Retirement of "Mr Jungyo"

[jac@powerup.com.au (Greg Lund)]

If any members have ever had anything to do with Mr Noboru Inoue, Chairman
of Same Two Inc., the company which handles all matters related to Sumo
jungyo and koen (domestic and international), you might be interested to
know I have just had a card from him announcing his retirement from the
company, which is now to be run by Mr Maenaka.

I haven't spoken to Inoue san since, but my contacts in Tokyo tell me he is
going to do "special projects" for Sakaigawa rijicho.

When he was last in Australia in April, Inoue san told me that Sakaigawa
was very concerned that all the traditional arts and crafts associated with
Sumo were being lost because very few young people were prepared to look at
them as a full time career. Thus he was thinking about having Inoue san
look at developing a system to keep the old crafts alive and ensure an
ongoing supply of gumbai and kessho mawashi and so on.

I guess the retirement might be connected with that, but look forward to
asking him when in Tokyo in a couple of weeks time. It now looks as though
the formal announcement of our Australian koen will be on 9 September, by
the way.

Thanks to all those still sending messages about our Australian event. I
hope to be able to post lots more information for you after returning from
Japan.