CFFA update for December 31

CFFA update for December 31
Thanks to everyone who has been helping with getting the club jackets laundered.
There seems to be enough interest, so I will be in Tuesday night for practice.  I will probably show up about 6:30 pm.
Homeschool
practice will start back up Wednesday, January 3rd.  The consensus is
for a 1 pm start time for the more advanced fencers with a 1:30 start
for beginners for the rest of this academic year.

I haven’t heard from the UNCW fencers, so I don’t know when Wednesday evening practices will start back up.

Practice will happen Thursday night, January 4.

Topsail and Camp Lejeune practices will resume on January 5.

The
Old Man Winter tournament is the first Saturday of the year, January
6th.  It will have Open foil, Open epee, and veteran (40+) epee.  Still
need fencers to get signed up.  At this point really small and not top
heavy, so a good event for those who want something a little less
threatening as a first or early in your career event.  Epee needs some bodies to have a reasonable rating.  Foil and Veteran’s epee are wide open.  We are again at that point of how many refs do we hire and not knowing how many we need.  Please get signed up on askfred ASAP if you are definitely going to be there.

January
8th the next afterschool beginner class starts and afterschool fencing
will resume.  January 9th is the next evening beginner class (a
Tuesday/Thursday one).  January 10th will start the next homeschool
beginner class.

Right now I am planning to stay for Wednesday evening practice on the 10th even if UNCW is not there yet.

January
13 is the date for the next NCFL meet, but that may change.  I will
keep people informed.  I am also not certain where and when the make up
event will be.  If there is no NCFL meet that day, I will try to put a kid’s tournament together.  It may be on really short notice, just FYI.

January 20 is the next homeschool event and we will be hosting it.  Start time is 1:30 pm.  We could actually hold a morning practice as I doubt the homeschoolers will be arriving early.

Sunday, January 21st is being mentioned as a possible make up date for an NCFL meet and would be held at Apex.

January
27th is supposed to be the NCFL State team championship.  You are
supposed to have attended two events to be eligible, so there needs to
be at least one more or a decision as to how we allow people to enter.

Sunday,
January 28th, is an unrated, split by gender event up at All-American
in Fayetteville.  Lots of spaces for women, only two for men.  Men’s is listed as sanctioned, the women’s is not.  See
askfred for details.

All
of our events for next spring are on askfred, including the Lynn Krupey
Memorial Iron Maiden (March 24).  This is still the only 3 weapon event

exclusively for women in the state, so it would be good to get our
people signed up
soon to draw other women.  There is no reason the epee can’t be an A and
the foil and sabre at least have some kind of rating, but all you of
the female persuasion need to get signed up early to attract other
fencers.


I
am currently planning to be away to the Junior Olympics in Memphis over
the President’s Day weekend if all our fencers get signed up.  The club
has cancelled the event we had scheduled for that day.  (February 17) 
Donny Zelinski, the coach at New Bern, has offered to run a youth event
at our club.  He would need the help of some parents to make it
possible.  Let me know if you can help, even if it is just keeping
everyone organized, hooking up fencers during the events in which your
children might be patricipating, etc.  I would probably try to truncate
the schedule a bit because he would be driving two hours just to do this
for us, and we never seem to have sabre fencers.  A few people have contacted me about being willing to help, so this should happen.

I need to start planning for camp dates now.  The US
Summer Nationals end July 7th in St. Louis with Y10 and Y12 events. 
Since we don’t currently have anyone competing nationally in those age
groups, I could probably start camps as early as July 9th.  UNCW starts
back up Wednesday, August 22nd, but I may have training the week
before.  So basically, I am looking at the weeks of:

July 9-13
July 16-20
July 23-27
July 30-August 3
August 6-10
August 13-17  (Outside possibility)

Usually
I try to do a beginner camp first, so they can then do advanced camps
if they like it.  Then there is a week of an advanced camp for each
weapon.  Sometimes when I have an extra week I have done a half day
beginner camp, but I am also open to other possibilities, or just taking
that week off.  So, if you have a preference for a week for a camp, let
me know what works or does not work, and the child(ren) and weapon(s)
involved.  Right now I am hoping to keep the camps at $195 for the week.

I haven’t actually heard from anyone as far as what weeks are best.  Pretty soon I will need to just guess at what will work for people and I usually preclude someone by how I do it.  So please give me some guidance.

pax vobiscum,

 
Greg Spahr
Head Coach
Cape Fear Fencing Association

“The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.” Damon Runyon

Please follow and like us:
Pin Share