Started a college club

[mesulater]

Hey, I am the treasuerer of the fencing club at Radford University. We arent going to get any funding until next school year, and we arent even going to be guaranteed a practice space until the spring semester. We have gear that is 20 years old. And we are short on money.

Does anyone have any fund raising ideas or know of any grants. We have already contacted the USFA about grants, and got the information on the Developmental Grant and the Equipment subsidy.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[aamct2]

Hello!

I too am a member of a collegiate club. Our main fundraisers tend to be bake sales. College kids are notoriously hungry, thus selling baked goods is extremely easy. We tend to be located outside the recreation centre. That helps too!

We also collect membership dues (albeit small ones). This covers still more.

~aamct2

[oiuyt]

There's a few groups out there that are always looking for student groups to do fundraisers such as soliciting other students to sign up for credit cards. Easy way to pick up $1000-1500 in ~4 hours work for a dozen people.

Bakesales (and other sales) can be effective.

Rent-a-Fencer in the local community can work very well. Drop off flyers in the neighborhoods around the campus, offering to have fencers (groups of 2-4 seem to work best) come to do "whatever" for 6 or 8 hours. Give options (eg yardwork/raking, garage clean out, etc.). Set a price that's a bit high for the hourly work, people are frequently willing to overpay a bit when it's going to an enterprising student group. Postering local supermarkets is also a good way to get out the news about the program. People will tend to hire you on an annual basis in the fall (leaves fall about that often, at least in the Northeast), so you'll gradually build a client list.

Various options at games of other sports teams (you don't appear to have a football team, so cleaning their stadium probably isn't an option). 50-50 raffle at home basketball games, concession stand staffing, etc. may or may not be options depending on how things are structured at Radford.

Hosting a fencing tournament. Radford is more than a bit out in the middle of nowhere, so this might prove difficult.

-B

[mesulater]

Once basketball season starts up, we plan to work the concessions stands. And we are also chargin 20 dollar dues for the year. We have a group of 40 fencers, so we should bring in a little bit through that.

Thanks for the suggestions

[Deathoutlaw1152]

Originally Posted by mesulater

We arent going to get any funding until next school year, and we arent even going to be guaranteed a practice space until the spring semester. We have gear that is 20 years old. And we are short on money.

Does anyone have any fund raising ideas or know of any grants. We have already contacted the USFA about grants, and got the information on the Developmental Grant and the Equipment subsidy.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Well always a negative is the funding, but lets look at the positives, you have equipment although 20 years old equipment is equipment and its useable, assuming you have old equipment do you have Storage for it? What is the equipment made up of, some old electrical? just regular jackets and practice foils? You can’t practice in an indoor facility but you can still practice outside while its still warm. Next important thing to think about is, how much does your club currently have to offer? I.e. equipment, experienced members. Then you can determine dues, based on $20 it seems like you guys are off to a good start.... how ever you may be able to stretch that based on needs, I’m current president of the Fencing club at Albany and its founder. my club runs off $500 and dues of $60 we started out with nothing, we have three practices a week just starting to get more electrical equipment, you don’t ever want to raise dues too high, but keep in mind even if your not you need to look at your club as a business maybe one that does not profit with the money it gathers, but the stuff it gathers with the money.
As for fundraising we have not had much luck in that area if you do let me know. we have had ideas for bake sales, bagel sales raffles. But in the end we are fencers, and have ultimately concentrated on fencing and doing things fencing related, but that proves hard.. most clubs gain a revenue from tournaments, my club is not so lucky. If you guys have equipment, and storage you already have a base to spread and can concentrate on equipment and rental space. I truly a deeply wish you luck since I know what you are going through and after three years we are still going through the same thing, these things grow with time, and cant be rushed my point is concentrate on solving one issue at a time, and take things as they go, the best piece of advice, you already have the membership, and some kind of equipment, all you need is storage and some dedicated people your club is sure to take off and stay.

[carsen82]

Before we started getting a budget to work with every year, we were able to get some equipment bought by petitioning to our Student Government Association, which has a large budget set aside just for giving to student organizations in need. Of course it also looks good to them if they see you are activly trying to raise money as well.

We never had much luck with bake sales (although working a concession stand would probably get you much better results). I'd reccomend looking at car washes before it gets too cold. I know several of our local businesses will let you use there parking lot, and some will match what you raise for the people you're bringing in.
Advertising them as 'free' seems to work well, as nearly everyone still gets the idea that this is a fundraiser and donations are more than welcomed (you can also give a 'suggested' donation price)

[mesulater]

Its good to know other clubs out there were once in our shoes. I think we will try to bug our SGA for money. This time next year we will qualify for funding. And this spring we will be a club sport, and they will be required to give us funding.

We are slowly incresing practices to 6 days a week. It will be 6 days a week once we have our complete practice schedule put together.

We have one fundraising idea we are about to put into the works. We bought a couple hundred baloons, we are going to attach them to people, and for like 1 buck for 3 baloons we are gonna let people run around and poke eachother and try to pop eachothers balloons. We are hoping this proves to the school that we really need one space to practice that is big enough for us. The room they want us to use is about the size of 2 dorm rooms put together. We have 40 people in our club. It aint gonna happen.

Regarding equipment, we have no electrical equipment.

We are going to have our club join the USFA and those of us with equipment are giong to the Tech open at Virginia Tech later in october.

[Wafath]

A few other things.

Make your presence known on the Virginia division forums. A lot of people interested in collegiate fencing in Virginia read that forum.

Figure out what kind of club you want to be ... a USFA club that happens to be at a college? A competitive collegiate fencing team? A recreational club? Start working towards that goal. If you want to be a competitive collegiate fencing team, figure out what kind of team you could field, and start talking with coaches in the area.

W

[oiuyt]

Note: Wafath is the coach of a collegiate team in your area (Maryland-College Park), the commissioner of a local collegiate fencing conference (Baltimore-Washington Collegiate Fencing Conference) and the VP of the US Association of Collegiate Fencing Clubs, the organization that sponsors a national championships for collegiate club programs. He'd be a good resource to ping for answers.

-B

[mesulater]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

Note: Wafath is the coach of a collegiate team in your area (Maryland-College Park),
-B

We are over by Virginia Tech, we are about 5 hours south of UMUC. We are looking more into being a competitive usfa club. We finally got our website up, it is still in the works so it is pretty basic right now. But its www.radford.edu/fenceru/index.htm, and we advertised ourselves on the VA forum.

We are hoping to get more expirenced people for next year. We have been practicing for 2 weeks now, primarily working on parries and footwork. We are going to let them start attacking eachother next week. They have all advanced pretty quickly.

Our problem now is, all the guys want to do sabre, and very few people wanna do foil, so we are working on trying to get some of the guys to do foil instead.

Do most fencing companies give discounts on fencing gear? We applied and got one through absolute.

The one thing that brought alot of people to our club is when Jed Dupree came to our college last year. So we are trying to get him to come back down again.

[oiuyt]

You've been parrying for two weeks without an attack?

Originally Posted by mesulater

The one thing that brought alot of people to our club is when Jed Dupree came to our college last year. So we are trying to get him to come back down again.

I guess that explains why they all want to do sabre....

What caused Jed to come?

-B

[Wafath]

Originally Posted by mesulater

... UMUC .....

Please, UMCP.


If you want to do USFA only, it is perfectly acceptable to become a one-weapon club. Collegiate fencing requires all three weapons.

You may want to talk with Virginia Tech, UVA, James Madison, and William & Mary, all of which (I believe) compete collegiately in Virginia. W&M is hosting a meet in Oct as well.

W

[mesulater]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

What caused Jed to come?

-B

We are special. Well not really. Our sponsor is his uncle.

And sorry Wafath, my dad does online courses for UMCP, he always calls it UMUC, so it kinda stuck.

[carsen82]

At the time we got funding from our SGA we were a club as well. My sophmore year we were moved up to a club sport status, and now we share a budget every year with the other club sports.

I was our treasuerer for two years and it took a lot of legwork to get started, but it's sure nice to be given money to buy new equipment and pay for tournaments every year.

[Beowulfman6]

Ah, yes, the joy of free SGA money. Right now I have more than I can spend. On second thought- I can spend quite a bit.

It wasn't alwayse that way here though- it took a lot of work to get our club where it is now. I have found the best fundraiser to be tournamnts. If you have some other clubs in the are that are friendly, contact them and ask if they would be willing to provide strips and referees for free in order to help you get started- many will. Charge a resonable intrance fee and get cheap awards and if you publicise it well (and as a fundraiser to help the club get on thier feet) people will come and they will pay. Tournamnts raise about $400 a piece for us.

Good luck!

[jfarmer]

Originally Posted by mesulater

We are over by Virginia Tech, we are about 5 hours south of UMUC. We are looking more into being a competitive usfa club. We finally got our website up, it is still in the works so it is pretty basic right now. But its www.radford.edu/fenceru/index.htm, and we advertised ourselves on the VA forum.

One thing that might help win over folks, both students and the administration, is to stress that this is the return of fencing to Radford. Sometimes, it helps when they realize that it's part of the school's history.

John Farmer
Coach, Oak Ridge Fencers Club

[seak]

UMCP is University of Maryland College Park, a traditional 4 year college

UMUC an online college for primarily working adults, it is located next to UMCP.

They are not the same school! mutters

Back on Topic: the UMCP club grew a great deal when we stopped being primarily USFA and switched over to primarily collegiate. College students seem to like competing in collegiate meets. Depending on the event they can also be more exciting and give you more bang for the buck (see Temple Open).

[Deathoutlaw1152]

Originally Posted by mesulater

Its good to know other clubs out there were once in our shoes. I think we will try to bug our SGA for money. This time next year we will qualify for funding. And this spring we will be a club sport, and they will be required to give us funding.

We are slowly incresing practices to 6 days a week. It will be 6 days a week once we have our complete practice schedule put together.



We are going to have our club join the USFA and those of us with equipment are giong to the Tech open at Virginia Tech later in october.

1) Its actually suppriseing how many other clubs are in the same boat as everyone else, regaurdless of the distence, its all a strugle. With that of this last post i will try to offer you some more advice. First make nagging SGA for money the First thing you do when you are able, contact other clubs and groups establish good relations let them know you are there.


2) The USFA should be one of your priorities, how ever keep in mind time, the status of your club, remember that theres always time, and get the pros and cons for your group. mine really wants to become usfa, but we dont have 10 commited members yet. we do have around 21 active, but some dont want to take it upto the next level which is fine.

3) Start up gradually most clubs DONT run six days a week, you could burnout, or lose members for practices, i find it easyer to try to make one or two practice times that alot of pepole are available for.

4) The best thing you could do is ask your members for imput, remember that all leasons are not worth learning that does not mean you should not hear them out.

And with that i should probobly shut my mouth hopefully these posts help you, im very simpathedic to new college clubs, becouse i know how hard it is. It feels like no one will help you, and in the end no one cares but you, and thats the truth if you want your club to live you need to fight that does not mean runing into a fire fight that is impossible to survive. so make shure you take things slowly, i know that each club has diffrent ishues and it really is a shame that you dont have electrical equipment, but some times you need to focus on what you want to achieve and how and what you need to do to get there.

I hope this post has been meaningfull to you.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by Deathoutlaw1152

2) The USFA should be one of your priorities, how ever keep in mind time, the status of your club, remember that theres always time, and get the pros and cons for your group. mine really wants to become usfa, but we dont have 10 commited members yet. we do have around 21 active, but some dont want to take it upto the next level which is fine.

Originally Posted by seak

Back on Topic: the UMCP club grew a great deal when we stopped being primarily USFA and switched over to primarily collegiate. College students seem to like competing in collegiate meets. Depending on the event they can also be more exciting and give you more bang for the buck (see Temple Open).

Note that these are two different approaches. Personally, my observations hold much more with seak's than Deathoutlaw's approach. There are VERY few strong collegiate programs that focus primarily on USFA competition. There are a few college-based USFA clubs that rely on the strength of non-students and are successful. Most strong collegiate club programs are focused on a collegiate competition schedule.

Deathoutlaw- There are a bunch of collegiate club programs in the upstate New York area. And most of them aren't participating in dual meets or other collegiate competition. Personally I think that's a fairly big mistake and that it's likely that they'd all grow in size, strength, consistency, and dedication of membership, as well as a bunch of other positive aspects, if this changed.

Minimally, the USACFC Championships are going to be fairly close to you this season (Smith College in Northampton, MA, so ~2 hours East of Albany). I would strongly recommend that you start organizing to participate if you don't already have such plans. PM me if you want more details.

-B

[mesulater]

Sorry bout the whole UMUC UMCP thing. My dad is always having meetings on the campus of UMCP for the classes he teaches.

But anyways talking about what my dad does isnt the point of this topic.

We found out that we cannot get money for our SGA, the SGA even has to get permission from another group to spend money.

One of Radford's goals is to eventually get into coligate fencing. We feel though that it would be a mistake on the boards part to push brand new fencers into intercoligate fencing. We have enough male foil and sabre fencers to form a 2 male teams, but we do not feel we are ready to go into it yet. I hate to bash my own club, but our only coaches, myself and our vice president are not rated fencers so we can only teach them so much.

We are hoping by next year we can move into intercoligate fencing, but we first want our fencers to expierence the USFA before they go into fencing other colleges. We have to face a board in order to become a club sport and get funding and promised big enough practice spaces for our group. We feel that if we start bombing in college events, we will never be allowed into the club sport quality.

The reason we have so many practices is because of how many people there are in our club. We are given a space that you couple maybe put 2 full strips in. We have 4 practices a week right now in order to allow room for us to teach our fencers. It has worked well so far. Our other reason is because, most people in our club have night classes.