Maidenhead’s Charlotte Wilkinson fights for Great Britain

OK, could your company’s brand image benefit from supporting a Great British GOLD Medalist?

A veteran judo champion who took a break, had 2 children and has come back fighting her way to a GOLD Medal?

Charlotte would love to fight more but those pesky bills get in the way and so since she’s helping The Berkshire Blog with our Go Karting Championship events & other events coming soon, it seemed only right that we see if any of the gang can help her out.

Let’s keep the whole model very simple… a slush fund for the year of £1000 should do the job so split 10 ways that becomes £100 each… for that you get:

Your logo on Charlotte’s t-shirt that goes under the judo jacket… not visible during fights but between bouts.
Charlotte will come and talk to your team… as part of a company day or special event and talk about her experience to help inspire others to go for their own GOLD!

As part of her day job Charlotte is talking to Sales & Marketing Directors of companies in the Thames Valley who are looking to run corporate days… she’s bound to mention you where relevant as part of a natural conversation if you are one of her gang.

Give it some thought but not too much… first come first served… obviously she reserves the right to say thank you but no thank you to your offer… complete the form below and I will pass them on to her… thank you.

In Charlotte’s words…

I said I’d give you a bit more info about what it is I’m trying to do and some background. The picture of me above was taken last year at the World Veteran’s Judo Championship in Abu Dhabi moments after I picked up my Gold medal from the podium, Union Jack raised high, and it’s certainly up there for proud moments in my life. I’d just turned 30, so old enough to qualify. I’d spent a year training hard for it, competing in senior national ranking events and also dropped a lot of weight to get to my true fighting weight -63kg.

I was a half decent judo player as a junior, winning a few national medals but never really quite breaking into the senior British squad or having an impact internationally. Eventually I stopped judo for 5 years (and had a couple of kids in the meantime) and when I stepped back on the mat 3 years ago I was fat, unfit, unconfident and hadn’t competed for 8 years! The journey from then to when this picture was taken was a long hard and massively rewarding one supported by friends, family and coaches.

Fast forward to this morning when I open my emails to discover that between the British Judo Trust and the company I work for, Absolutely Leisure, I now have the minimum funding required to get me to this year’s World Veteran’s Judo Championships in Malaga to defend my title. I was ecstatic.

And now there lies a new journey ahead very different from the previous and with different challenges. First and most obviously the event is in just 6 and a half short weeks’ time! I now have kept up a decent base level of fitness and mat practice to start from but I’m going to massively have to step it up a gear. Then there is the minor issue of about 4kg to lose. It is also a very different kettle of fish this year. Spain is a massive judo nation and so is its neighbour France. There are likely to be more and harder fights to get to the podium. I need to be on my game.

But before all this comes the practical bits. As well as entry and accommodation, I have to book my flights, as best value as I can to make my funding stretch. I also need to give Absolutely Leisure some sponsorship exposure probably in the form of embroidered logo badges on my Judo Gi, and if possible some T-Shirts printed with their logo on the back. I intend to Blog my progress in the upcoming weeks right up to and after the event. If there are any Berkshire companies who can help, I’m more than happy to give them what exposure I can.

I know some people hate corny motivational quotes but I love them, and this is one of my favourites ‘If not you then who? If not now, then when?’

Time for me to get hard or go home J

Kind regards

Charlotte Wilkinson