In the I need to kick you before I kiss you vein: I’ve said this before and I will continue to reiterate it. Many, most, almost all of you are showing up too late for our events. I know one of the advantages of having an event is that you can roll out of bed at 9:05 am for the 9:30 am tournament. That isn’t good for your fencing or for the club. Yes, some of you can show up a few minutes before the event starts, still be finishing suiting up on the way to the strip for your first bout, and win it; especially if you get a good first match up. However, you cannot do that at regional and national events where that first bout might be much tougher. Yet you have trained yourself do start with no warm up and hope for the best. For most events you should be there 45 minutes to an hour before the end of registration. That gives you time to get signed in, do armoring check if necessary, warm up, do a little footwork, do a couple of drills, and maybe do a practice bout or two. Then you will be ready for your first match.
For the club, not having people come in at a reasonable time means that we don’t know what our numbers will be until it is too late to try to contact someone if we could use another body. Yesterday’s foil had 14 fencers and was an E instead of a 15 person C1 and we had no time to bump up the numbers. The epee was a B1 instead of the B2 we thought it might be. This also leaves some of our members not knowing whether they will have to refereeing or maybe be free to fence.
In the same line of thought, we do want people to sign up as early as possible on askfred, but only if you are actually planning to show up. We also can get a bad reputation if askfred looks like we will be hosting a large event and people drive all the way down here for an E rated event. Last minute things come up, but please contact someone, or learn how to remove yourself from askfred, if your plans change.
That also can negatively impact the club. When something is sitting at 26-27 fencers with a week to go before the event, we are having to decide how many referees we need to hire. That is right on the breaking point of needing five referees versus four. It is hard for us to get referees down here, which is why you see so many club members refereeing. If we hire an out of town referee that we don’t need, that eats into the profits made from the event, which effects quality of trophies, having money to repair equipment, etc. We have no way to predict what out of town fencers may do, so please help our askfred numbers be as accurate as possible from our end.
This will also be more important s we go forward because I am certain you all want to have big enough events to up your rating or at least jump the rating up to a x16 instead of an x15.
In the good news column, we defended our house and won all of yesterday’s events. In the foil Oliver Galbraith took out Jesse Harvey for the gold. Jack Bess of Apex and Ian Dube of Edge of America Fencing tied for the bronze. In epee we have a new B, Oliver defeated Jack (who earned his C) in the finals of the Open epee. Ian took another 3rd along with Stephen Kmiec of ECU. Robert Thomas of CFFA denied Jack the gold in D and under epee. Isaac Falaschini of CFFA and Bret Silverman of Wilmington Fencing tied for the bronzes. Thanks to everyone who helped with reffing, set up and clean up.
This is pretty much the last full week of practice before the holidays. In Wilmington we will have everything going on except for Wednesday night practice. Friday night brings the close to this session at Camp Lejeune.
Next Saturday is an NCFL meet at Kestrel Heights. It looks like we will have at least one team.
There is also a women’s epee and open epee at Charlotte Fencing. The Open looks like it could become a B. The fees double as of this evening, so get to askfred if you are interested. I believe they collect the fee through askfred and the early deadline and subsequent fee hike is their way of dealing with the issues I mentioned above.
Next week I plan on being in for Tuesday night. Christmas Eve is up to those of you still in town. I hope to be back in time for practice the next Tuesday, but doubt I will come in for New Year’s Eve.
Donny would like to have a Saturday morning practice on the 2nd of January to get the year started right, so I will be in about 10 am. Between New Bern, us, and anyone else who wants to show up, it should be a good crowd and fun time. The potential crew from new Bern includes adults and youth fencers, so no one should feel excluded.
Afterschool will start back up on the 4th of January and the next evening beginner class will start on Tuesday the 5th. No practice Wednesday night as UNCW won’t be back yet. Camp Lejeune will start their next session on Friday the 8th.
Saturday the 9th is a homeschool meet. The 16th is an NCFL meet, with the location as yet to be determined.
The division schedule is out, so I will take a look at next year and decide where to put in some 12 and under events.
The 23rd is our next adult event, Old Man Winter. Open foil, Open epee, and Vet epee. I should have it up on askfred later tonight or tomorrow. There is also a homeschool meet that day, but I can’t be in two places at once.
pax vobiscum,
Greg Spahr
Head Coach
Cape Fear Fencing Association
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
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