Strabane club in final fundraising push

IN order to bring a team of young kickboxers to the ISKA World Championships in Vienna later this year, Strabane Martial Arts Academy is making a last fundraising push ahead of their Easter Draw.

There are only a limited number of tickets remaining and with prizes ranging from a holiday in Portugal to cash and vouchers for local businesses, there is plenty on offer for those who make a purchase which will not only help local young athletes but the community as a whole as a percentage of the proceeds will be donated to the Koram Centre.

“We’re hoping to get 13 juniors and three seniors to the World Championships,” explained Strabane Martial Arts Academy’s Dee McIntyre.

“That doesn’t come cheap so rather than knocking doors and annoying the same people over and over, we’d organise a draw and a few other things because it gives them the chance to get something back too.

“The draw has got a lot of support from local companies and businesses, they couldn’t do enough for us, we have piles and piles of prizes.

“They are all good prizes and the way we’re working it is that we will give the Koram Centre a percentage of what we make from the draw, so it will work out well and given the way things are in the town at the minute, they are the most worthy cause, they should be supported more, so that’s the way we’re looking at it.”

While the club’s draw, which offers almost forty fantastic prizes, will take place tomorrow (Friday) at 7pm, its membership will continue working hard on the training mats over the next week or two ahead of the Irish team qualifiers for the World Championships, which will take place in Derry on the first weekend of April when McIntyre is confident of a full quota being selected for a trip to Austria in October.

“Our juniors are all experienced and are at a good age and everywhere we got we clean up with them so we’re hoping to bring home a few gold medals [from Vienna],” he explained.

“We have a few we definitely fancy so it should all go well and hopefully it will create some opportunities too.

“But we have the qualifiers first, so we have to make sure they all qualify first. They all have big groups, there are 3-400 entries, but we’re taking our full team with the hope our full team qualifies and there is a shield for the club that gains the most qualified and I won’t be happy if we don’t win that!”

To purchase Easter Draw tickets, contact any club member or visit Strabane Martial Arts Academy’s Facebook page for more information.