Hey, it's Richard Mosdell and this is my daily karate vlog #60, and I want to talk about why volunteering feels so good.
I know because I do a lot of it right now.
And I won't always be doing this much, but first let's start with a quick story; Kent from my club, thank you so much for coming to the club today, and washing all the club vehicles so I could continue working on the Canada Open! That was just really awesome, he sent me a text, said I know you're really busy, I'm free, I'm coming in to help you out, whatever you need.
That was just fantastic, and then we had a great chat, a good time for us to spend some time together, catch up, time we don't always get before or after a class, so Kent thank you so much!
And I think that leads to with the Canada Open coming up we need some volunteers, we're half way already, I think we're half way there on our volunteer list, and the tough thing in the karate world is if you have a club tournament you can rally the troops, parents want to be there for the kids, but when you have a big association like a multi-style association tournament, it's hard to feel connected to it.
But volunteering is a really important thing because we're all going to benefit from it. I remember when I started the Vancouver Karate Cup many years ago, and people were like hey, who started that tournament?
That Richard guy, that C list athlete on the team, why would he ever do something like that? To the point where the last time I held it we had over 500 athletes, everyone had a really good time, and there was something for the community, we started the Vancouver Cup because there just wasn't enough tournaments.
By the time I left and went to Japan, there were lots of tournaments. The same thing with the Canada Open, I really wanted to give something to our community that we can have at a really high level, and can grow over the years and everyone can benefit from, we can make friends with, you know, and is it close to my club, fantastic, we have to take ferries and drive and stuff so we can get there.
So volunteering is such a great feeling, so I wrote on the board here "volunteering = civic duty = better benefits for everybody", and one thing I noticed in Japan and in Canada is people always start with this "somebody else will do it, somebody else will do it", and we have to transition to " how can I help get it done, how can I help get it done?" This is really important.
In Japan I remember being in 9 different karate associations, in the high school one, the very busy one they would have a meeting every January, lay out a spreadsheet of every single week with a calendar for the next year coming up and they would look at those 52 weekends and go "look, there is a weekend with nothing in it, let's fill it with something!" Uh, something they did that so um the leaders could go drinking with each other afterwards and have an excuse to escape the house, but they did put a lot of events in, and they had to figure out how to get people to them.
When you look at how strong Japan is now, really strong in the sports-karate world, a lot of it is because everyone is putting in so much effort to make everyone better. So how can I help get it done? In the club, with your friends, this is really important, you know I put a lot of extra hours in for my club and my association right now, there are people who do way more than I do and they put way more of their life on the line.
I mean in you were in my inbox right now, you would not believe some of the things people go through, hardships they go through just to get their kid to come to the karate club or get their kid to come to the tournament, or those people who are traveling from thousands of miles away, spending hundreds of dollars to be at the Canada Open.
And so that's it, that's all I've got to say, volunteering feels awesome, civic duty feels awesome, you get to be right there in front of things, for the Canada Open I'm going to announce an amazing volunteer package, I'm going to announce it tomorrow on the Canada Open Facebook page, and I'll email it to all the karate instructors tonight.
We have a volunteer package you guys are just going to love! If you even just send one volunteer to the Canada Open, we're about to give you so much stuff in return, it's going to blow your mind.
I'm Richard Mosdell, I'm from here in Kenzen right now, this is my daily vlog #60 and tomorrow the uniform is going on and we're going to show you some great stuff!
Thanks a lot of dialling in, and don't forget best question I get by Wednesday this week thatI like I'm going to send that person a free Sonny Leads book anywhere you are in the world. Take care!