This Saturday we will be hosting members from BKC here in Toowoomba for a start-of-year kick off to our formal kendo training.

We will be running from 2:00–4:00pm in our usual training location at the CBRC (upstairs hall, entrance via the fire stairs).

This will mean that we won’t be training Iaido this Saturday, so the first regular Iaido session will be Tuesday night (11 January).

Also, we need to be mindful of the current COVID situation. Given the transmissibility of the Omicron variant, we are having to go back to our “Stage 4” COVID plan. This will mean:

• Face masks are to be worn inside the building unless engaging in strenuous activity (as per the Queensland public health directive)

• When setting up your equipment, please take care to socially distance 1.5m. I will be placing some taped markers this week to help people out with that.

• When practising Kendo, either a mask or a face shield is to be used inside of the men. We will try to take regular breaks for rehydration. It would be useful to store a mask inside your nafuda so that you can don it once you have doffed your men.

• If you are coming to training, we ask that you have been fully vaccinated (including your booster if you are eligible) OR have returned a negative COVID Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) within 6 hours of training. Remember that integrity is the foundation value of the Club. While we won’t be demanding to see your COVID vaccine certificate or physical evidence of a negative RAT, everyone is expected to do the right thing.

While we cannot reduce the risk of COVID transmission to zero, we are wanting to take as many active steps to minimise its spread while maintaining normal training as much as can be done. Given there are a number of us in the Club who work with vulnerable populations, or who have friends and relatives who are at risk, we want to be able to take what sensible precautions that we can.

But enough of the “heavy”! It will be wonderful to see Takashi sensei and the other BKC members this Saturday, and I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing a few previously absent faces there.