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arcon · 05-01-2002, 04:19 PM

What are the difficulties that your club faces and how are you dealing with them?

arcon

Inquartata · 05-01-2002, 05:54 PM

(1) Recruitment
(2) Retention

It's a college club, so both are chronic. Particularly so since we lack a full-time coach. The big problem that I am fighting, however, is the difficulty in getting and keeping sabre fencers, specifically. The coach is a foilist, hence all novices go into...guess what? Hectoring the few sabre fencers into showing up for practices and trying to wheedle the occasional newbie into defecting is consuming most of my energies these days...

ScorpionDevil · 05-01-2002, 06:05 PM

I am in a school fencing team, not a fencing club. But anywayz, our school's fencing team is always lacking of funds to buy equipments. Fencing is an expensive sport!!! We almost had to forfeit the tournment because of the lack of equipments. Luckly some of us have our own equipment so we had just enough equpiments for the tournment.

arcon · 05-01-2002, 07:16 PM

Many of the fencers that have been through our club find it boreing after a while and eventually quit. I have spoken to some of them and have listened to their complaints. Its a shame to lose so many good people. They feel like the club has no real direction or solid goals. The latest complaint was ....and ill quote the person....
"I like to go where people are friendly, there are
clicks in there".
There are other issues that are related to coaches attitudes,accessability(or the lack of) programs, and structure that have come up.
It seems that(to some) our club does not meet the expectations or the vision of what a true fencing club should be. It is sad but a real reality that some of us have had to face and except.

arcon

Fencing Angel · 05-01-2002, 07:47 PM

well, arcon.. if you look at the sport of fencing, it's just one big Click.. no one outside the sport knows what we're talking about half the time anyways. but then again with all the russian's and such (not that i have anything against russians or anything) we can't understand our selfs the other half of the time..

but oh well.. eh?

135711 · 05-02-2002, 01:10 PM

<img src="graemlins/evil3.gif" border="0" alt="[Evil 2]" />

[ 05-22-2002: Message edited by: 135711 ]

arcon · 05-03-2002, 11:25 AM

135711,read my post again. Im not really sure you understood it. I, for one appreciate the common bond most fencers share. I also appreciate and like friendly, kind people in the sport. There will always be the A.. H.... in the sport like all other sports. A fencing club if it wants to grow should be aware of new members....be concerned about its programs and its people. It should reach
out to the newbies,teach them,and help to make them comfortable in the sport. Yes, people will always have their little selective groups (clicks)
but when or if these groups work aganst the growth of the club...either actively or by perception of others then they become counter productive.In every organization ive been in its been the "old blood" refusing to give way to the "new" that creates the friction. My personal answer to the problem is to "cut my own path"....those that want
to travel on the new path may do so....and for those that dont....they really dont matter anymore ....for they have no real path.
Stagnant water will always smell.
Give me the water fall... its much more refreshing
and it has direction.
arcon

[ 05-03-2002: Message edited by: arcon ]

135711 · 05-03-2002, 01:27 PM

[ 05-22-2002: Message edited by: 135711 ]

The Crazy Wacker · 05-03-2002, 01:46 PM

You guys just be lucky your school has a team. I may *try* and get one started at highschool next year. heh they got around 3000 kids going there and about 80 clubs/teams.... jeeeeeez

schlager7 · 05-03-2002, 03:15 PM

With all due deference to Arcon, I disagree. While there may be personal disagreements and personality conflicts, I think "dirty politics" is an erroneous discription. Our club, while not attached to a university program has had its share of retention problems. It has a diverse collection of individuals. We have a number of veteran fencers and quite a few junior high and high school aged fencers. With about thirty or so paid members and several regular "visitors" from clubs with reciprocal agreements, we certainly have our share of cliques. There are some who are also into historical fencing. Some have a more modern, competitve approach. Other people at the club are happier in a classical fencing mode.

To be sure we have our constant tug of war as to whether we are a "competitive" club or a "social" club, but this is not uncommon and has been a facet of the club since I started there some seven years ago. Such, indeed, are the interpersonal dynamics within any organization once it becomes large enough.

Fencing clubs also are often personality driven. D'Artagnan (a member of another friendly Texas club) has indicated the problems a club encounters when its driving force has been absent.

Our club has had two primary dynamic individuals in recent memory. One was our founder, who has since moved on to found and build another fencing club (His 4th to help get started). The second person has also moved on (literally moved).

That in this wake different souls in the club would seek different directions is hardly unusual and dissent is hardly dirty politics. I find it natural and a sign of vitality.

135711 · 05-04-2002, 07:38 PM

depression, so i'll sign off.

arcon · 05-05-2002, 08:54 PM

Sounds like "old blood" to me.

People have different visions and different needs.
This includes "fencers".

For the disappointed,the unsatisfied, the more ambitious, there is always a different path.

And even the best of leaders are not always the way they appear or how there're percieved.

I have not imagined those who've been through my
club that were disappointed or uncomfortable with the attitudes of founders and coaches. They didnt stay around to make trouble or even complain. They simply left. It was not as some would say,"their cup of tea". Two went on to other clubs, a few
say there're considering coming back. We'll see.

arcon

[ 05-06-2002: Message edited by: arcon ]

[ 05-06-2002: Message edited by: arcon ]

arcon · 05-05-2002, 09:31 PM

Scorpiondevil, have you checked into getting used eqiipment? There are ways to do this.

arcon

[ 05-06-2002: Message edited by: arcon ]

schlager7 · 05-05-2002, 09:45 PM

Well that is natural and to be expected. If ANYONE went to a given salle or club and did not like it, what could be more normal than to move on. There are just under a dozen fencing organizations in our division. Is see nothing wrong or ominous in some people trying one club, moving on, trying another and staying with what they perceive as best.

On the other hand, the fact that we stay consistently pulled between being a competitive/tournament oriented club and a social/recreational club tends to keep things rather dynamic...hardly "old blood."

BTW, I, myself, rarely say "cup of tea."

As to our club's different leaders being what they appear to be... they were/are all people who enjoy fencing and possessed enough love of it to teach it and organize clubs from (nearly) scratch to pass it on. Perfect? Not a one of them.

The more I learn about where our club came from and what paths have been taken by the people who have taken an active role it and have progressed from it, the more proud I am of it.

I have NO idea what you mean by "old blood."

arcon · 05-07-2002, 06:09 AM

I concede to the fact that you just dont "get it".

I dont think you will ever "get it".

To know that there are problems and situations that need to change...first the "rose colored glasses" must come off.

Im "proud" of my country but im not so narrrow minded about this pride that it blinds me to its injustices or its defects.

You made reference to "Old blood" and what you percieve it "is not".....then in the same post say you have no idea what I mean. Which is it?

"Old blood" is my way of decribing....old ideas,
and attitudes,approaches,goals exibited or promoted by senior of founding members of an organization who are resistant to change and new Ideas. Reluctant to allow new members any real power or input to new ideas, goals or changes.

In getting back to the reality of the current subject matter. I for one hate to see people
"run off" from my club for any reason. And when I find out the reasons.....they are basically the same reasons.....repeated to me over and over year
after year.

So...........IT IS NOT MY IMAGINATION

I have no reason to make any of this up.
The very fact im bringing it up SHOULD prove id
like to see the problem corrected.

Im sure your reply will indicate that what im speaking of is still no clearer to you and is non
existant. So bring on your last word...ive had mine.

Arcon

[ 05-07-2002: Message edited by: arcon ]

135711 · 05-07-2002, 10:24 AM

<img src="graemlins/evil3.gif" border="0" alt="[Evil 2]" />

[ 05-22-2002: Message edited by: 135711 ]

arcon · 05-07-2002, 10:29 AM

135711,you dont "get it" either.

but not to fret, we still love you "Mango".

the arcon

135711 · 05-07-2002, 10:33 AM

also we should learn from our mistakes, sort of like in fencing, after someone gives you a nice shot in the arm, you realize, duh,i'd better not do that one again, but we still do i guess, from time to time lapse into our previous way of thinking, so the answer is practice enough to change the patterns, and you have to have an instructor who knows and understands the complete learning process, including brain pattern remapping, if not forget it.

135711 · 05-07-2002, 10:34 AM

maybe instead of expecting everyone to read your mind, you should explain to us what it is we don't get, apparently no one else gets it either.

135711 · 05-07-2002, 01:51 PM

I AM A FISH OUT OF WATER!

and I have never sold equipment, my stuff has always been a donation, in fact someone out there currently has my beautiful Santelli Jacket, I would like it back, it was a fellow student that I lent it to until she could buy it from me. I have a trippler mask that I TRADED my santelli mask for, if you want to swap it back, I can meet you on the back steps of your salle and swap it back if you're going to be that way. I also donated a left handed french grip foil, you may consider it my donation to the salle, but if you really consider me such an enemy and TRAITOR etc, then I'd like to have it back. Thank you.

[ 05-07-2002: Message edited by: 135711 ]