Community Sports Fund Raising Poole

Aim: Community sports centre for the people of Poole to help physical health and wellbeing including focus, confidence and fitness.

Who are we?

AKA Combat Sports CIC was founded by Steve Goodhand and Eva Papadopoulou in 2023. Steve Goodhand has taught martial arts for over 20 years in various schools, at Bournemouth University, and privately in different clubs and gyms. Thanks to this, he has a wealth of knowledge and experience, which he uses to not only refine his teaching style but also to start up the Southern Area Championship held at Bournemouth University.

Benefits of Martial Arts

Society has come to appreciate the benefits of martial arts both physically and mentally, and several studies report that martial arts training has had a positive effect in reducing symptoms associated with anxiety and depression. That training can also help you develop greater emotional stability, assertiveness, and self-confidence, and lessen aggressive feelings. AKA has witnessed this first-hand, with students gaining confidence and dramatically improved fitness. Not only that, but these clubs are great socially too, with many people making friends and bonds for life.

What we do:

We at AKA Combat Sports CIC strive to provide a space for young people and adults to learn the discipline and skills involved with kickboxing. Martial arts are excellent for helping children focus and learn values that can help them through many different struggles, and become physically fitter in the process.

Benefits for children and teenagers

Getting young people into kickboxing helps to create a safe community within the club itself, but those skills and the confidence it grants them help them outside of the club as well. Providing a space to go after school or on the weekends can benefit not only their physical and mental skills, but also their social lives and core values.

Benefits for adults

It’s not just kids and teenagers that can improve their lives with martial arts either. Adults can also vastly benefit in many of the same ways and can increase their fitness and give much-needed stress relief, confidence, and a sense of comradery that can sometimes be lost as we get older. People can train for fitness, self-defence, and for competition. AKA aims to be inclusive of all people no matter their age, background, or aims.  

Adults can also attend small group fitness sessions, including Strength & Conditioning, Kickfit, Boxercise, and various other fitness classes that aim to not only get the body moving but still be fun while doing so. For those that want a more personal touch, or people that don’t like the idea of training in a group, there are also personal training sessions available, which can be laser-focused on meeting specific goals.

What are our goals?

AKA Combat Sports CIC has obtained a lease in the centre of Poole and wants to make this a community sports centre for the people of Poole and the surrounding areas to help improve people’s physical and psychological health via martial arts and fitness training.

We’re aiming to expand our classes to help even more people, expand our services to offer more kickboxing, martial arts classes, and fitness classes, and help us further integrate as a key part of the community. This will allow us to better serve people and improve their physical and mental health even more, and help younger people find their own path and strengths, which will, in turn, allow them to better contribute to society too. That’s not all though; we also want to train people into successful competitive athletes that can challenge on the national and even international stage, if that’s what they want.

Sport England

To allow us to provide the ideal kickboxing and fitness studio for the community, we will be linking our project to Sport England's Recovery, Reinvention and Building Resilience project. This will allow us to overcome barriers like the premium price of rent, equipment, and utilities, and offset the difference in those usually high prices to make sure we can become an affordable sports facility for all to give people focus, help forge friendships, and to get fit and healthy.  

With the help from Sport England, the space can then have the required equipment to ensure high-level training at a low price, and it will also allow us to provide free sessions and scholarships for those in need. We're aiming to not just be in the background of the community, but to be an integral part of it that helps the whole as a result.

How will we use the funding?

To do this, AKA Combat Sports will use the money raised for equipment, refurbishment, and set-up costs. The unit needs a lot of work as it stands, with walls and boards needing to be redone and mats needing to be bought, and the same is true of punch bags, fitness equipment, and a boxing ring for kickboxing. We would also need help with smaller pieces of equipment such as Thai pads, kick shields, gloves, and head guards for kickboxers who may be disadvantaged, and we could also provide subsidised classes and scholarships for such members in the long run.

We already have students training with us for free including those separated from family due to war. To provide them with their own equipment and training until they can be in a better situation would help immensely. 

Here is a list of items we would like to purchase should we have enough funding:

 Building materials:

• Panels
• Scrappers
• Paint
• Stencils.
• LED Lights

Mandatory Signage:

• Backlit signage
• window graphics

The Martial Arts Training Area:    

• Safety Mats
• Punch bags
• Speed Ball
• Boxing gloves
• Headguards
• Boxing ring.

 Fitness Equipment:

• Kettle Bells
• Med Balls
• Olympic Weights
• Power Rack
• Sled

WAKO Competitions & Club Events

We at AKA Combat Sports will help get our local area excited about our WAKO Combat Karate and Kickboxing competitions and open training days held in Poole. We aim to promote our sport as it can be at the highest level, while still ensuring newcomers can find their feet, and get both what they want and what they need from us.

Below are some pictures of our club training sessions:

Fitness Journey

Having struggled with past health issues, Steve committed to first training himself to become fit and healthy, and then training professionally. As a result, he is a qualified personal trainer and level 4 strength & conditioning coach. He’s used these skills to help other people refine and meet their goals, ultimately changing their lives for the better too.