term to get regular training up and running. Suitable spaces seem to be hard to locate in Toowoomba at present. I would gratefully accept any and all tips or leads the readership might have of what we might do.
At the very least, we are likely to pull out the Zoom cameras a bit more often and connect as we did during COVID, albeit with more opportunity to see each other face to face. And take the opportunities we can to train with our senior sensei in Brisbane.
We have active plans to move beyond this current situation organisationally, and have in train a process to create an Incorporated Association by the end of this month. This is so that we have the legal status to enter into contracts such as rental agreements, and an identity beyond the University. And we also plan to be more active in communicating with our wider community of friends and supporters in the coming weeks and months.
So the USQ Martial Arts Club is dead…
But long live BBRD. We intend to be around for some time yet!
Gambareba dekiru to omoimasu!
(If we do our best, we will get there!)