On Sunday, the 10^th of December, our school hosted its first annual open-style martial arts tournament.  A great success, it attracted over 200 competitors in its first year.  Martial artists were in attendance from seven different counties, and four different styles of martial arts.  It is rare to find events in the martial arts world which welcome all martial artists of any style, club, or association.   We are delighted that the event ran smoothly, and brought so many like-minded martial artists into Ennis for the day.

Our vision was to create an event, and an atmosphere, where we could challenge ourselves and our skills; gain experience, and learn from those experiences; witness other styles and hear new ideas; bond with our team and make new friends from other schools.  We are pleased that the overwhelming majority of the people involved in the event shared our vision and participated with open minds, in the spirit of good sportsmanship.  I hope our students learned something new about themselves through their experience, and also about other people, too.

Most special thanks to everyone who made this day possible: the helpers, referees, officials, score-takers, time-keepers, door staff, photographers etc.  It takes a lot of hard work from a lot of people to manage a tournament, and these people put down a hard day’s work out of their own time in order to pull this event off for the school.  There was great team work from parents and other members on the day, and we thank you very much for you help and dedication.

THANKS ESPECIALLY TO:

Mark Pyne, Fergal O’Dea, Theresa Hennessy, Kayleigh Mulqueen, Marian Broderick, Brendan Browne, Mary Whelan, Deirdre O’Sullivan, David O’Brien, Frank O’Brien, Katelyn Skerritt, Peter Madden, Elena Vasyuk and Alisa Schneider.

We must also show our appreciation to the referees and judges from other schools who volunteered their services for the day.  A hard and thankless job, they were fair and courteous, and managed to meet tough time deadlines, too!

Oh, and by the way…our members claimed a whopping FIFTY-SEVEN trophies and medals on the day!!!  A full list of achievements and photographs can be found on our website, and also on our notice board.  Well done!!  Mr. & Mrs. Donovan are very proud of each and every one of you.  You all showed outstanding attitude, effort, teamwork, and good sportsmanship!  We couldn’t ask for more!

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