Started a college club

[oiuyt]

Competing in intercollegiate competition will result in significantly higher member retention, level of interest, level of dedication, and club growth.

There are literally hundreds of collegiate clubs out there that DON'T compete intercollegiately. Many of them have a few members who fence USFA and others who "aren't ready yet." And somehow they stall at this level for a decade or so before dissolving.

Get into intercollegiate fencing and more of your people will attend meets and improve faster. It's an added incentive to attend when your team needs you there, rather than just going as an individual. You have a better built-in support structure (true even when compared to clubs that think they're supporting each other at individual meets).

Additionally, most colleges/universities care significantly more that their groups are competing against XYZ College or State University than that a few individuals went off to compete in something they've never heard of that doesn't involve the school (or other schools). As a new team your school won't be like "Oh, sorry, you let down our reputation by not crushing all of the well-established teams in your first season -- no soup for you!"

All of which leaves aside the point that there are a number of level-appropriate collegiate competitions for teams composed primarily of fencers with minimal experience. Trust me, most of the other collegiate club programs are the same way.

-B

[mesulater]

Trust me, we are going to get into colligate fencing. Just not this year, we are getting ready to lose our VP because she is going to study aborad. We just want to be able to get some club equipement before we go and start competing. We also want our fencers to know what they are doing, not just send a fencers who has been fencing for 1 month to a competiton.

We plan to enter colligate fencing next year. We first just want to get our funding settled, and some fencers who can hold a weapon the right way before we send them into combat.

We made a promise to the guy who started the club that we would go into colligate fencing, and it is in our constitution that we must register for colligate fencing tournaments.

We were in contact with George Mason University over do a tournament with them, but we havent heard from them in a while, so I need to send them an email back.

But dont worry, RU will be entering the coligate fencing leagues.

[seak]

siiiighs (mutters under breath Temple Open) siiiighs and walks away

see ya next year and good luck

[Deathoutlaw1152]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

Competing in intercollegiate competition will result in significantly higher member retention, level of interest, level of dedication, and club growth.

There are literally hundreds of collegiate clubs out there that DON'T compete intercollegiately. Many of them have a few members who fence USFA and others who "aren't ready yet." And somehow they stall at this level for a decade or so before dissolving.

Get into intercollegiate fencing and more of your people will attend meets and improve faster. It's an added incentive to attend when your team needs you there, rather than just going as an individual. You have a better built-in support structure (true even when compared to clubs that think they're supporting each other at individual meets).

Additionally, most colleges/universities care significantly more that their groups are competing against XYZ College or State University than that a few individuals went off to compete in something they've never heard of that doesn't involve the school (or other schools). As a new team your school won't be like "Oh, sorry, you let down our reputation by not crushing all of the well-established teams in your first season -- no soup for you!"


-B

Originally Posted by mesulater

Trust me, we are going to get into colligate fencing. Just not this year, we are getting ready to lose our VP because she is going to study aborad. We just want to be able to get some club equipement before we go and start competing. We also want our fencers to know what they are doing, not just send a fencers who has been fencing for 1 month to a competiton.

We plan to enter colligate fencing next year. We first just want to get our funding settled, and some fencers who can hold a weapon the right way before we send them into combat.

We made a promise to the guy who started the club that we would go into colligate fencing, and it is in our constitution that we must register for colligate fencing tournaments.

We were in contact with George Mason University over do a tournament with them, but we havent heard from them in a while, so I need to send them an email back.

But dont worry, RU will be entering the coligate fencing leagues.

Like mesulater this has been some thing we have also been looking into, but have decided not to do it this year, or possibly for awhile. This is do to A) our lack of equipment, and other internal problums. As well as the price when i say price you may say oh come on.... But please note that $50 is a loss of a good portion of our budget which is sad to say. And there may also be the entry fee on that date. Ive waighed the pros and cons, most clubs up here do usfa for inshurence and to raise revenue. we personaly would like to join both, but we need to prioritise what we want to do. Ive been leading this club for 3 years now and we started out with nothing, our school felt no pitty for us, and we got a $250 budget, with no old or new equipment. I dont feel we woud dissolve just like that. I feel that for every thing we have done so far we have achieved so much, yet i would like to achieve more, unfortunitly doing that requires money, some thing we lack we have applied for a usfa grant in the past, with little success and we will apply this year as well.

oiuyt- Im not saying that a bost of membership would not help us, but as of right now our club cant handle any more, we cant even go out and advertise so we have been doing quite well for our selves, our equipment problums are still some thing to be fixed as well before we do any thing like that. So its not like we woulld not want too, but currently its two much.

[mesulater]

Other than unexpereinced fencers, money and equipment is a problem for us right now also. I was looking through our foils and found a bundle of about 15 electric french foils that probobly date to over 15 years. Once we ahve the money, we want rewire the blades, change out the tips, and put the blades on our dry foils. But we need the money to do that.

Right now the school will only give us 900 dollars a year for a travel budget, and it can only be used for travel. Our problem is, very few of our fencers own cars right now, no one on the board even has a car, so renting a vehicle would take up that whole entire budget so we could only go to one tournament. By spring semester we should at least have 4 for 5 cars to drive people to tournaments. Right now we only have 1 car

We want to register with the USFA, and get the insuarnce, but we cant even figure out if we can get our 10 members by next july.

Do you guys know what happens if we dont get the 10 members for the USFA, and we apply for USFA membership? What we are doing right now is having our fencers put down our club as their primary when reistering USFA, and then once we have 10, we will send in our check.

We have started losing members the past couple of days because no one wants to by equipement. They want to only use club equipment. We are letting use our club foils and jackets, but alot of them arent happy with the quality of our stuff. We are luckily getting some free stuff from someone I use to coach for.

We pretty much lost all of our sabre fencers, because I said I was not going to loan out my personal sabres anymore. None of them feel it is right that they have to by a weapon if they want to continue doing that weapon.

Me, the VP and the Pres. have decided to have a mandatory buisness meeting to explain to our members what is going on right now, how we are going to fix it. And we plan to bring some more members of our club on our boared so that we can show them we are doing everything we can right now.

[Wafath]

Those of us who are pushing you into collegiate fencing are not completely insensitive to your problems. We are well aware of the chicken & egg problem that a new college club faces. (Can't get members without gear & tournaments. Can't get gear & tournaments without members.)

What we are advocating is to throw yourself into the deep end of the pool.

Go to collegiate meets. Go and loose. Go with barely enough gear, and beg for the rest. But for heaven's sake, go.

Why do we push this? Because for some reason, collegiate fencing keeps fencers. No, I don't know why. I just know it does.

Yeah, you have problems. Huge problems. But. My plan, in your shoes would be this:

- Sell the team on the concept of collegiate fencing. Talk it up. Tell them that it is something that the team _can_ do if they want to. Make them want to.
- Cold call coaches, or look at VA forums, (and for the Albany team, cold call USMA & U MASS coaches), and pick at least ONE meet per semester to go to. Pick individual meets if you can't manage a team meet.
- Get your fencers to train with those meets in mind. Get the fencers excited about those meets. They will find money if it is something they really want to do.
- Go to the meets. Smile. Be enthusiastic. And loose. Talk to every coach & team captain in the room. They may be cynical. They may have good reason to wonder if your club will exist 3 weeks after the meet. But they will know you exist now, and might invite you to other meets.

When UMCP followed this plan, starting roughly 5 years ago our retention rates tippled. Makes me feel like every year before it was wasted time.

W

[MyrddinsPrecint]

I have some friends who have been in the process of trying to start a club for the past 5 years at a (somewhat) close public university. They're just now at the point where they might have enough gear so that they can think about competition--- One of the problems is that they do not ask for dues.

In fact, a friend was shocked when I asked him if they asked for dues-- "We're a public university, we can't ask for money, what if they can't pay!?"

I then explained that there are plenty of students just making ends meet at exclusive private schools too, and that UMass asks for twice as much as Smith.

The trick, at least at Smith, is that when we ask for dues, we explain what you get for the money (gear, coach, travel, etc), and then we tell people that if they have a problem with any of it, to come talk to the treasurer. We've had people pay in installments, we've had people do more than their share of either fundraising or fixing equipment in exchange for reduced dues, but we've never had anyone quit because of finances.

We have, however, had rich little daddy's girls hand over the check the first week or two of fencing, and then just stop showing up entirely a month in.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by mesulater

We want to register with the USFA, and get the insuarnce, but we cant even figure out if we can get our 10 members by next july.

Do you guys know what happens if we dont get the 10 members for the USFA, and we apply for USFA membership? What we are doing right now is having our fencers put down our club as their primary when reistering USFA, and then once we have 10, we will send in our check.

What are you looking for from a USFA club membership? Insurance? Have you checked with your university to see whether or not you already have equivalent or better coverage as an official organization?

-B

[mesulater]

Because we found some intrest in our club, we are going to try and consider college fencing. We have enough for a full men's foil team, and enough for a mens epee team if we use 2 women on it. We will not have a womens epee team.

[Allen Evans]

Mesulater:

Another suggestion for you is to be as visible as possible in Virginia itself. There's a decent number of collegiate programs, coaches, and fencers always willing to lend a hand. I noticed that you made a post about the club on the VA forum, but it was in the classified section, which not a lot of VA fencers read.

Esp. if you are a returning program to your school, there might be some alumni out there, still close to you, and willing to help.

Just a thought!

AE

[mesulater]

Originally Posted by Allen Evans

Mesulater:

Another suggestion for you is to be as visible as possible in Virginia itself. There's a decent number of collegiate programs, coaches, and fencers always willing to lend a hand. I noticed that you made a post about the club on the VA forum, but it was in the classified section, which not a lot of VA fencers read.

Esp. if you are a returning program to your school, there might be some alumni out there, still close to you, and willing to help.

Just a thought!

AE

Thanks for your advice Allen. We are accually trying to figure out what the history of fencing here at radford is. I am a freshmen, so I dont really know anything. We know there use to be something here, but we do not know how big or small it is.

We try contacting the division chair in VA out hold a tournament down here, but he never got back to us. We are going to try and be very active in the club. We were asked by Hollins last year if we wanted to fence with them, and now George Mason is intrested in holding a tournament with us.

Our goal is try try and hold a newbie college tournament at radford for the teams in the state to come and compete.

I think I will try and put another comment in the fencing forum for VA.

[seak]

If you just want a newbee tournament, and don't mind driving, UMD is hosting it's annual newbee tournament in a few weeks. Talk to Wafath about it, but it's individual collegiate so the more the merrier. UMD uses it primarily to get its new (6ish weeks experience) used to a tournament and a warm-up before Temple.

[mesulater]

We will think about comming up. Right now we are only looking at the tech open. We are going to try at least one college tournament this year though

[baelzebub]

I'm from ODU and we just started our own club and just like you guys, we experience the same tribulations as a fledgling organization. An inter-collegiate tournament (or whatever you wanna call it) should be a great experience for the newbies, not only to improve each other's games, but also to build friendship amongst our elite gang of bloodthirsty sword wielding maniacs!

[Hobbes]

hey, it looks like this thread died for the most part a couple months ago, but once upon a time I was in your shoes. We went the way of a USFA club and not a collegiate team. It was what people were most interested in. WE did a couple things that I have not seen listed, take it or leave it, but these options were fun and fruitful in getting some extra money.

1) Guest coach. I don't know where your school is, but if there is a nearby club with a decent coach, invite him to come and teach a couple times. Charge your fencers extra money for this extra training. Then split that money with the guest instructor. If you have a few clubs, you might be able to get a few of them to come. It has been my experience that coaches love new college programs, either because they hope to recruit them or they just love the spread of fencing. Also the classes are a blast. You can also invite other coaches, we had our school's basketball athletic trainer come and teach us some drills, stretching, and other things.

2) Make friends. A fund raiser is fine and all. Wash cars, work concessions, etc... But if you really want to make a splash, plan a large event with other campus groups. For some reason we could always get the art students and theater student groups to join in on the fun. We always had a plan of hosting a mini-renaissance festival that never panned out, but we did demonstrations with the theater department at schools and churches. Art students love to paint, photograph, stencil, crayon, or whatever fencers. Fencers make great art. Charge them for that. Pay an art student to design a sexy club t-shirt, and then sell the shirts to members, members friends, parents, coaches, at tournaments, and to whoever will buy one. get creative with fund raising, and see what you can do with other student groups. (It also brings in lots of new members.)

3) Get intimately involved with your SGA or Allocation Committee or whatever. I don't mean date the members of these groups, but know them. ALL OF THEM. Never enter their office without a tie. Make sure they know that you are treating this club like you would your own business. Never be late with paperwork, they hate that (trust me). If your school is like mine there will be a way to explain what you need in writing or in a presentation. Get professional help. Go to your writing center (or whatever you call your tutoring services) or your business department if you have one. Don't be afraid to put a small investment into making sure this is a professional as it can be. I am still very close with the head of my old school's clubs and organization office. She constantly comments on how trashy people look when they come in for a form or whatever. Make those people love you.

4) And finally, Make sure all of your officers are taking it as seriously as you are. If this club is your baby, and you want to see it grow to be better than all those collegiate groups, make sure every officer is on board. If they are not, then they do not need to be an officer. Everyone on your board needs to be actively helping the club be the best it can be. If they are not your job of getting money is going to be soooooo much harder. Everyone comes to college for specific things (I wanted to get a Mass Comm degree and work on radio, I ended up majoring in philosophy and nearly dropping out because I fenced too much, so don't ask me about priorities) but if someone cannot devote at least a handful of hours every week to help with club upkeep and growth, they are too busy to be an officer.


I hope this stuff is helpful. When I took over my club we had essentially what you described (maybe 10 year old stuff, not 20). It was a long hard uphill both ways kinda road, but by the end people knew who we were in the area, we had working strips, a closet full of new shiny electric weapons and jackets and everything (even a pair of knickers though we have no idea where they came from). We had a big bank account and got more than 1000 dollars each semester from the school alone (fund raising and dues brought in hundreds more). By the time I was leaving the club we had enough to help pay for member's USFA dues and traveling costs for all the tournaments we could get to.

((You will notice I don't mention the school I went to, because the current generation of fencers have ground my club right back into the ground where I dug it up from, but that is a whole other set of problems to deal with in 4 years.)

cheers[/list]

[wahrman]

Sorry to be a buzz kill but I hope you guys aren't using 20 year old masks.

[wahrman]

One thing that I've learnt in situations like this is, get your dues from people as early as possible. Say the first or second meeting. Lots of people will show up for a few times then drift away. If you already have their $20 they may be more likely to keep coming back and even if they don't, you've got their money.

It may sound cold but oh well.

[mesulater]

Originally Posted by wahrman

Sorry to be a buzz kill but I hope you guys aren't using 20 year old masks.

They are a little younger than 20 years old. The class that was offered here, fell apart in 95.

The maks are in good shape though, and we did test punch the masks.

We also got some free stuff from another club, that is in a bit better shape.

[emagdnim]

Originally Posted by mesulater

Because we found some intrest in our club, we are going to try and consider college fencing. We have enough for a full men's foil team, and enough for a mens epee team if we use 2 women on it. We will not have a womens epee team.

I know its a bit late for this advice but trying to hold a competition your fist year is not a good way to make money!!!!

I'm the men's captain (soon to be president as well.... work work work all the time) at Old Dominion University. so PM me some time so we can work out VA college fencing stuff and maybe have a fencing get together between our schools.

but anyhow. to get a fencing club off the ground it very important to have a charismatic leader. our club had no old gear, so we needed to charge some rather high dues. $100 dollars a year great leaders and coaches are needed to bring in people willing to pay that much to be part of the club. you've really need to pinch those pennies as far as buying equipment goes. this leaves you with more money but also encourages people to buy their own gear that is better and less smelly than club gear. once again saving you money.

Thats about as far as my advice goes, the club didn't support any of my fund raising ideas like the underground fencing gambling ring or my "poke a prof." idea....

[emagdnim]

wow, this thread has been dead for a while, never mind.