Largest private fencing clubs?

[BugabooX]

Just curious: How do you define the size of a private (not attached to a school) fencing club? And what are the largest in the United States?

[JEC]

You would also need to distinguish between youth/junior vs adult, competitive vs recreational, american vs european vs ...

Of the three clubs that we have belong to over past 5 years in the USA, Northern Colorado Fencers was the largest. I bet that they are in the top ten youth/junior competitive non-school associated clubs in the USA.

[BugabooX]

Why would you have to distinguish between competitive and recreational fencers, if they're all members of the same club?

[Kodiak Kid]

Well, probably because of limited resources (instructors, space, time) and the desire to get the best use of those resources when applied to the desires of the owner and/or the clientele. As a private, non-public school related, not for profit club president and coach, I can tell you that it is a challenge to provide a quality environment for begginers, intermediate and advanced fencers in both a competive and non competitive venue, all at the same time.
If you had unlimited money, space, time, students and instructors you probably wouldn't need to distiguish between them, depending on your reasons for wanting to know in the first place.

Size doesn't always equate to best performance... Or so I've been told.

[oiuyt]

I'd say Boston Fencing Club is likely to be the largest in the country... IIRC they have several hundred official, paying members, making them larger than nearly every DIVISION in the US.

-B :)

[BugabooX]

Thanks, oiuyt, that's the kind of answer I was seeking. I don't care about how we classify the members of a club (young/old, competitive/recreational, whatever), only that the club exists with X number of people.

By the way, "hundreds" is still on the vague side -- could be two, could be nine.

Anyone else?

[CvilleFencer]

Virginia Academy of Fencing claims to be the largest private club in the world, with a little over 800 members on the books. They are definitely the biggest club I know of in the southeast and in Virginia. As to being the biggest in the world... Lets just say that some have accused ex Russian saber champs (Alexandre Ryjik, club owner) of exaggerating a little. But never to his face!

They are definitely the biggest I know of however.

[DHCJr]

Originally posted by CvilleFencer
Virginia Academy of Fencing claims to be the largest private club in the world, with a little over 800 members on the books. They are definitely the biggest club I know of in the southeast and in Virginia. As to being the biggest in the world... Lets just say that some have accused ex Russian saber champs (Alexandre Ryjik, club owner) of exaggerating a little. But never to his face!

They are definitely the biggest I know of however.

This may show a solution to the problems the USFA is having. Now I know the data is over a year out of date. But with over 800 members, that is twice as many members as the whole state of Virginia has. If every club has that many Non-USFA members and they became members we would be a force.

To CvilleFencer, why are there so many non-USFA members?

[BugabooX]

Good catch on those statistics, DHCJr. One must wonder how many of the 800 members on the club's books are lapsed fencers who don't show up anymore.

[JEC]

There is a reason to separate clubs between those with a large proportion of competitive USFA member, recreational USFA members (Fence for Fun), and recreational fencers who a) might have fence years ago, or b) relatively new members who are unsure about the sport.

Having 800 "fencers" in a club sounds like a political petition signing list. The strenght of a club is how many fencers/day would be in an average week. The bulk would be provided by competitive members (~3-5 days/wk) than recreational (~once every 3 wks).

[Catal]

Originally posted by BugabooX
Good catch on those statistics, DHCJr. One must wonder how many of the 800 members on the club's books are lapsed fencers who don't show up anymore.

I've been told by some of their fencers at meets, that most people buy membership to the club, and compete within the club, without getting their membership to USFA. Their number of competitive fencers is a great deal smaller than the amount of club members they have.

[CvilleFencer]

Originally posted by DHCJr
This may show a solution to the problems the USFA is having. Now I know the data is over a year out of date. But with over 800 members, that is twice as many members as the whole state of Virginia has. If every club has that many Non-USFA members and they became members we would be a force.

To CvilleFencer, why are there so many non-USFA members?

I am not a member of the club, and do not fence with them except as competitors in the tourney scene (they are about 130 miles one way), but I have been up a few nights for show and tell and to wave the flag for our club. As such take this with a grain of salt, but as I understand it their numbers are so high because:

1. They teach fencing at 2 of the local colleges and for insurance purposes all of the college kids are members of the club.

2. They teach with one of the local high schools and claim those students as well for the reasons above.

3. They have kendo (Japanese heavy fencing) and period fencing classes as well.

4. They just plain have a lot of fencers that are not on the tourney circuit, and as the club sets up meets with other clubs (the VA division likes to be paid a lot of money for an "official" tourney) and compete in club tournaments with there different classes.

I know the numbers seem really high but the have 2 or 3 classes a day with about 30 people a class and are open 5 or 6 days a week.

I agree that if they were all USFA members that would be great, but if all the fencers in the US were USFA members we would increase ranks by the tens of thousands. I think that most fencers feel that there is no reason to joining the USFA unless they compete, and compete on a national level at that.

Out of my club we only have about 6 USFA members out of like 30 fencers. I do not know if that is true for all clubs or not.

This is probably the start of another thread but I think most fencers be they college level or recreational feel that the USFA has nothing to offer them and they have no reason at all to join.

Other than an in principal sort of way I tend to agree with that. If you are not competing on a statewide level why join the USFA when they seem to focus only on the 3% or so of US fencers that compete nationally and internationally?

Don't take that as a cvillefencer says the USFA sucks kind of thing, because that is not the case, but for the average fencer that shows up one night a week and does not even own his own gear what does the USFA have to offer?

[Chris]

Originally posted by DHCJr
This may show a solution to the problems the USFA is having. Now I know the data is over a year out of date. But with over 800 members, that is twice as many members as the whole state of Virginia has. If every club has that many Non-USFA members and they became members we would be a force.

To CvilleFencer, why are there so many non-USFA members?

if they don't want to, or aren't ready to compete, a lot of people don't see that the $30 or $40 USFA membership gives them anything they need; and certainly there are many kids that may belong to a school/college/university club AND a private club, but only compete against other school kids in NON USFA events.

There's definitely a hole in the fencing community where good marketing efforts are few, and far between, I think mainly it's because, on top of it being such an effort intensive proposition even with a willing 'audience', it really an uphill battle with people who don't even think it's a sport.

[BugabooX]

Originally posted by CvilleFencer
As I understand it their numbers are so high because ...

Uh-huh. That's what I thought. It's pretty easy for anyone to inflate their numbers if they follow those guidelines.

Let's say I teach an introductory course at the Y. I represent my club. So all those little kiddies become "members" by association. Likewise with my neighbor's two kids who come to my house every Sunday afternoon.

Oh well. So much for finding hard stats.

[Repechage]

From what I understand, VAF really is that big. The membership participates actively. It's just that most of its members do not compete outside the club.

[DHCJr]

Originally posted by CvilleFencer

4. They just plain have a lot of fencers that are not on the tourney circuit, and as the club sets up meets with other clubs (the VA division likes to be paid a lot of money for an "official" tourney) and compete in club tournaments with there different classes.

This statement bothers me. Are everyone in the above club tournaments members of the USFA? If not the division could be in a lot of trouble. To have an 'official' tournament all competing would need to be members. Are ratings given?

[Capt. Slo-mo]

Originally posted by Repechage
From what I understand, VAF really is that big. The membership participates actively. It's just that most of its members do not compete outside the club.

Funny, one of the fencers from that club has said one of the big problems there is that most nights only a few people show up to fence, so there's not many peoiple to practice with.

[Repechage]

What I was told is that they have large (non-competition) classes rather than large practice. I may be wrong. I'm just passing on hearsay.

[CvilleFencer]

Originally posted by DHCJr
This statement bothers me. Are everyone in the above club tournaments members of the USFA? If not the division could be in a lot of trouble. To have an 'official' tournament all competing would need to be members. Are ratings given?

What I say when I mean an official tourney is that an "unofficial" tourney is not USFA sanctioned. A lot of the clubs just get together and compete and with the larger clubs that have multiple classes in a given day, they can have competitions within the club just to let members fence new people.

Furthermore most of the people that compete in these "unofficial" tourneys are not members of the USFA and no ratings are given out. Of course at official Virginia tourneys new rating are very rarely given out as the division has few tourneys in the year that are not restricted somehow (novice, youth, veteran, dry, whatever) and you have the same people finishing in the same places tourney after tourney.

We have a very stagnant tourney scene with the C's and B's not advancing, as we do not have enough mid level and above fencers who come out to play. The last open I was at in VA there were a couple of shake-ups, but it still wound up with the a B, a couple of C's, and a few E's all confirming their rates and only two new ratings given out. This was at one of the bigger tourneys in the year.

We tend to say that if you are a VA division fencer and you want a rating or you want to advance, go to Maryland. Not because MD fencers suck, quite the opposite, but they have enough tourneys in the year to actually get some people moving through the ranks.

That kind of turned into a rant on why the VA division needs to get more tourneys in a year and allow more clubs to have tourneys. Do most state boards require the hosting club to make 500 to a 1000 on the tourney? The thing that keeps most of our smaller clubs from hosting is that if you do not make a certain dollar amount for the division board you can wind up owing THEM money! That has always seemed really strange to me.

[Chris]

Originally posted by CvilleFencer
(snip)...Furthermore most of the people that compete in these "unofficial" tourneys are not members of the USFA and no ratings are given out. Of course at official Virginia tourneys new rating are very rarely given out as the division has few tourneys in the year that are not restricted somehow (novice, youth, veteran, dry, whatever) and you have the same people finishing in the same places tourney after tourney.

We have a very stagnant tourney scene with the C's and B's not advancing, as we do not have enough mid level and above fencers who come out to play. The last open I was at in VA there were a couple of shake-ups, but it still wound up with the a B, a couple of C's, and a few E's all confirming their rates and only two new ratings given out. This was at one of the bigger tourneys in the year.

We tend to say that if you are a VA division fencer and you want a rating or you want to advance, go to Maryland. Not because MD fencers suck, quite the opposite, but they have enough tourneys in the year to actually get some people moving through the ranks.

That kind of turned into a rant on why the VA division needs to get more tourneys in a year and allow more clubs to have tourneys. Do most state boards require the hosting club to make 500 to a 1000 on the tourney? The thing that keeps most of our smaller clubs from hosting is that if you do not make a certain dollar amount for the division board you can wind up owing THEM money! That has always seemed really strange to me.

THat doesn't make much sense to me, either: why should THEY care if you make money, or not!
Sounds like time for a bloodless coup!

Or maybe a nasty one!

If VAF really has all those members, I can't imagine it would be too hard for them to take over!

THe picture on their website makes it look like they have a fairly nice dedicated facility, and like to do thing in a nice way, sounds like all it needs is for someone to jump up and say 'Charge!'

Good Luck!