04/02/07 - Letter from Tony Witt

Good ideas are already coming out on this website. We now have a
chance to make sure the same mistakes don't happen again. The regions
should be brought back, as it was a good starting point for getting
talent together on a regular basis, we have some of the best coaches
in the world and really talented fighters as well as kata? The team
going to the Europeans, you have to feel sorry, for this should be
one of the best times of their lives to represent your country and
wear your badge with passion and pride and yet it has all been
overshadowed by the farce of Karate England. It is only the coaches
and parents that have got the team to a point that they are even
going. Also it has done us no favours towards promoting karate for
the Olympics. Once again good luck to all the England squad.

Tony Witt (Parent)

03/02/07 - Letter from Ged and John Tumman

After reading that K.E is now finished and no doubt something else
will shortly rise from the ashes of this farce of a year, lets take
time to contemplate how we can change things and see what comes in
from other karate–ka on this letters page on how we can have a
sustainable governing body.

Any recognised, creditable governing body is only as good as the
people who run it. We need some of the '''old, wise heads'' but some
new and fresh blood. Many of the fighters have turned their backs on
Karate and moved on to K1 and other martial arts, that can provide
opportunities, Olympic fame in London and financial backing. Also I
think the people who run any kind of governing body should understand
Karate and put the art first and not their wallets. Greed messed up
Karate England as some of the board members were in it for what they
could get out of it, not what they could put into it. People should
be paid course-by-course or meeting by meeting, not 20,30, 40 grand a
year. Give the grass roots students something back, coaches that run
up and down Britain, bringing on the competitors should have a say on
how things should be run.

If anyone reading this article has a minute, just click on to the
British judo association site www.britishjudo.org.uk, these people
have had Olympic recognition for years, sport England backing and
have even a full accounts page on line so everyone can see where the
money goes, development, training its got the lot!. Don't know how
many members judo has in England, but it can't come close to Karate I
would have thought. Look how they run things, support their
competitors, and pay board members. Put this ethos into the new
governing body and I think you have a recipe for a professionally
run, MODERN and caring governing body for the members.

1. I do believe there is a need for a 2 tier governing body. One that
offers support to Athletes in both the coaching and financial
department. The other for the traditional karate-ka.Not too sure how
it would work, but ever since the 1970's when we were involved in
Karate, there has always been this Sport v Traditional split. Both
camps have a good argument, so both should be catered for and no bias
to one side or the other.

2. I do believe we should have a 10 - 15's coach & recognised squad.
The future is the youth of our karate Dojo's up and down the country.

3. Have a central venue for competitions, squad trainings or training
courses not all northern or southern venues,
(THE MIDLANDS / LOUGHBOROUGH IS IN THE MIDDLE OF ENGLAND, HAVE A LOOK
ON A MAP!). Have some thought for the karate-ka from Newcastle,
Cumbria, Liverpool, who have to travel 6 - 8 hours to London for a 2
hour squad training or competition that now costs families and
fortune to enter.

4. As far as replacing the `'Board'' Karate-ka who attend meetings
are not stupid and will vote for members accordingly!

We all sit in A.G.M's and listen quietly to other `'wise heads''
telling us how things should be run, many association heads do feel
intimidated in standing up and airing their views as they are soon
shot down with constitution rules, red tape, and are left feeling
they have not had a chance to say what is on their minds. At least on
this letters page the' shy'' ones get it off their chest's and throw
some idea's in to the hat for the future C.E.O to contemplate over.
Come on you lot let's look towards to the future and put some ideas
down on this page OSU!

Yours in Karate

Ged & John Tumman (Shindo Kai Karate Association)

02/02/07 - Letter from Les Cutting

I submit this letter as an individual and not as a representative of
any Association.

In response both to queries from the growing numbers of people who
are owed wages from Karate England, and my sadness at the state we
are in, I would like to submit the following information.

Firstly, it is very important you get your claim to the employment
tribunal office on time.

Most complaints must be made within three months of the act
complained about.

This means that if the matter you are complaining about happened on 1
March, we must receive your claim on or before 31 May; if it happened
on 5 March, we must receive your claim on or before 4 June. However,
in certain circumstances, for example, when your complaint is based
on a grievance, these limits may be extended by three months. You may
wish to take advice. The circumstances in which time limits may be
extended are set out in the DTI booklet, 'Resolving disputes: a guide
for employees', which is available from
http://www.dti.gov.uk/employment/Resolving_disputes/index.html

This means that if you were last paid your salary/wage on 1/3/06/the
claim is required to be received by 31/5/06. The situation may not
lend to a grievance and therefore may not be extended a further 3
months, therefore you will have lost your right to make a claim
against KE for wages.

The other factor working against you is that if you have not had a
tribunal decision in your favour then when KE do eventually cease to
trade you may not be able to pursue a tribunal or have any claim with
the Department of trade and Industry for compensation payment.

As far as expenses are concerned, you can take out a County Court
order for payment, up to 6 years after the due date, though remember
if KE cease to exist then you cannot claim against them.

It may well be that unless you have acted already, you stand to lose
everything.

The board I would suggest are obviously aware of this, as they have
taken a variety of legal advise from numerous quarters. The board
totally ignored all correspondence from both the tribunal and
solicitors involved during my claim, in all probability knowing that
they were not PERSONALLY LIABLE as they are a limited company,
therefore, I don't hold much hope at all for anyone starting a claim
now.

I am in a different position to those still awaiting payments, as I
already have the award in my favour and can now approach the DTI.

If you look at the companies house register Karate England 2005 Ltd
accounts have never been filed, and are overdue, nor have they
notified their change of address, they seem to have failed in every
aspect.

As far as employees taking a class action against Karate England I
advise they seek legal advice because of the aforementioned facts, I
have already won my claim and as such would have no need to be party
to such action.

Reading the article in the Feb 07 edition of Traditional Karate
magazine, titled JOE ELLIS. THE TRUTH ABOUT KARATE ENGLAND AND WHAT
HAPPENED, A NO HOLDS BARRED INTERVIEW, after chuckling at both my
curiosity to read the article and at some of the apparently factual
statements contained within it, which I am informed from other
sources could be argued against their accuracy, (I could see no
fingers were crossed in the supporting pictures so it must all be
true!)it was glaringly obvious that at least one board member was
concerned about the risks of trading insolvently and the subsequent
liability that comes with it.

I find it hard to believe if this statement is true, the other board
members, (who as we are all aware have an active part in the running
of their own organisations), were not informed by him or were
oblivious to or were reckless as to that fact and continued
regardless, but more to the point, that they continued to 'trade' on
the basis of not being insolvent, as funding from Sport England was
suspended and not withdrawn, that in itself leaves a bad taste in my
mouth, if technically that were the case, then the reverse of that
could be the true fact, THAT THEY WERE trading insolvently. This
surely is no more than an exaggeration of the truth at best and
presented to everyone on the basis of the glass being half full, not
half empty! I am sure there is a good legal argument there to the
contrary.

Another part of the article enlightened me (and probably everyone
else reading it) to what was actually going on inside Karate
England's board room, the author/s of the article, whom we assume to
be the then President of Karate England, name tagging an
individual 'HILDA' regardless of whom it referred to, but whom it
went on to state was one of the Vice Presidents and to now publicly
do so on an international stage......... then to admit 'GOING INTO
ONE BIG TIME' at a meeting with Sport England, the organisation
giving us FUNDS..... seems a little foolish, if not a poor display of
professionalism and decorum in my humble view, what a wonderful
working relationship and environment that creates, is name calling
not bullying? and one does not bite the hand that feeds you but come
on, how does that paint the rest of us in the eyes of Sport England!

The rest of the article is not worthy of any more comment, but was, I
must admit, useful when we ran out of Andrex.

I had toyed with changing the title to 'BLAME EVERYONE BUT YOURSELF'
and reading the article to my youngest son at bedtime, he enjoys a
good fairytale, but alas there was a pointless beginning, the content
was totally one sided and was without benefit of a good ending, and
on reflection the pictures I thought were unsuitable in light of the
message I assumed the author to be trying to get across!

But overall I felt cheated yet again, no real explanations nor
answers were really given, nor was there any sense or feeling of
unity amongst all of the board projected in the article, a feeling
that was experienced by myself several times over, having contact
with most of them for one reason or another, the only purposeful gain
from the article I felt was to increase sales of the magazine, and
who can blame the editor for that.

A statement at the end of the article detailing whether or not
payment was made to Mr Ellis for the 'A NO HOLDS BARRED INTERVIEW' or
that it was donated to a charity by him if he was paid, would have
maybe led me to a better or more positive conclusion about the point
of the article, but, whilst in the employ of Karate England and to my
peril, I had to work out for myself the separate agenda's of
individual board members, so nothing's changed there I feel!

I fail to understand why Mr Ellis decided to 'tell all' in a magazine
rather than face to face at subsequent meetings, with the membership
who were let down by poor leadership and management under his
presidency.

I wonder, do you? what the meetings of the board were really like, I
can say from experience, the board meeting I attended, in part, was
poorly organised, undisciplined and minuted inadequately.

Going back on the subject of the Traditional Karate magazine, I
wonder whether in the realms of fair, unbiased, balanced reporting of
events, by the magazine, whether other members of the board past and
present and indeed Officers and employees are given the same
opportunity and space in the magazine, to give their account, I don't
think so for some reason.
It might be that some truths are best left alone.

I do hope though the authorities become interested and investigate
the activities of Karate England Ltd 2005.

I also sincerely wish the very best to all those concerned and hope
from their point of view they are successful in their endeavours to
reclaim monies owed to them.

I would encourage karateka to look at their respective organisations,
their policies and procedure's and scrutinise them, if in deed they
have any at all!

I believe that many people, now see little or no need for a National
Governing body and will need a strong case presented, to be convinced
otherwise, nor would they want the same board and ex board members
sitting on, running or having any part to play in the management of a
new NGB, were one to evolve from this mess.

I for one have learned a costly valuable lesson over the last year.

On a lighter note, I have spoken over the telephone to a current
Director of Karate England on 02-02-07 who listened impatiently to
me, answered nothing, and gave nothing away. It reminded me of the
old days in my past employment as a C.I.D officer. Having the
interests of himself at heart I found no point in continuing the
conversation and thanked him on behalf of all, for his lack of
interest, concern and empathy.

I would like to thank people like Peter Allen, Ticky Donovan, Terry
Pottage, Terry Wingrove and all the coaches, the ex admin. staff at
Karate England for their support, time and effort, trying their best
and against mounting odds and problems, to make something that was
bad, somewhere near better, by having the interests of the whole of
Karate at heart and not their own, as well as those who were and are
now directly and adversely affected by Karate England's liquidation.

Lets remember this situation could have been reached and sorted in
November 2006 and some other body could have been up and running
smoothly by now, but the board's choice was to flog a dead horse!

Finally, in response to Ticky's land Terry Pottage's letters, I
cannot understand why there is concern about Mr Sharer going to
Turkey, Karate England has ceased to trade, therefore he does not
hold a position as such nor surely does England have a National team,
or am I missing something here?

I spoke to Ticky earlier today and understand the hard work the
athletes and coaches have put into their attendance in Turkey and the
disappointment they would endure were they not to attend, should we
really be considering going in light of the possible incidents that
might occur. I would advise not to without at least the proper
Insurance cover as there appears neither structured correct and full
support, nor guidance on offer, let alone in place.

Bravo Terry! welcome to the list of creditors, can I say though how
lucky we are to have such a person such as yourself in our ranks, I
have had several conversations with Terry the most interesting over
breakfast at Bisham Abbey, I think we will do fine by him, Ticky and
their respective support teams and of Peter Allen and Terry Wingrove.

We have all the resources! do we really need Sport England funding?
do we really need Sport England to fund us totally and to be governed
by them or for our athletes to be recognised as England
representatives?

Maybe someone can come up with an alternative and I'm sure someone
will.

Good luck to the representatives who attend the tournament in Turkey
my thoughts and best wishes are with you all.

Warmest regards,

Les Cutting (former Child Protection Officer of Karate England (2005)
Ltd)

02/02/07 - Letter from Mark and Debbie Sell

I concur with the many good points raised by Tony Witt (Parent) in
his comments. The whole KEGB has been a disaster from start to
finish, nobody on the board can wash their hands of this and hope it
will go away, they need to stand up and be honest for once and admit
their part in its demise. There needs to be a proper structure in
place with people who actually see it as an art and sport and not a
freebie or money making venture. There are two definite camps -
traditional and sport Karate with many people in both camps.
Obviously a governing body is set up not only to regulate and
maintain standards being taught in Karate classes up and down the
country carrying out safety checks, CRB checks, ensuring coaches are
qualified, etc, but also the governing body is set up to support and
promote sport Karate - the shop window throughout the world. There
really shouldn't be any arguments over what type of body exists, it
should cater for all and I'm sure there are umpteen way this could be
achieved.

Whilst our children attend a 'traditional' Karate club, they love the
sport side too and have extra coaching session outside of their
normal Karate lessons. Had they not got involved in the sport side,
we're sure they would have given up in pursuit of some other
rewarding sporting activities. Maybe a few years down the road when
they were older they may have returned to the art and studied for
more health/social/spiritual reasons, but they didn't give up, they
stayed, they worked and now they have a lot to offer and give back in
return. Whatever people say, the sport side is as important as the
traditional side - especially in the youngsters of today. we'd like
to see a new governing body encompass both sides so from an external
view, the governing body IS THE Governing Body (full stop).

We would err on the side of caution just now though, as new bodies or
old bodies are rekindled from the ashes left by KE. Don't just jump
into bed with the first proposal to come along, others may be in the
pipeline which are undergoing more comprehensive planning. Having
said that though, how long should association wait around?

As Tony mentions, there are some good kids around at the moment who
would give their right arms to represent their country. I believe the
standard has risen in recent years, with the proliferation of
websites out there advertising tournaments the competitions have been
growing not only in numbers, but in quality too. How can we build
these kids up to this high level and let them down when they reach
the top? It's been a poor showing from the current crop of in charge
of KE, just look at our Cadet/Junior squad going to the Europeans,
unpaid coaches, no doctors, no pre-training and having to pay for
yourself to represent your country and governing body just because of
bad timing! I sincerely hope those kids do well in spite of KE and
yet this may be their only chance if the WKF pulls England's status.
We've let them down, let's not let them down any more.

Regards,

Mark & Debbie Sell (Parents)

02/02/07 - Letter from Ticky Donovan

Dear All

I am contacting you as a matter of record to again register my
serious concern at the lack of adequate officials accompanying the
Squad. I refer to my letter (by e- mail) on the 23rd of January when
I requested that the Board acknowledge receipt of my letter and send
me a reply.

I note that Karate England (2005) Ltd ceased trading on the 1st Feb
2007 that the team and officials are in an even more confused state
than before. I note that Mr.Abdu Shaher is Head of Delegation for the
Squad, does this mean that I can direct ALL the questions and queries
to him should there be any untoward incident as I described in my
letter to you on the 23rd Jan 2007 .?

I would like a reply to this letter from you to express your feelings
and attitude on these matters, so that I can pass them on to the
Squad.

Yours truly,

Ticky Donovan O.B.E

02/02/07 - Letter from Terry Pottage

Hi Everyone

I have no doubt that the majority of you will have heard by now about
the demise of Karate England (2005) Ltd. I have deliberately kept a
low profile on this subject in the hope that something could be
salvaged from the mess that the CEO and the Board of Directors made
of what was supposed to be the new future of Karate in England.

I have been involved in Karate for 37 years and have always been a
member of whichever organization has been 'the Governing Body' at
that time and can honestly say that I have never experienced the
likes of the present situation.

If I didnt have the facility of a computer then I would not be aware
at this moment in time that I was no longer in employment by KE as
they were going into liquidation!

I have not had the courtesy of a phone call, letter or e.mail from a
Board member to appraise me of the situation.

I as with other employees have been treated with no respect by the KE
but have continued to support them and may I also say that neither
Ticky Donovan or myself have been given any thanks or encouragement
for continuing our duties on the behalf of KE without pay since June
06, in fact we are paying for our trip to the EKF Juniors in Turkey
next week.

Can I reassure you that I will continue to run the programme of
Referee courses and exams and will keep everyone up to date with
competition requirements. Our department has been and will continue
to be a close knit and supportive group that it has always been. At
the next opportunity I will reveal some plans regarding the future of
our Referees Department and its continued success.

For anyone concerned about the the two courses scheduled 4th Feb and
4th March dont be they will go ahead as planned.

See you Sunday all being well,

Terry Pottage

01/02/07 - Letter from Tony Witt

At least its now over and we can move on for the benefit of karate.
Firstly I wish all the England team good luck for the europeans. It
has not been the best way to prepare for a major championship but I
am sure you will do us proud, we all know it would be nice to be
funded to go to major championships but if this way is the only
option then so be it,we dont complain when we fund ourselves to go to
Venice, Ireland, Scotland etc. Just do one competition less, if a new
governing body rises from the ashes can we have a calendar for the
year ahead with selection dates etc then people can plan ahead. Is it
not possible to have a sporting body within the governing body that
could be self financing by having a sports license that way the
traditionalists cannot complain, lets stop the back stabbing and all
pull together we have some great kids that could do England proud, as
adults we should not let them down, lets get England back to the top
of world karate where it used to be.

Regards,

Tony Witt (Parent)