Kathy Walters is one of the best armorers in the US. She has been the armorer for US teams as they have competed in Russia, Turkey, and Italy (and maybe some countries I have forgotten). She was supposed to be the armorer for the para Olympics, but they didn’t send her – probably because the US only qualified two people and one of those was a last minute replacement when they banned the Russian team. Kathy will be presenting a hands on how to take care of and fix your, your child’s, your team’s equipment next Saturday at the club, starting at 10 am. Yes, this is exactly the same time as our youth tournament (see a few paragraphs down.) The cost for this is only $10 and you will learn a lot. Yes, bring all your stuff that isn’t working. If Kathy cannot diagnose it, it is utterly irreparable. If you don’t have broken things to repair, believe me, the club does. We will happily allow you to practice on our equipment at no extra cost. LOL You will learn to fix things under the eye of someone who thrives under the pressure of getting weapons ready for the best fencers our country has to offer. Email me if you need more details.
There is a lot that goes into putting on a tournament, most of it behind the scenes to the competitors who don’t have such experience. For the last couple of years Brendan, Herman, and I have pretty much done all the work for CFFA events. That includes, but isn’t limited to: getting referees, getting awards, advertising the event locally, putting it on askfred, cleaning the place, reserving the gym from St. Mary, fixing overheads, fixing and ordering fencing equipment, setting up the event, running the event, cleaning up afterwards, getting results to the media, and taking care of lost/found equipment. We have to find the time, on top of everything else and outside lives, to do all of these things to have a quality tournament. We want to simultaneously run a good event, but also want to make, or at least lose very little, money for the club. In the elden days (read pre-internet) you just put on the tournament and hoped you guessed right as far as what you needed. Now we have a good tool for planning a tournament, askfred.net, IF PEOPLE USE IT!
There are at least five things that askfred is useful for. In my notes to you I generally just mention one, the fact that having people on askfred early will attract other fencers if they think it will be a big well rated tournament. That is the thing that appeals most to the self interest of the fencers. The second and actually probably most important thing it helps us to decide is how many referees we will need. Things for this tournament didn’t start to jump until last Wednesday night, so it was Thursday morning before we thought we needed any more referees. Too late at that point, especially as some of the people we would have called had decided to fence in the event. Just ts Brendan and I usually have to do, outside referees looked to come here to fence because they are often refereeing at their home events. Then on Saturday, we have almost an entire pool of people walk in who were not preregistered. You were about on the verge of fencing until about 9 pm at night, plus having very cranky referees at that point. Luckily Clayton Olson was willing to drop out of the foil and help us out of the tight spot. Brendan dropped out of the epee to help cover that. Herman and Brendan would like to fence more, but give it up so it helps the club. I would prefer, and know some of you would like to have me around to help you, but if it looks like the club needs me to ref, I have to do that. By giving us a better picture of the numbers early, we have a better idea of what will be needed referee wise. Number three, we looked at who was coming and having a basic idea of who owns what we knew about what we needed to have as far as spare weapons, body cords, etc. Again we thought we were in good shape. With a number of people needing equipment showing up unexpectedly, Herman, Brendan, and I were all loaning out personal equipment to make certain that people could fence. As a result we will be instituting a policy that CFFA fencers get first dibs on equipment for tournaments, and our adjunct group fencers (UNCW, Hoggard, whomever else fits that description) will be paying a rental fee. Nothing extravagant, we still want you to fence, but something to help cover procurement and replacement costs. Next, if we know we are going to have a great turn out early enough, we can try to find more interesting and valuable awards. When we are sweating covering expenses, we will probably do the easy to order and inexpensive medals. Lastly, Saturday turned out to be a very good tournament, the biggest foil event we have had in a couple of years. I would have loved to have had someone from the newspaper or a TV station out to cover it. However, on Monday, about the time I would have needed to send out an invitation, the numbers were about 12 epee, 8 foil, and 5 sabre. The worst thing that could happen would be to have a TV person out and show an empty room with a couple of fencers. I didn’t want to risk it, so I didn’t invite anyone.
Does this mean I want you to sign up even when you know you won’t be there? Of course not. If 10 fencers from out of town show up and we don’t supply enough fencers to make it a rated event, our reputation will suffer significantly. If we have 30 foil fencers signed up, we hire referees for 30 fencers, and 15 show up, we lose money for the club. However, if you know you are coming to a tournament please please sign up on askfred as soon as you are certain.
We did put on a pretty good tournament considering the above and some failures in automotive engineering. The foil was a C1. If we can get another B down, we might end up with a B level event. As it was, Patrick Lausi of Edge of America Fencing took first, Jack Bess of Apex took second, updating his D, and Mike Nicholson of Mid-South and our Jesse Harvey tied for third, both also updating their Ds. Aidan Labrozzi of Apex also earned his E. In the epee, Patrick won his second event and updated his B. To our eternal disgrace, Stephen Pashby, a FOILIST from Mid-South, took second and went from an E to a C. The Harvey brothers took both thirds. Kenan Ratliff of Apex upped his ranking from an E to a D. In sabre, Mike Nicholson of Mid-South won, re-earning his E. CFFA’s Joe McLaughlin won second, CFFA’s Erik Graf tied with Queen City Fencing’s Mike Rabinowitz for third. Thanks to everyone who helped with the event.
Tomorrow, Monday, St. Mary has the day off, so no afterschool. We can catch beginners up on Tuesday or Wednesday as needs be, Other than that a regular week of practice ending with the final class of this session at Camp Lejeune this Friday night.
September 24th has U19 and unrated sabre events at Mid-South. Check askfred for more info. Their U event currently has 4 Mid-South fencers. If our fencers show up it would be about like yesterday, but with no Mike Nicholson or Mike Rabinowitz as they are both Es.
Our first
under 12 event will be held on that Saturday (24th) as well. Foil at 10
am, sabre at 1:30 pm, epee at 3:30 pm. Trophies to the top three
places; medals to the top three fencers 9 and under who don’t win
a trophy. Yearlong sword awards to the top boy and girl, plus the
person voted as showing the best sportsmanship. Entry fee $5. Will has
aged out, so the guy’s division is wide open. Donny says he will be
sending students down, but cannot attend due to work. The Wilmington Fencing Club may also be sending fencers. If that is going
to happen, volunteer referees greatly needed (for foil). People helping fix equipment over the next week is also appreciated.
Sunday the 25th is foil and sabre at NCFDP. Details on askfred. Foil is already an A, sabre should end up as an A. However, it is suffering from the same issue we had. Right now it is still an E. Keep checking askfred as the time gets nearer.
No practice at Camp Lejeune on September 30th as they are refinishing the floor.
October 1-2 is an RYC in Richmond, check askfred if interested. Preregistration closes September 30th.
Also on
October 1, there will be doing a referee clinic for potential NCFL referees
at RTF in Durham. It sounds like the clinic will be starting about 10:30 am.
October 2 has the epee and foil competition at NCFDP. Both will probably end up as A events.
Our next evening beginner class starts October 4th at 6:30 pm and will run for 6 weeks on Tuesday and Thursday.
The next beginner class at Camp Lejeune will start on Friday, October 7th, at 7 pm (1900) and runs for 8 sessions.
October
8th is Salle New Bern’s Joseph Cadole Memorial event. It will be an
unsanctioned adult E foil (meaning no ratings can be earned) and and an unsanctioned Y-12/under 12 event. I will give the
appropriate sword points for any of our Y-12/under 12 foilists who want to go.
Let me know so I can make certain you have equipment. Also, I will be going up, probably to referee, so I can take people if they need a ride.
Erica Julien will be competing at the World Championships in Germany on October 13th. I will keep you posted as to her results.
Our next event is Saturday, October 15th, Open foil, Open epee, and a D and under epee. That means if we can find 4 D epee fencers, 4 E epee fencers, and fill out a field of 25, that someone can walk away with a C without having to defeat any Cs. Right now only two fencers are signed up for any of the events. One of them is Patrick Lausi, who apparently now thinks he can just walk in and win any tournament we have. Our fencers actually practicing might dissuade him of that notion.
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
