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About Us

County Committee

Every year during May we hold our AGM, where we report on the finances of the county and also what has happened within the county during the previous calendar year.

The County committee members come up for re-election every year and our current committee are:

We welcome new members to the committee, so if you would like to give a few hours a month, please get in touch with the chairman or attend the committee meetings.


History of Gloucestershire County Judo

Gloucestershire first became a fully constituted County committee back in the mid 1970's. Up to that point, a group of interested parties would meet periodically, but there was no real structure until it was decided that they needed to get themselves properly organised. Pete Salter remembers at the time, that a member of the Gloucester YMCA Judo Club Brian Calway, seemed to have the necessary thought processes to help push the process through. In fact Gloucestershire County constitution as it stands to-day, whilst being in line with the BJA model at the time, is mainly the original work of Brian, and has stood the test of time. Throughout this time, Peter Salter has served as Chair of the County, with Chris his wife as Treasurer, with a couple of stints as Secretary. The committee has always operated very much as a team, supporting each other and have organised many events over the years. The County ran the Western Area Open for many years in the City of Gloucester, and since 2009 have run the Gloucestershire Open at Newent.

Gloucestershire has always been a fairly small County with regard to the number of Judo Clubs within its borders, and it has never risen much above to-days total of nine. Nevertheless, that has never prevented the County from becoming one of the dominant forces within the Western Area, both at Junior & Senior levels of Judo, whilst also being active in shaping policy within the Area. In 2008 whilst totalling only eight clubs, three of them - Dowty, Newent & Apollo, attained the Clubmark Bronze award as awarded by Sport England, since then Bradley Stoke Judo Club and Bradley Stoke Special Needs Judo Club have also attained this award. Newent did not renew their award in 2014 as they did not have a volunteer to take it on.

The County has consistently produced players both at Junior & Senior level, who have represented their Clubs, County & Area, and in some cases have gone on to compete at National and International level, with a significant number of medals won at Gold, Silver and Bronze level. The continuity, which the counties players have achieved within their sport, is well illustrated by the fact that since 2010 there has been a strong Veteran/Masters Squad mainly made up of players who have practised Judo since they were juniors. One of the Area events in which the County has a particularly proud history, is the Bob Taylor Senior Teams event, which the County has won on a number of occasions with the team always consisting of players with the pedigree described above.

As with all Counties, there have always been one or two Clubs who set the standards as it were, and for many years the Dowty Club assumed that mantle with its own Dojo, and an extremely successful squad of Juniors. In the later part of the first decade of the 21st century the newer clubs of Stroud and Bradley Stoke have come to the fore, producing there own squads of successful juniors so hopefully ensuring the Counties ongoing success.