This morning the WJJF shared with us an announcement regarding the ‘Clark Centre’, the building named after Sōke Robert Clark and which was the headquarters for the WJJF.
To partially quote their statement:
When we re-entered the building, after twelve months off, we were faced with a horror story! The roof was leaking into the Dojo and onto the Tatami and also into the changing rooms. The resulting damp throughout the building had turned to mould on all the furniture and equipment. The paint was peeling from the walls due to the gutters falling off and water ingress soaking the walls. The smell of damp and mould was not only repulsive, but it would also have had a detrimental effect on the health of anyone entering.
As Directors of our Organisation, we have always taken our responsibilities seriously and worked hard for the benefit of the members. We were left with no choice other than to consider the future viable use of the building with regard to the Federation. Taking into account all the aforesaid implications we had to make some extremely hard decisions as we felt that we could not allow our members to return to this unsafe environment. The cost to put everything right, into a building we were purely renting, without any financial help from the landlord, would have been an unfair and unrealistic epic financial burden to place on our members.
Therefore, it is with much sadness and deepest regret that the Board of Directors can confirm that we have closed the Clark Centre.
The full statement can be found here – https://www.wjjf.co.uk/official-statement-from-the-board-of-directors/
