Congratulations to Rory Kelly, Alan Kerr, Kirsty Kee & Jodie Kee who have all been selected to represent Northern Ireland at this year’s UK School Games to be held in the North East of England.  This will be the 3rd UK School Games appearance for both Alan & Kirsty while Jodie will be competing at it for the second time, while Rory will be competing at this event for the first time. Michaela Fox has been selected again as one the female coaches, unfortunately Scott has been left out. Good luck to Michaela and the the 4 players selected along with the rest of the NI team!

Cameron Kelly has continued his excellent run of form with a well deserved Silver Medal at this year’s Welsh Open, losing narrowly on the flags in the final.  Kirsty Kee fought well to win Bronze in a very tough u57kg category while younger sister Tori fought for the first time outside of Northern Ireland finishing in a very respectable 5th place. Congratulations to all 3!

Monday Night classes in Bangor & Friday afternoon classes in Moneyrea have finished for the summer & will start back in September.  Tuesday nights in Ballybeen will finish tomorrow night and be off for 4 weeks starting back on Tuesday 3rd August, for the month of August there will be 2 classes, 7-8pm for kids, 8-9.30pm for adults & competitive players.  Thursday night classes in Cregagh have finished for 4 weeks and will start back on Thursday 29th July, class times untill the end of August will be the same as Tuesday nights in Ballybeen, 7-8pm for kids, 8-9.30pm for adults & competitive players.

Several players from the club travelled to Derry today to compete at the grading. We have 2 new 1st kyu’s (top brown) in Chris Connolly & Iain Kelly, Iain also earned 17 points toward his Black Belt. Adam McCune also added 17 points to his total for his Black and Jimmy O’Neil was awarded his Orange Belt at his first grading. In the Juniors Ellen Connolly moved up to Orange and Daniel Hodgett moved up to Green Belt. Congratulations to everyone who took part!

The sporting achievements of Ulster’s young athletes were rewarded recently during the latest round of Linwoods Sporting Excellence Awards. The Linwoods Awards are administrated by the Mary Peters Trust and, despite her demanding schedule, Dame Mary insisted on personally congratulating the latest winners. Mary praised their success by saying;  ”It is a true delight to see young sports people achieve such high standards of excellence and Linwoods  Foods is to be congratulated for helping the Trust to encourage top sporting achievement in Ulster with these awards.” 

Murakwai’s Jodie Kee is pictured below receiving her award from Dame Mary Peters.

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