A blog post from Paul Timms, the new Chair of the Sport Referees Department.

Hi everyone,

In this my very first blog as the new Sport Referee Department Chair – I wanted to wish everyone in the wider British Taekwondo community a very happy New Year. I hope that 2023 delivers all of your dreams and aspirations and that they are met and surpassed.

Paul Timms

The department has a lot of ideas and plans for the future, not least attracting new officials to lessen the burden on the existing pool of officials. And I would therefore like to place my trawler net right now and ask that if you know anyone that would like to have a go, please encourage them to come and speak to us at the earliest opportunity or get on a course.

As mentioned, we are in the process of revisiting the pathway plan for officials, creating more incentives and fast-track opportunities for people to get involved and progress if they have the passion and talent for refereeing.

We will still need to work hard during the coming months, as we always do in the referee family.

The new event policy, although in its infancy, has lessened the burden on us to some degree, but with a lot of events in early 2023 it’s still going to be busy.

We will continue to support event hosts with the Daedo PSS equipment at least for the coming year, but we recognise that the British Taekwondo owned equipment won’t last forever and we are looking at how best to do this going forward. This resource is maintainable financially – but not replaceable.

Congratulations to Jethro Cooke who now joins the International Referee family having received the notice from the WT that he was successful in passing the course in Paris several months ago. Well done Jethro, welcome to the Blue jacket club!

One small request from me please. I would like to ask as I close, that all of our officials take the free CrashCourse online concussion training available through the British Taekwondo website – it only takes about 15 minutes to complete. It is necessary and essential that everyone is on the same page with regard to head injuries, so let’s start as we mean to go on. If you are serious about refereeing then it is a given that you need to have completed this.

Finally, we are now advertising for people to volunteer and join our referee department and be part of the future development of refereeing in the UK.

Adverts are now out for Sport Referee education manager and administration manager roles, and we welcome anyone with a desire to get more involved. Take a look at the role description at the links below:

Thank you for taking the time to read the blog and again I wish you a great 2023.

Paul Timms

Chair, Sport Referee Department

About British Taekwondo’s Sport Referee Department

The department’s role is to coordinate the development of British Taekwondo’s Sport Referees and is responsible for the strategy and management of the education pathway of our combat sport technical officials.

You can find out more about the Sport Referee Department on our Technical Department and Combat Sport Officials pages.