Last inspection of the venues of the 2012 events in Europe

Between 2nd and 9th of February the WUKF President and the General Secretary started the last inspection of the venues of the 2012 events in Europe. First will be Irvine-Glasgow, Scotland, the European Senior Championship and then in October Novi Sad, Serbia, will host the World Championship for children, cadets and juniors.

Irvine - Glasgow was a nice surprise for us, the Organizing Committee headed by Mr. Bill Hair has made a great job up to now and the championship could start in one week if necessary. All the basic things that we discussed before, all the important logistic and preparations are ready. The marvelous hotels are prepared for receiving more than 1000 participants if necessary. The charm of the superb traditional Scottish architecture and facilities you can feel it everywhere and for sure the participants at our event will never forget it. The plans for another successful championship were detailed discussed, the options for the best solutions were taken and in one week we shall start the promotion of the event. We were impressed by the local interest for our championship, politicians, sponsors, important members of the local communities are all engaged to do a great job for the successful of the championship. Mrs. Shona Thorne and Thorne Travel Company are the soul of the Organizing Committee and we could see at Irvine a lesson of professionalism, promptitude and solicitude that we admire and respect. Thorne Travel will manage all the travel problems, airport transfers and will propose to all the participants different visiting plans of the superb Scotland. We warmly recommend planning your time to visit “a piece of Scotland”, a fantastic memory that is impossible to miss.

All the transfers will be free of any charge. Adamton House, the official hotel, is prepared to host up to 650 persons, its traditional architecture, facilities and kindness of the personnel are impressive. They offer special prices that you will never find for such a high standard hotel. Mostly all activities will be hosted at Adamton House and the farewell party … will be a fantastic surprise for all. All details and photos will be published on WUKF webpage in short time.

After two days of Irvine, we visited the venue at Sheffield, a tempting option for the European Championship for children from 2013. What we found there? A superb English university city, an energetic and experienced Organizing Committee, a sport hall that is hard to see frequently and all the facilities that WUKF needs for a big success. Many hotels for all the pockets at 2 minutes distance from the sport-hall will be available at Sheffield, free transfers to the sport and many other facilities that the organizers showed to us. There are some airports at short distance from Sheffield, the most recommended being Manchester. The organizers will provide cheap transfers from those airports. We inspected very carefully the sport hall, the facilities that this could offer to us for a better and better organization and we can say that is hard to find such a complete and functional place for a championship. At Irvine, at the Congress, a presentation of the plans for this event will be made and we are sure that all the presidents will approve the organization.

On Monday morning we start our journey to Novi Sad, the big city of the World Championship for children, cadets and juniors, where we expect the record of participants in our whole history. And this is not exaggerating at all, if we remember the 1400 participants from Gyor the last European Championship for same ages. In Serbia we had to face terrible weather conditions, lot of snow and -27 Celsius degrees in the morning. But we had to do all that we planned and on Tuesday morning we start the work. We had a very successful meeting at the City Hall and together with the organizing team we started the inspection of the sport hall. One of the biggest sport hall ever seen, that is now modern and full of facilities, collect under same roof many smaller or bigger rooms that "accompanied" the huge main hall (70m x 50m) where we shall fit 12 tatamies. This will be the record of organization from WUKF history but this way we shall finish the program of each day earlier, giving to all the opportunity of visiting the city and enjoying the beauty of the city. After consulting the members of the organizing committee, all professional and with a good experience, we design the plans for our championship in October. Starting from the basic things and finishing with the smallest details all necessary activities were dimensioned and located. In Serbia is easy to organize events because the people are open and direct, all our proposals were accepted, we never heard “NO” or “NOT POSSIBLE”, all will be possible in October and this will assure another great success of WUKF. We spent more than a half day inspecting the hotels that mostly all are at walking distance from the sport hall. Very good value for the money it is the final evaluation, the participants will find lot of choices for all the desires and a fantastic Serbian or International cuisine at all the restaurants. There will be free transfers from the hotels to the sport hall where will be necessary and a very reasonably transfer fee from Belgrade airport to Novi Sad.

It was very exhausted, 7 days of inspection, planning, checking and finding solutions, but at the end we can say we were happy. This is because now we are sure that the participants will find all details prepared for them at all the future venues at WUKF standards. We made this effort because we promised to all: the next championship will be the best from all. This is the way of continuously improvement.

And never forget our motto:

"Together we can do the best karate in the world".

It is not only a motto it is what we are demonstrating day by day.