By
A****** U***
Nottingham
Firstly, let us introduce ourselves. We are University of Nottingham’s Aikido club founded in 1994 by Scott Allbright Sensei. As one of the oldest Shodokan Aikido university clubs in the country we have a proud history of competing and participating nationally in aikido events.
Don’t know what Aikido is? It’s a Japanese martial art with a key focus on self defence aiming to minimise injury not just to you but also to your attacker. We practice a range of techniques from wrist locks to throws. Pretty cool right?
During the week, we train across Jubilee and University Park Campus and sessions are about 2 hours long. However, every year, we do this crazy 14 hour long session we call aikido marathons. Yes! 14 hours with only 5 minute breaks every hour. That means no lunch, no nap time amigo!
It’s a simple answer and it begins with the letter ‘c’. Celebrity statu—I mean charity. No seriously, it is all for charity! We usually choose which charity to support a week or so before the event so we’ll keep you updated on that but last year, the proceeds went to the National Autistic Society.
Also, as students of aikido, it is incredibly exciting to be able to train with some of the best coaches in the country who will be there for the event. Not only do we raise money for charity, we also get some intensive training done. I can’t vouch for our physical well being after the marathon, but know that in the end, we will find some kind of peace.
The actual marathon will be in Sheffield and participants pay a session fee of about £20 that will go to charity. We usually hire a minibus to get us there and back. The costs can fluctuate and we ended up paying almost £200 last year. The overall fees we need to pay hurts us more than the thought of a 14 hour training so this is where we need your help.
If we fundraise our minimum target, it will go into subsiding the travel costs. The rest of the money raised above that amount will then go to the charity we are supporting, subsidising our session fees at the same time. Essentially with your money, you will be able to ship us off to Sheffield (to hell basically), we get to save some money and most importantly we can still help out a charity. How cool is that? And of course we have prepared some cheeky rewards in exchange for your help so really, everybody wins!
If you're not yet convinced whether we're worth your donation or if you just want to know more about us, here are some things we do that we are quite proud of.
Please follow our Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/UoNShodokanAikidoClub/
Also follow our Twitter account @uonaikido https://twitter.com/uonaikido
However, we'd still love it if you can give us money, we appreciate any amount. Every little helps so please sponsor us and help make this happen!
Select this reward if you just want to donate to the project without receiving a reward.
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You will get a special thank you from our club
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Estimated delivery: 1 November 2017
A special mention in all of our social media accounts
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Estimated delivery: 1 November 2017
You can come join us for one session for free
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Estimated delivery: 1 November 2017
We'll post you a thank you card with some specially designed Aikido stickers
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Estimated delivery: 1 November 2017
One free Savoy cinema ticket to a movie of your choosing
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Estimated delivery: 1 November 2017