starting H.S. fencing club

[mongo]

I was wondering if anyone on the board has any experience or knowledge about starting a fencing club in a high school in NY state. There must be a alot of red tape and liability concerns on the school's part. Any info or experiences would be much appreciated. Thanks,
Mongo

[nahouw]

Originally posted by mongo
I was wondering if anyone on the board has any experience or knowledge about starting a fencing club in a high school in NY state. There must be a alot of red tape and liability concerns on the school's part. Any info or experiences would be much appreciated. Thanks,
Mongo

From experience in NJ, the best way to start a HS fencing team is by starting a club first -- that is the easy part. In conjunction, you also have to have the parents start a booster club -- that is how you control the funds (for referees, and equipment purchases) and scheduling meets while the fencing team is in a club status. After the school adminstration sees that you are able to have meets with other school's varsity teams, they start to see it as a viable activity to give varsity status. Be rest assured, many other high school varsity programs will want to hold meets with you -- it gives them more fencing time. I think that the quickest change from inception of club status to varsity status took 2 years in the making, due to a very active parent's booster club.

[sabrebelle]

I was part of my high school club in its first year, and the most important issue, as far as the administration was concerned, was SAFETY. Most people hear "fencing" and think "sword". You'll probably spend much of your time convincing the school that a bunch of teenagers can be responsible with "weapons." Some of the rules that were established for my club included: no foils/epees/sabres visible in school (must be in bags or otherwise wrapped up), and we had to attend eight practices (we met twice per week) before we were allowed to hold a foil.

Good luck! The attendance should be great once you get past all the red tape.

[135711]

You Poor Man!!!

Here let me help.....

[retardedspleen]

i tried to do that at a HS in sacramento, it was such a big hassle i relized i would get more students if i spent the time in school, advertising for my own club. the biggest problem at schools, is so many of the kids there are just plain stupid, not smart, dangerous, and just difficult to deal with "ooOOoo let me hit you with sword!!" BS like that, and before you know it, your getting into all types of injury lawsuits and such...i found you get a few students from just doing demos at schools, bring in 6 fencers, on a stage, at the schools lunch time, or what ever type of school meeting that have (ya know when all the kids get together and sit in a room to just watch the presentation) and then pass out a flyer to ALL of the kids. or see if you can get some sent home with them by the school its self, that way it gets to the parents.

Starting a HS program is hard stuff, but its been done, and pretty good job at it too (so i hear)


If it was me, id invest my time into the club, and forget an actule "HS program" and just do demos at the HS, easier, less effort spent, less paperwork from the school.

Chris T.

[mongo]

Thank you Naohouw, Saberbelle, 135711,and retarded spleen for your input. Mongo