New Club!!!

[Firebird7137]

Hey there everyone. This is officially my first post on this forum and it is an important one! I am the President for our newly created high school Fencing Club.

There is TON of enthusiasm throughout our 20 members, but sadly because fencing is not a very common thing in Boise, Idaho, USA (where I live) there's not much upper-level administration support. Already we have to have our practices at the local YMCA instead of on campus and it has been an absolute nightmare trying to figure out liability issues.

But enough of that! I was wondeirng if anyone out there knows what the best course of action to follow is regarding the purchasing of foil equipment for our club. (as we have decided on foil as our first weapon of choice).

Should we buy used equipment? Should we go through the internet? Should we get electric or practice gear? (My intention is to develop the club into a self-sufficient organization after this year with electric equipment for hosting tournmaents etc...)

I have looked through Ebay's pages and have found that the "fencing" auctions are often times just for single pieces of single sets, but we need complete sets, masks, gloves, foils, jackets, lames etc...

Thanks in advance for your input!

~Firebird

[noodle]

Originally Posted by Firebird7137

Hey there everyone. This is officially my first post on this forum and it is an important one! I am the President for our newly created high school Fencing Club.

There is TON of enthusiasm throughout our 20 members, but sadly because fencing is not a very common thing in Boise, Idaho, USA (where I live) there's not much upper-level administration support. Already we have to have our practices at the local YMCA instead of on campus and it has been an absolute nightmare trying to figure out liability issues.

But enough of that! I was wondeirng if anyone out there knows what the best course of action to follow is regarding the purchasing of foil equipment for our club. (as we have decided on foil as our first weapon of choice).

Should we buy used equipment? Should we go through the internet? Should we get electric or practice gear? (My intention is to develop the club into a self-sufficient organization after this year with electric equipment for hosting tournmaents etc...)

I have looked through Ebay's pages and have found that the "fencing" auctions are often times just for single pieces of single sets, but we need complete sets, masks, gloves, foils, jackets, lames etc...

Thanks in advance for your input!

~Firebird

edited your quote for emphasis.
if you meant "for attending tournaments", your goal is attainable. "for hosting tournaments" would require your own club to buy sets of reels/floor cords/ boxes for a single strip. this can cost in the area of 800ish per strip at least. i'd say that would be enough to fully furnish 8-10 people with all one needs to dry practice. here's what i'd think your priorities should be, in my humble opinion:

1) get dry gear for people who need it, plus a little extra for new people who become interested
2) get competition gear (electric). this will be quite a bit more than 1. only do so if you have tournaments you can/should go to. if not, this is about even priority with 4.
3) save up cash so you can buy stuff to repair your electric gear, since you're gonna need it.
4) buy reels/scoring boxes/etc. whats the point of buying all this electric gear for thousands of bucks to hold a tournament to raise a few hundred? you have better things to buy at the moment.

avoid buying from ebay unless you feel confident in the item. there are some really crappy quality things for sale on ebay for suckers to buy.

[DangerMouse]

Our university club orders from Blue-Gauntlet and The Fencing Post. Both are very helpful for figuring out how much equipment to order.

For hosting tournaments, we host one in Oregon with only a few scoring machines because we get other teams to bring a machine and reels with them.

[esskreemr]

Unless the school explicitly supports you're club with funding or space, I recommend keeping you club as close to the community as possible.

There is so much red tape involved with a school club that sometimes it can actually prove to be detrimental.

[vincikai]

Originally Posted by noodle

avoid buying from ebay unless you feel confident in the item. there are some really crappy quality things for sale on ebay for suckers to buy.

turn the same reason around theres also many good quality cheap price items on ebay, so far i have'nt get any problems from ebay sell items. i am also planing to open a club in our school next year ._. so...good luck to you ;]
to tell which is a good buy on ebay that you might want to do some homeworks on fencing gears before you order anything either new or used ;]


dont buy any used foil or blade over ebay, unless its a cheap FIE blade