The club started modestly with seven students. It took a number of months to get the membership up to about twenty. Two other black belts joined Seamus as instructors in the club, and slowly the membership grew.

After over three years of renting a room three nights per week, the club finally moved to its own (leased) premises in January 1998. This is a beautiful old hall that looks like it was always intended to be used as a dojo, and has a sprung wooden floor and proper facilities for karate training. It is much larger than the old dojo, which was becoming far too small for the fifty members to train in comfort.

In April 1998, Kanazawa Sensei visited the new dojo to officially open it and to teach classes there.

The club has gone from strength to strength in a short time, all due to the efforts and enthusiasm of those involved. It is great to have a nice building as our dojo, but it is far more important to have hard-working and dedicated students and teachers.