Open letter to Youth Development Committee

[foildad]

Dear YDC,

Thank you for your efforts to promote and support youth fencing, especially for hanging in there and fighting the battle to put on the SYCs. The RYC/SYC program is fantastic for youth development; please continue your efforts to keep regional youth fencing alive and growing.

As you plan for next season, please do all you can to make the RYC/SYC format and schedules available as early in the season as possible.

Personally, I think that the decision against awarding national points at all RYCs was the correct decision; let's not cheapen national points. On the other hand, I think that awarding points at SYCs is appropriate because the prospect of earning points draws a strong field which in turn provides the highest possible level of regional fencing. NYC and San Jose proved this. So from my perspective there is no need to tweak the system; just let the fencing public know the schedule as soon as possible.

Another observation: The difficulty in qualifying for nationals varies widely among divisions. In some divisions fencers can qualify just by showing up to qualifiers, others are very competitive. For Y14, SYCs have essentially become regional qualifying tournaments. To the extent that regional qualifiers equalize Divisional inequalities, I think this is a good thing.

Thanks again for all of your efforts.

Foildad

Comments?

[fluidfencer]

Your comments are very much in line with the YDC. Despite the difficulties of this season, and poor executive at times, plans for next year are coming together. We should be finalizing plans for the following at a meeting this weekend in Chattanooga:

Fine tuning Super Youth Circuit requirements and bid procedures

Reviewing/defining Regions to ensure all areas with the USFA are covered by a RYC Coordinator

Reviewing/defining responsibilities of RYC Coordinators

Reviewing/establishing RYC requirements and the selection process, balancing flexibility to accommodate the differences between Regions, and the need for minimum standards to ensure consistant quality

Establishing a timetable for SYC bids, and developing the SYC and RYC calendar with a deadline of August 1, in coordination with the USFA calendar

Significantly improving communication between the YDC and RYC Coordinators, and providing reliable and timely information through the RYC web site


People like Eric Dew and Wendell Kubik and many others have already laid the groundwork for the RYC program. I hope our work removes some of shortcomings that became obvious this past year.

We realize that the real work will be done at the club level. The job of the YDC will be to support their efforts with a program that provide opportunities for competition, and information to help younger fencers and their parents and coaches.

David Arias
YDC

[oso97]

Here's a thought to chew on. Do RYC's have to include all three weapons? I've noticed a couple of other regions holding one and two weapon RYCs, and I tried to convince the RYC coordinator of my region to let me have one, and was basically told "no way, no how."

Some overall guidance on this issue would be appreciated.

[fluidfencer]

That's a good point. I wrote the guidelines (have not been reviewed by the whole YDC yet) for RYC tournaments and didn't specifically include information on weapons.

It "seems" like you can accomplish a RYC schedule that includes weapon-specific events. The concern is that if a particular weapon is weak in a region, it will get ignored because it is easier for the tournament organizers. Of course, if people want to split them by weapon because there are too many fencers and the tournaments would be overwhelming in size, we might have to split them. They could be split by age as well. We just have to be careful that no group gets left out.

In Dallas, I wouldn't think the events would be so huge that you have to split tournaments into weapons or ages. Are you wanting to do this because it is easier to get referees of one weapon together? What is your rational?

If you have a concern as a club, we probably need a way for those concerns to be addressed if the RYC Coordinator's answer isn't sufficient.

Thanks for the input.

Here's a thought to chew on. Do RYC's have to include all three weapons? I've noticed a couple of other regions holding one and two weapon RYCs, and I tried to convince the RYC coordinator of my region to let me have one, and was basically told "no way, no how."

Some overall guidance on this issue would be appreciated.

[oso97]

The reason I had suggested it is that I run an event in the fall called SabreCave, which is all sabre and for which I bring together enough sabre referees to competently run the event. Since it seems to be so hard for the RYC coordinators to find enough competent sabre referees, adding in some sabre RYC events to that would make everyone's life easier. Plus, I've already experimented with adding in some Youth sabre events and they've been very well recieved. It would be easy for me to have the youth events designated RYC sabre events. Only trying to make life easier for the sabre fencers around here who usually get the short end of the stick. Honestly, I am not too concerned about being turned down. I doubt a significant enough additional number of competitors would attend to make me have a bigger profit by having it an RYC event.

But it still would be nice to be able to have seperate weapon RYCs, to enable this kind of focus. For example, this year, I'm again going to bring in a FOC-level sabre referee to conduct an advanced sabre refereeing clinic.