From Bobby McMasters, today!
"I don't know if you're good with technology but perhaps you could make a running counter of how many gi pledges you have, how many were sent, and how many I eventually receive (confirmed by my contact here in Romania). These gis will eventually be brought to Moldova with a kids' team from Braila, Romania probably mid-June.
As you know, I wasn't initially really trying to just get STUFF and give away STUFF or money. This is typically counter-productive. BUT, I think we can keep the materials in the gym teacher's office without them growing legs. Also, I'm about 80% sure we can hold a seminar before, and afterwards we'll hold a competition between an established Romanian kids' team and the Burlacu team. Hopefully this will suffice for the sustainability factor for now and lead on to newer and greater things! For example, before harvest time I plan to have an all-village tournament to further incite interest in BJJ.
I know it's been a while but in light of the Japan situation I didn't think writing about giving stuff to some healthy and happy (albeit very poor) people made a lot of sense. That being said, I don't want people to forget about our Moldovan guys. So, I have some more info for those who want to help us...
First of all, we need probably at least 4 kids gis... these gis can be gis that your kids have grown out of but are still good quality.
Second, we need at least 5 adult gis. Again, if you have some awesome new lightweight gi and you don't need your older (but still in good shape) gi, no matter how big or small you are, send it our way.
Third, we need probably 3 NEW gis that look really nice (one child/teenager size, small adult and bigger adult). I know nobody is trying to buy some new gis just to send them our way but maybe you know someone who would love to put their patches all over them and have someone wear their company's logo around to various tournaments for years to come. These gis would be given out to the winners of our tournament so the probability of them wearing the gi to various judo competitions or even future BJJ competitions, and winning these competitions is pretty high. Also, a pimped-out gi is hard to find in Eastern Europe so on top of it looking cool the competitor could talk about how/where they got it and inevitably it would lead to a BJJ discussion.
Fourth, I would really love to do a women/girl's competition. The Soviets were really keen on equal opportunity and equal rights as far as women are concerned so this is not a foreign concept. I will keep this on the "dreams" list for now though.
Lastly, we will need some money. Even though the transport is paid for, I will need a little cash to build some new shelves for the gym teacher to take care of the gis and we may need money for food for the trip. I will keep everyone posted on this because I definitely don't want to make a budget mistake.
Gi address:
Mihaita Tudor
Str Traian 187-189 ap 32
sec 2
Bucuresti, Romania
AND... once again, anybody wanting to come maybe mid-June or any other time is welcome.
-b"
So, everyone, I would love to be a clearinghouse for this. You can send gis straight to them of course! But if someone with HTML skillz wants to help make a widget for me to use on this blog I'd LOVE it. In the meantime I'll just do it the old fashioned way and include a sentence in every blog post!
No kids gis
No adult gis
No new gis
But... I will be donating some of my gis. Gotta wait till after the Pans and do some sorting!
Train hard everyone and send me some gis :)
8 comments:
Received this by email, fyi!
"Hello.
I have followed Christian through the BJJGlobetrotter site, and read the experience in Moldova with the kids that had no Gi's for the training.
I train Judo in the outskirts of Copenhagen and we have a lot of spare Gi's both for kids and adults that we use for people/kids that want to try out Judo.
I wrote Christian due to that we Taastrup would like to donate all the Gi's that we don't use, for them kids. They are all fine but we have far to many, and them kids have none.
Christian guided me to the Blog that you have so I could get the address for the kids. Prepare for a Box from Denmark containing Gi's all plain white and ready for use.
Regards. Mikkel - Taastrup Judoklub."
Mikkel is sending them to Romania, and I look forward to finding out how many they had to spare, so stay tuned for more updates!
Great. I will certainly let you guys know when they get in.
Hello again.
A local tourist agency who travels to Moldova and Rumenia has offered to bring the boxes containing the Gi's for us :)
Great success !
He offers to take the boxes directly to Moldova around the 13th of July or to Bucarest in June.
He also states concern that the boxes dissapear if to many hands are involved.
Which do you prefer ?
Regards. Mikkel.
Hey Mikkel!
It would be great if we could get the boxes here in Bucharest. It would be a huge pain for you to find the village in Moldova if you aren't familiar with the country.
Do you know about when in June? We plan to organize the tournament sometime in June so this is why I'm asking.
-b
Hello again.
The Tourist company who in first place seemed willing to help is backing out again. Reason unknown. I have requested a confirmation from them, and if I don't receive an answer before Monday, I will arrange to send it by traditional shipping and Taastrup Judo will be the sole sponsor of this project.
We plan to write an article in the regional newspaper regarding this project, in order to motivate our fellow Dojo's to do the same, so if you can arrange a picture of the kids in Moldova we will try to bring it in the paper as well.
I will keep you updated regarding the transport.
Btw. we have collected 30kg of Gi's :)
Regards. Mikkel - Taastrup Judo.
The Tourist company who wanted to ship the Boxes say they will be in Bucarest the 30th of June.
How does this fit into your plans ?
Mikkel,
Sorry for the late reply. We don't have any concrete plans yet for this summer but that date might be ok. So they measure gis in kg now huh? :).
I am trying to coordinate with volunteers out in Moldova right now to see if maybe we can make this a bigger project since there are a lot of people wanting to give stuff.
Like I've been saying it would be really nice to see all this stuff get used if we're are going through all the trouble to get it out there.
I'll keep you guys posted though.
-b
No worries.
I will write the Tourist Company and make them confirm that we have an agreement and then prepare the boxes for transport.
I can make a foto of alle the Gi's when I prepare the Boxes for you.
I mailed Georgette with pictures when we collected the Gi's and she has my e-mail. So If you have any important updates please write my e-mail since I check that quite often :)
Happy training.
Regards. MikkelP
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