New to Presidency, seeking advice

[saucysabrevixen]

I've recently inherited the presidency at my schools fencing club. We have a major problem with numbers and attendence. Our club has been dying a slow death. People come when they feel like it, and dont' do a whole lot when they're there. It could be a lack of interest, but I doubt it because they still come soemtimes.I was wondering if there is anything that I can do as the president to get the members more interested in coming to bi-weekly practices? Equipment is not a problem. I think it might be a problem of organization, it was never clear how many ppl were going to be there, so you could never be sure if it was worth your time. I think if people see organization, with the club run more like a fencing club than a social hour... it will weed out those who are not interested, and encourage those who are.

This is the basic agenda for our meetings from now on. Mind you, we used to just show up and start fencing.

1. footwork drill
2. individual weapon lessons w/ weapon captains (usually bladework)
3. organized bouting (everyone must fence at least one bout)

I'm hoping that having more direction will keep our fencers coming back, but I'm not sure. How are everyone elses practices organized? How can I best tap into ppls interest in fencing? Does anyone else have similar problems/ had a problem and fixed it? Any advice on how to best organize meetings for the good of the club? HELP PLEASE!!!

[Wafath]

What school did you inherit?

(you didn't specify, but I am assuming you are talking about a college/university club)

Organized practices that feel more like a sports team practice and less like a knitting club will help you retain new members.

But more importantly I think you need to develop a schedule. Plan events. USFA is good, but Intercollegiate is better. Tell the new freshmen that if they work hard, train hard, and learn their weapon, they will get to go to the the really big tournament in november... even if it is just a U held down the street.

But develop the intercollegiate aspect if you can. It excites students more, and the administration understands it better.

W

[Svidrigailov]

I actually encountered a similar problem when I was president of my school's fencing club. It was a very modest program, and not that many people were coming down.

I was lucky because college required that people participate in an "individual sport" and fencing counted as one of them. So some of our students actually NEEDED to take the class...

besides that, I find that playing a lot of games usually helps keep attendance up. For instance, we played a lot of games with the gloves...

sometimes the teacher (me) would stand on a chair and drop a glove and the students would have to lunge to catch it. It became competitive...

for another game, I put the glove between two groups of students, and then have them step forward, without losing form, until they caught the glove.

And then for the bouting, you could set up mini tournaments. Electric bouting is better I think...and epee was always the best weapong to teach because people wouldn't get tangled up in all these right of way rules...

[great bowyer]

the highschool i went to had the same problem but worse. the first two years i was in it the advisor was not able to be there on a regualar basis so just about every week there was an anouncement that the fencing club was not going to meet. we then got an advisor that was able to show up, this was an improvement. the club would start out with about 15 members at the beginning of the year and work down to about 5 (most were more interested in climbing on the basketball hoops than fencing). in about a month. the final blow came when all the people that knew how to fence graduated (myself included) as far a i know the club has not had any meetings since then.

my ideas on possible solutions would be to
1. get good publicity about the club throughout the school...have announcements, posters, website
2. have knowlegable people to run the club meetings...good coaches
3. minimize distrations...they are there to fence, not play basketball.
4. hold tournaments, go to tournaments, win tournaments.
5.try getting special guests, assuming this is highschool, the coach from the college down the street that has the olympic coach, the kid that won the ncaa, the guy that went to a world cup, they guy that won the big u rated tournament over the weekend, anything that sounds impresive. when you get these guests, make sure you advertise it to the school and get the schools attention.
6.make sure you get people "trained" so that when you leave they will be able to take over. our club did not do this and now it is dead.

these are a few of the ideas that i had for the club i was in, but i did not have enough power in the club and in the school to get any of it done except the website. anyway, good luck.

[KD5MDK]

Do you have competitive teams? Do you compete in regional or USACFC competitions? If not, I'd recommend you try for that. Gives your people something to focus on. (Warning. It cost up 27,000 to send 20 people to the USACFC championships this year, but that's obviously dependent on travel distances and the like.)

[Welted 24/7]

I'll field some of the questions for SSV, considering it's our club she's the president of now. No, we aren't USFA registered, or NCAA, or ANYthing resembling official other than being a school club. As far as having "impressive" accomplishments to get people to stay around, not to be egotistical or anything, but I've got those covered already. New people who don't know any better who hear "junior olympics" and "national championships" will be impressed, whether they know how...erm..."well" I did or not.

We're probably going to make it so we get people to at least come and watch one tournament to, at the very least, SEE what it is we do when we go away for the weekend. I can count on one hand the number of people who went to tournaments this year, and it was ALWAYS the same three people(myself, SSV, and zara_athlen). I understand that new people will tend to be gun-shy about going to tournaments, but this seems to be the best way to expose them. I get the feeling if one of the more experienced people were to tell them about how tournaments work, they'd just think "oh, well it's easy for them, they know what they're doing already."

The big problem I see is that we don't have an official coach, and I honestly don't foresee us getting a new one anytime soon. I and a few other regulars can handle teaching beginners just fine, but we have nobody to actually instruct people on how to advance once they've got the basics down.

[Ordway]

My first years of training were with a college club that was just pulling itself out of a slump similar to, though not as severe as, what your club is experiencing. I got to see it start getting good first-hand, and now that more years have passed on the same positive trajectory, UMass is now a two-time National Club Champion :-) Go UMass! OK, you're thinking in terms of months rather than years, but the point is that dedicated people *can* have a lasting positive effect on a club, and each positive effect snowballs.

I've also coached at a couple of small clubs and seen what *didn't* work.

Some things that you might consider:

--As others have said, get yourself a competive schedule. Get in touch with other college clubs and arrange meets... even if they have to be dry, any competition is a good competition. Having several events over the course of the semester and one "BIG ONE"! at the end is a great idea, as people can see improvement.

--Get some structure. Appoint captains of each squad, even if the squad has only 2-3 people on it. The captain is in charge of leading drills, giving lessons, etc., to the other fencers on his/her squad. (If you don't have enough fencers to have men's and women's squads in each weapon that's fenced at your club, then have mixed squads. That works just fine.) The point is, this way all fencers have someone to look up to and learn from. It doesn't matter if the captain is only one or two steps ahead of the others... leadership is what matters.

--Have someone in charge of the whole club. Ideally you do need a coach. Are there any alumni of the club in the area who might be enticed to help out? Otherwise, the president of the club is the de facto leader of the whole thing, and should do things like arrange tournaments, lead activities, etc.

--Have structure at each practice. Start out with group stretches - and have one person leading so everyone is doing the same stretch at the same time, not just doing their own thing in the corner. Then do footwork for a few minutes, then some drills. Only then break up to do free-fencing and bouting. This, as others have said, makes people feel that they are learning a sport rather than just fooling around.

--Concentrate your weapons if necessary. I come from a three/six-weapon club background, but I appreciate that a small club may need to focus on just one or two weapons. Better to have a strong foil squad and no epeeists than a handful of each who never can find anyone to fence.

--*****Start a "novice team." This was the BIG insight that helped develop UMass into what it is now, I think. Everyone who joins the team starts out in the novice team on their first semester. They have a novice coach (generally a somewhat more experienced fencer from the team) and they practice separately at first, learning the basics and bonding as a team. Only at the end of the novice semester do they integrate with the "varsity" team (called that even though as a club there's no real varsity). The result is that new fencers train at first with others who are equally new, so there's no stress, and they bond with each other in a smaller group. Then when they join the main team, they already have some basic skills and integrate much better and with confidence, not being intimidated by those guys who know more stuff. Plus, the quick dropouts happen on the novice squad, so you don't have the demoralizing factor of people "joining" the main team and then quitting. Have a "novice tournament" at the end (and you can only participate if you've been attending practice regularly!) and also social events to help the new fencers bond with each other. If you can put your energy into just one thing, I'd say this is it.

[great bowyer]

The big problem I see is that we don't have an official coach, and I honestly don't foresee us getting a new one anytime soon. I and a few other regulars can handle teaching beginners just fine, but we have nobody to actually instruct people on how to advance once they've got the basics down.

that is a big problem, somewhat. the two best fencers in the club in my hometown don't fence much anymore, so now the club is run by two people that know the basics, but are not too much past that themselves. they offer calsses that they model after the sample in volkman's book. i no longer go to that club after i became a member of the penn state fencing club for that reason and a ton of other small things that i did not like about the club.

a good coach is not something you can let slide for too long. one suggestion would be to have a member take lessons from a good coach and bring stuff back to teach the rest of the club. i did try this at my club, but the people at my club were too egotistical to listen and too lazy to attempt the stuff.

another thig to help with the coaching is to make sure you are a better fencer than anyone else in the club and have the members fence you. at least for me, fencing better fencers than yourself makes you a better fencer.

[saucysabrevixen]

Thanks everyone. I think that the main problem is going to be keeping old members active. But if they don't want to be there to fence, then I don't want them there... regardless of the skills that they could pass on. The point that was made about training someone to take over is well received. I already have someone in mind who would be good for it. I am planning on making said person my "awesome wingman".

Our coach situation sucks right now, but There are a few people that could really help out the newbies, and some of the veterans by teaching basics and refining skills. I'm hoping to get everyone over to a more established club at least once a month to give them more people to fence with, and a more professional coaching experience.

The games will help a lot, I think that it will redirect some of that social energy, but still remind ppl why they are there.

[saucysabrevixen]

there really aren't enough ppl for a novice team. we have ten members tops, and they're all novice with the exception of two.

[steyr762khx]

I was in your same position a few years ago and now our team has grown consideribly.

The posts above are all true, but there are a few more things to remember. First, attrition (as has been mentioned in previous threads) is really high for fencing. if you end up with a third of the people you start out with, then you seem to be doing about average. Make sure the people you have in the club stick with it and get better. Don't put all your effort into new people because the old won't want to do what they learned a year ago. Other than that, remember to keep it fun and make sure you all hang out outside of fencing club. It really makes a difference.

Another thought is to find the closest fencing club and try to lure the maestro into teaching your class on occasion.

Good luck.

[oiuyt]

Compete. As often as possible. Get the whole team going to H-B events AS A TEAM. Arrange meets with RPI. Go to the RPI Open. Go out to the various tournaments that Binghamton hosts. Find out if Hamilton still runs their annual collegiate tournament and, if so, go to that. Dual meets might be a bit of a stretch with the size club that you're talking about, but go to competitions as a club. There are a ton of collegiate-oriented non-USFA tournaments, including in your area. Get hooked into them. The more people you have competing the more your team will learn by doing and by osmosis from other fencers at competitions, the more interested everyone will be in improving, and the more of a "team" atmosphere your practices will gain.

Definitely structure practices. Group warm-up, group stretching, group footwork (cycle through several different leaders one per day, keep the advanced fencers involved and given responsibility), drilling (ideally with some direction, rather than just "okay, epeeists over there and go do something"), then bouting (whether free-fencing, 5/15-touch bouts, or controlled bouting depending on what your club/team is like, what the goals are, how much direction people are willing to take, etc.). Get people to know and expect a routine. To expect to do some drilling rather than just stopping in to fence.

Recruit. Recruit. Recruit. Poster the campus the first week or two of the school year. Hold an "introductory" meeting with demonstration. Get emails/phone numbers. Email people. Give them a specific practice schedule and use peer pressure to make sure they're coming regularly at the beginning to learn footwork and other basics and get used to regular attendance before they learn the bad habits of your experienced members.

Don't worry about not being qualified to teach. You know more than the next people down on the ladder. You know way mroe than the newbies. Teach what you can. Get people that are out-growing all of the teaching available to be going to comepetitions and then to try things out in practice. Drilling to experiment with that cool new action/timing/whatever is completely reasonable. Get people to try things in their bouting, after all, it's practice, so the score shouldn't matter.

Lead by example. Do all of the above yourself. The experienced people will either a) also do so, b) ignore it, in which case they are useful for pulling people up until they get passed, c) continue to come sporadically, in which case they will act as a slight distraction, but eventually become irrelevant to the club. Ideally it's case (a), but that's really up to them and something you have minimal control over. Don't worry about it.

Coaching is nice, but not absolutely essential if people are willing to work and learn when the opportunities are there (and this is coming from a full-time fencing coach). When I was in college, my squad's biggest rivals (in a friendly sense) were VTech. Nat Burke and Aaron Caba were Tech's top epeeists, both my year. They didn't have a coach (I believe both got coaching while home for summers, but there wasn't a coach at VT). They both got very good by bashing on each other constantly. When we all graduated Nat was a strong B (and later climbed to something like 4th or 5th on the national points list) and Aaron was (I believe) a strong C. The results that the two of them obtained, without a coach at their club, was amazing. But it certainly shows what is possible. Aaron posts/reads f.net, so you might be able to get more information directly from him about what they did and what worked and what didn't. Note that they were in an established, competitive club, merely one without a coach.

Give people high expectations and they will, generally, live up to them. Allow the club to consider just drifting acceptable and it will live "up" to that. Don't worry about how to "make" people do more, just expect it from them. Everything you do/say should have that in mind. These are the expectations. This is what we do. Work on the new people, they're not yet set in "the way it's done."

-B :)

[wiwf]

All good advice from previous posts, i'll try to add some more.
I'm Assuming you are at a college.

The keys to growing a college club are
1. Get people in the door
2. Retaining them.

1. is fairly easy assuming you are at a goodly sized collage.
But its essential to advertize at the beginning of the semester.
Do demos around campus, post flyers everywhere you can think of.
Most of what you'll get will be freshmen, so be sure to post where freshmen will be: freshmen dorms, halls that have mostly freshmen classes, auditoriums that have huge classes. Also advert around the recreation facility, and maybe even off campus. Do this early, before the freshmen get to campus if possible.

Hopefully you'll start off with a huge number of people, but this will quickly drop off. Try to assure those that show interest that it won't always be this big or chaotic.

So hopefully you'll have 30-60 people show up to the first couple of practices. Good #1 accomplished, now comes the hard part. #2.

First Practice
Try to show the newbies what they can become. Buy a video of some top level fencing and play it, this will show them what good fencing is. Remember that most won't have any idea what fencing actually is or what it takes to get good. Try show/explain why fencing is fun. I would also do an electric demo between the two best fencers for the first couple of practices.

Socialize
Hold a social event once a week, on a different day and place from where you practice but preferably on campus, something that has free food and drinks is always good, especially the first few weeks of the semester. Let them bring friends/roomates whatever, but get to know them, their names, where there from. Remember that most are probably "experimenting" with several clubs/activities, esp. other sport clubs, so you're kind of wooing them, so your job will be to make the time they spend with you as fun and exciting as possble. Try to be a significant part of their social lives, if after four weeks of attending fencing pratice all they know is a couple of the coaches, and all they do is drill/ free bout and then leave versus, knowing everyone, drill/free bout, do other cool stuff outside of practice, they are much more likely to stay even if the coaching isn't that substanitive. What freshmen are looking for isn't so much a hobby as they are a social life, friends, etc.

Practice structure.
First thing, sit everyone down and talk to them. Make announcements, tournaments, aforementioned socials, whatever. Also make everyone say their name, introduce themselves, at least after the numbers come down. This helps with everyone getting to know everyone else. Be friendly, be accessible.
Do this instead of going directly into drills.
Next, Stretch.
Next, play a game, could be fencing related or not. Old camp games are great, something that gets the heart going. Might think that freshem kids might find these stupid but they really like them.
Next, footwork drills...lots but don't make them too sore the first couple of pratices.
Next, bladework drills.
Next Free bouting.

Of course at the beginning there won't be much free bouting.


Tell, don't ask.
If you ask the answer will be no.
I think a previous post said somthing like this.
Do you want to go to a tournament? No.
Do you want to go to a social whaterever? No.
Do you want to help with the fundraiser? No.
Make certain tournaments, fundraisers and the bigger "planned" socials "mandatory".
Of course you can't make them do anything, but be aggressively assertive.
Ask who's not going during the announcement phase of pracitice, and then ask what the reason is. Don't be mean about it, but it sets a tone. Instead of begging you're subtely demanding.

Be a competition oriented club. Without real coaches competition is really to best way to get better. Plus it gives the club members something to work for. Set up a "pick up" tournament with another college or two, it doesn't have to be usfa approved or even electric, but chances are their members are at hte skill level that your members are at. For freshmen set up electric strips towards the end of the semester and do a mini tournament. Or send them to an E and under tourny where they won't get creamed.

I'll try and post a few other things later.

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Motivate!

Show them success, bring in a pile of medals, have club tournaments. Heck, pass out some fencing footage on CD or DVD. Watching fencers much better than me has always been motivating. If you can give people a reason to train, they will, and they will also be more likely to push the club forward.

I second what oiuyt said about not needing a coach to get good. With determination and know how, you can get alot farther. You should realize that the people with coaches who SUCCEED, are those who have motivation. If you have a coach and no motivation, you're never going to get anywhere. A coach is really just a tool to harness and cultivate the motivation, but it can be done without one.

[oiuyt]

I second what oiuyt said about not needing a coach to get good.

Just to clarify, I definitely think that coaches are very useful. They play an important role in the development of most athletes at any level in any sport. The point of my post is that I've seen way too many collegiate clubs get hung up on the idea of not having a coach means that they can't really do anything, or feeling an immense need of a "coach" to tell them what to do. If there's a qualified coach (or coach-type person) available to your club that you can afford and that will work well with what your clubs has and is interested in, absolutely do what it takes to get this person involved. If there isn't, there isn't, don't worry about it, and do what you can without stressing about not having a coach or whether Turquey State College down the road has a coach for their club.

While I lead off with it, I don't feel that I properly stressed what I feel is one of the most important concepts in my earlier post. Compete. A lot. Get the team to competitions. wiwf's "Tell, don't ask" fits what I wrote/think perfectly. Tell the team that they are going to X competition on this date. Don't even ask who's not going (okay, slight difference from what wiwf said). If people can't make it it's up to them to come tell you. Collegiate competitions are great because they tend to be against other fencers of similar experience and they generally don't require USFA membership (I'm a BIG fan of USFA membership, and while I was coaching UMass we instituted a policy of requiring USFA membership of everyone in the club, but I also recognize that for many collegiate clubs the social/competitive mentality is such that a required $50 fee will cause very high drop-out rates).

-B :)

[Maeve_Mari]

there really aren't enough ppl for a novice team. we have ten members tops, and they're all novice with the exception of two.

You need to keep bringing novices into your program to thrive your experienced with members. People will come and go as their lives change, so welcoming in novices is key to your success. Stress the importance of this to your other members and enlist (if not mandate) their time to work with a novice class - could be rotational, could be for specialties, but encourage them to participate in the welcoming of novices to the team.

Provide a provisional membership, or just the fee for the Novice class, that can then be applied against full membership once they have completed the Novice classes. Be careful that other members treat the new members well, snobbery on the part of older "more experienced" members will drive away Novices who may be reluctant to join in where they dont feel welcom.

[Sildar]

Hi SSV,

A big part of the retention issue in my experience is directly related to how many people you start with. Becoming a more serious club will help keep the sort of people you want, but every club has and will continue to have more people coming in, trying it out for a few months and drifting away, than serious, dedicated, long-term fencers. Assume that you will always lose a certain number of the beginnners after the first few months, and don't lose sleep over it. Starting with a larger group of beginners will lead to more long-term members.

Remember that people need to know that you exist in order to sign up for your club, so one key ingredient you need is exposure. Do demontrations out in high-traffic areas during lunch if you can; let the school paper know every time you host an event or have people competing in an event. I've also found having one or two social events per semester helps keep numbers up and gives people a chance to socialize without taking up class time. For example, when a fencing movie comes out announce to the club that everyone is going to the new Zorro next Friday; this also makes beginners feel more like members of the group, and they sometimes become more active in the club.

Best of luck!

[wiwf]

A couple of other things.

Don't be afraid to set relatively high membership fees. that is if you're planning on being organized. If they see that the club is organized and that they're not wasting their time, most will be willing to pay. If you're well funded this won't be an issue, keep the fee low, but if you're not and you need equipment set it higher. $75- 100 a year isn't too much to ask. It also helps to say that if a member quits before the end of the year/semester they'll get the fee back or pro rate it for time spent. We did this, and guess how many, after quiting, came back asking for their money..... 0.

As ouiyt has said, compete, set a schedule of competitions and expect everyone to go. Say "If you join the club, these are the competitions you will go to." Also, get together with a good coach, and schdule time, maybe once a month to give a little clinic and some lessons. This will be expensive, usually members paid their way, so I wouldn't require everyone to go. But it gives those who are really enthused a way to get better.

Once last tid bit, this is small compared to the rest. It seems fencers do not make good armourers. We always had a hard time filling the armourer position. But if you're doing a lot of competitions and electric pratices, make this a 2 or 3 person position, because its unfair to make one person do all that work. Also don't try to make 20 weapons the night before a competiton, it'll save you montains of stress if you do it a week in advance. Plus you'll actually feel like fencing the day of the tournament.

Competing and having a Team atmosphere, and socializing outside of fencing, will go long way in growing a college fencing club.