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Happy May, Members!
We’ve got to start with that amazing performance in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, from our Junior & Cadet World Championship teams. A simply dominant performance in Plovdiv which is quite literally the envy of the world, led by the tremendous USA-USA final between Zander Rhodes and Lauren Scruggs, and back-to-back World Championships for Hadley Husisian, Colin Heathcock and Magda Skarbonkiewicz. Overall, the USA brought home a record eight gold medals and 15 overall medals, which tied the record for the most successful Junior & Cadet Worlds in Team USA history. Magda finished off her April with a great result at the Seoul Grand Prix, too!
April saw the start of Olympic qualifying, while it is well underway for our Paralympic hopefuls. If we want to send a full team to the Olympic Games, we’ll do so via the team competition. So if you’re trying to track where we are for Olympic qualification, our FIE team ranking is the primary way to do so. Stay on alert for our “Paris Tracker,” debuting on our website later this week. It’ll be a great way to keep up with the latest.
On Thursday night, we’ll hold our inaugural Fencing Foundation Fete gala in New York City, honoring the legendary Bob Dow OLY for his outstanding contribution to New York Fencing, and to fencing nationwide as well as raising valuable funds for the U.S. Fencing Foundation which will allow us to help support various areas of our fencing community across our grassroots programs and continue to build toward Los Angeles 2028.
If you can’t be there in person, we would love it if you could support the U.S. Fencing Foundation's mission by making a gift. I want to thank our Organizing Committee for all of their efforts, including Joe Inzirello, Victoria Voytek, Michael Bacon, Cliff Bayer OLY, Curtis McDowald OLY, Philippe Bennett, Chieh Huang, Stephen Trevor OLY, James Kuhn, Don Anthony Jr, Zarina Varukatty and Diana Hoadley.
Thank you to all who took a literal stab at me at the April NAC! I left with some bruises but not quite a bruised ego. Together we raised over $900 for the U.S. Fencing Foundation, while creating a space for awareness and education for Parafencing. So thank you all again for being such a supportive community. Some Olympians who had never fenced in a chair came along and took a go, including Kat Holmes OLY (from whom I still have significant bruises!), and the legendary Peter Westbrook OLY.
Missed the chance to fence me but still want to support the foundation? Click HERE to donate now! We also had requests to bring this program back, so be on the lookout, we might have this with a twist at Summer Nationals. I’d like to make a special shout out to the Louisville Fencing Center, our armorers, our referees, and our National Events team that made this event possible!
Speaking of St. Louis, the Division I National Championships and April NAC was a great event. We saw Sam Imrek become the second youngest national champion in men’s epee, while in five of six squads we now know who will be representing the USA at the 2023 FIE World Championships, the crowning event of the year. Later this year, we’ll also have the IWAS World Championships for Parafencing, so watch out for that, too!
Also in St. Louis, we held a Veteran’s Town Hall hosted by Vet Chair Valerie Asher and myself. It’s clear that this passionate community simply wants to compete more, and we’re going to do all we can to make that happen in the constraints we have, and the sheer size of our nation.
The Division Resource Team this week rolled out the new Bylaws and Operational Documents that govern our divisions. A note to Division leaders: These will need to be implemented and a copy provided to USA Fencing by Aug. 1. These changes ensure that local governance has a consistent level across the USA, and should enhance the member experience by ensuring it is equally experienced around the nation. Our team, as well as the DRT, are on hand to help Divisions work through these items.
Last month we also published the recommendations of the Membership Review Group and the Events Review Group for further feedback from membership. We encourage you to read and give your feedback on the proposals. We have already listened to those who have asked for a way to reduce costs for our smallest clubs in the nation and will be making an adjustment there. Our team genuinely wants to get this right – which is the reason we have asked for this feedback, so I ask you to take a look and give constructive feedback.
We are in the middle of budget planning for 2023-2024. As I’ve written before, we’ve seen a huge spike in costs, as I know each of you have in your own budgets both personal and professional. That means you will likely see costs rise as we go into 2023-2024 by around the cost of inflation, aside of course from the above recommendations that change more structural items. Please know that we take no joy in those cost rises, but we do need to cover the expenses that are faced by USA Fencing. You can be assured that the budget will be published so each member can see a breakdown of where that money goes.
Last month, a fencing-featured movie was released called Chevalier. USA Fencing has been testing in some of our larger cities targeting those who are interested in the movie and inviting them to try the real thing. If you meet a new fencer who found the sport this way, please let us know. This was a test to see how effective this might be as Hollywood continues to showcase our sport on both the big and small screen.
Speaking of data-based marketing, we are also creating a new business and sport data resource team, so look out for an email on that in the coming days and weeks. One of the most common professions we’ve found among our membership is in the data science space, and it’s time we brought in some of the talent who make up this great community to make our group better. Similarly, in May we hope to complete seating our High School task force and Collegiate Fighting for Fencing task force – the latter of which is already off to a flying start, we expect as many as two more colleges to add fencing in the coming weeks and months.
Apply for either resource team here.
On Thursday, in conjunction with the gala, we’ll announce our official wine partner, which I believe is the first major sponsor we’ve had outside of the sport of fencing. Though this agreement comes as a result of outreach from historic staff connections, the biggest way that sponsors happen in sport is through personal connection. In fact, after I finish writing this my next meeting is just such a connection. So if you have a great connection with a business you feel would fit the community then connect us to them!
Speaking of connections, we also announced a partnership with Reveal Suits, who are providing suits for our referees at our National Events – the top 134 of them in terms of service. Our ask is that where you need a suit, or a bottle of wine, please support our sponsors. In both cases there is an amount that comes back to support USA Fencing.
Also announced this week will be our NAC schedule. A thank you particularly to Glen Hollingsworth, who has done significant work to ensure that we can get the schedule out much earlier — two and a half months earlier than last year. We won’t have day schedules just yet, but we know you need those too. We’ll be headed to Regions 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 – and with a couple of new destinations that I think members will find exciting and a couple of cities we haven’t been to in a while. We’re working on finalizing SJCCs, as well as moving quickly onto our 24-25 schedule too.
As we go into those Championships, we’ll have our coach certification live which will be a requirement to attend as a coach for these events. I know that not everyone will be delighted about having to do another training but this is part of ensuring that we create an actual pathway and certification for coaching education as well as continue to give our membership resources around the culture we are seeking in our community – one of sporting, supportive, passion but eliminating abuse, unreasonable aggression and negative (whether intentional or not) behaviors from our community.
Back at USA Fencing HQ, we welcome two new members of our team. Shannon Daugherty, who joins us overseeing our Regional Events program. This allows Beth Mahr to move full time into her role developing Parafencing, which itself is an exciting development. Shannon has a background managing a similar program at USA Wrestling as well as time at some of our nation’s leading sporting institutions.
Meanwhile, on our Communications side, Nicole Kirk joins us next week, having spent her recent career at the University of Notre Dame where among other sports she was responsible for communications for the Fighting Irish’s Fencing program, a program who of course most recently repeated as NCAA Champions. A warm welcome to both Nicole & Shannon, we look forward to seeing their impact on our sport.
That’s quite enough from me, but as always if myself or my team can help you in any way – just hit reply.
Best,
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