August 2009 Archives

I thought I'll have my hair done,
It's such an awful sight.

I'll phone up the hairdresser,
She'll recognise my plight.

A POET who aspires to one day write her own book is to write a weekly set of poems for the Gazette.

They can be found here, on the Hillingdon Community section of the website, every Tuesday and Thursday.

Here, Lyn Fahmy tells us a little about herself...

A GROUP of former students who started their school lives 40 years ago are planning a reunion.

Judith Pearce and Deborah Slade both attended Bishopshalt School, in Royal Lane, Hillingdon, between 1969 and 1976 and are busy organising a get together to reminisce about the past 40 years.

A GIRL who jumped out of a plane to raise money for her nearby RSPCA branch is celebrating success.

Zoe Corbin, of Long Lane, Hillingdon, raised £200 to present to the cash-strapped RSPCA, based at Crescent Parade, Hillingdon.

Animal lover, Zoe, said: "The jump was a total success," and now she is preparing to present a cheque to the grateful RSPCA staff.

A FURTHER £80,000 has been allocated as part of the council's ward budget initiative. Spending has been approved for several new projects, although there is still £384,500 available until the end of December. The new projects are shown by ward, which each have £25,000 to spend.

A CAMPAIGN has been launched to block plans to build a new supermarket in a residential street- which could spell the end for a Post Office.

A planning application has been submitted to demolish the derelict Oak Tree pub, in Ryefield Avenue, Hillingdon, and replace it with a supermarket with four flats above it.

FIVE nurses are daring to tackle a gruelling trek across the Sahara desert to raise money for charity.

Fiona Hamer, Lorraine Barton, and Liz Bunker who work at Hillingdon Hospital, in Pield Heath Road, will be joined by Claire Young and Claire Coleman who work at Hillingdon PCT.

CAGE fighting is undisputedly one of the fastest growing sports on the planet. A club in Cowley is now ready to take on the challenge of training the up and coming fighters with their new cage - the first one in the whole of Middlesex. Charlene Mitchell talks to instructor Ian Morgan ahead of the opening of the club this weekend.

WITH mixed martial artist (MMA ) Michael Bisping leading the way for UK fighters in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) many dream of following in his footsteps.

To help these dreams come true, two well accomplished fighters, Ian Morgan and Andy Jardine, have set up their own club, Ronin MMA, at Panthers Gym, in Packet Boat Lane, Cowley.

As well as teaching MMA, the club is also very keen to train men, women and children in whichever martial art they are interested in - and they even do boxing too.

Mr Morgan, who lives in Phelps Way, Hayes, has a long history of fighting in judo and kickboxing championships all over the world, and he has even tried his hand at jiu-jitsu.

The 38-year-old said: "We don't want people to think it's all about cage fighting and getting your face smashed in. We want them to know they can come here safely and learn a sport and if they want to go into the cage they can do but not until we get them to a level where we feel they are ready for it.

"Including myself we have got seven high level instructors who all have dan grades in various martial arts. We are also affiliated with the World Association of Kickboxing Organisations (WAKO), the British Judo Association and the Amateur Boxing Association. The other guys who do grappling have also got other affiliations.

"We cover all the main sports so people can learn to become the ultimate MMA fighter.

"MMA is only for the men because we don't want to promote women into that sport but if a woman really wanted to do it then we would."

Mr Morgan runs the club with his business partner Andy Jardine, from Hounslow, who has also been running a company called Extreme Brawl for 10 years.

Mr Morgan said: "He has trained a lot of our fighters himself and now all those guys have got somewhere to train.

"We have all come together to run this one club as a team. It's quite an exceptional room now.

"There's nowhere else like this in the area for people to go. We have got a proper training cage. It's 15ft wide and we will hopefully at some point go for the much bigger training cage, but you can't do everything in the first hit when you're doing something of this magnitude. We're just going to see how well it goes first.

"We have got quite a large following already and if it does go well, which we hope it will, we will look to expand it.

"At the moment we're going to be open five days a week and there will be some weekend sessions too."

The club will be open for men and women and children from the age of five to 16.

"We want to get kids into a well grounded sport where they are going to learn something and get enjoyment out of it," explains Mr Morgan.

"A lot of children go to clubs because their parents tell them to and then they get bored, but here they can move on to another sport once they get bored of what they're doing."

The club is holding an open day on Saturday (8) and Sunday (9) from 10am to 3pm and their website www.roninmma.co.uk should be up and running by September.