Blog

Hi

We have lots to tell you in our latest newsletter, including important information on changes and term dates, so please read on.

Investing in the Club
The Club continues to be a success with over 30 fencers joining us each week. It’s great to have enthusiastic and committed members at all levels. Thanks to your support we have the funds to invest so here’s a quick update on our plans.

Introducing Foil to Lewes
We have decided to introduce Foil – the most common fencing weapon. Foil is light and flexible, and perfect for adults and juniors. We will be purchasing a supply of blades, wires and lame jackets and our Head Coach, Gerad Harmer, will start to offer regular tuition on the nuances and rules of fencing with foil.

Another piste and testing equipment
We’re keen to get more people on the piste so will be buying another piste set, updating some swords and purchasing weapon testing equipment.

Guest coaches
We are lucky to have our Head Coach Gerad Harmer, a Level 3 qualified coach. Gerad is keen that we introduce other coaches to support the development of members. There are a number of highly qualified coaches in Sussex so, with Gerad’s help, we are planning to offer guest coaching sessions and master-classes in the coming months. These will offered either free to members or heavily subsidised. More details to follow.

Junior class updates
Priority places for current members.
We are delighted that our junior class (for 8 years+) is proving so popular. Thea Fox, who runs the class, is doing a great job of teaching fencing skills in a fun and accessible way. We now have a long waiting list of children wanting to join the class. However, to ensure we can continue to deliver the same fun approach safely we will not be expanding the class size.

Children currently in the class have a priority place for the next term. If your child would like to continue simply email the Club at enquiries@lewesfencingclub.org.uk to confirm their place and pay for the full term by Sunday 19 April. Any spare places will be offered to children on the waiting list. In future, to keep your place, we will need payment a term in advance.

Awards scheme for Juniors
From next term we will be tracking progress of the Juniors more formally using the British Academy of Fencing Awards scheme. This scheme will help the children understand their progress and an award sheet will show the skills they need to learn. We will regularly check how they are doing and when they can demonstrate the skills consistently they will be able to progress onto the next award.

Key dates for the diary
The dates for our next term are:
Sunday 12th April – Sunday 10th May (5 weeks)
Price: Adults £30, Juniors and Concessions £25, PAYG Piste £8/£6
Sunday 24th May – Sunday 12th July (8 weeks)
price: Adults £48, Juniors and Concessions £40, PAYG Piste £8/£6

Summer social for adults and juniors
We are planning a summer social event after our end of term competition on Sunday 19th July. More details to follow.

Lolly Rewards – a points scheme for fencers.
The British Fencing Association have teamed up with ‘Lolly Rewards’ to offer fencers the opportunity to benefit from regular Club fencing or entry into competitions. The scheme enables you to collect points every time you fence and when you have enough points these can be traded for vouchers at Leon Paul fencing shop or cinema tickets.
To find our more visit Lolly Rewards and join the scheme by downloading the App from Apple or Play stores.

Enjoy the rest of the Easter break. We look forward to seeing you back at the Club on Sunday 12th April.

Best wishes

LFC Committee
(Arran, Della, Gerad, Gordon, Jakki, Jon, Nigel, Simon)
Lewes Fencing Club

LFC is a not for profit organisation run by volunteers. If you have any spare time we would welcome your help. Please get in touch at enquiries@lewesfencingclub.org.uk

Holidays are coming, Holidays are coming 🙂

At the close of 2014 it’s a great time to reflect on the year that has gone and to give you details of plans for the one coming up.

The year that’s gone

Its been busy, its been exciting and best of all we have seen the club go from strength to strength.

At the beginning of the year we had about 20 people fencing with us regularly, we now have approximately 30. The increase in numbers has us enabled us to invest in more kit, this includes :- •A new piste (bringing our total to 6)
•Basic hit monitors/test boxes (these allow for off piste fencing)
•Warm up equipment
•Plastic swords
•Practice Target
•More breeches
•A New Cage
All this new equipment will allow us to grow in the coming year.

We also ran several successful courses and taster sessions which has led to new members joining us.

Club members attended a lot of external competitions this year, with Della going to the most (see panel) and we also had a very successful internal competition. We hope to be arranging a competition between local clubs in the new year and we’ll be working hard to encourage more members to attend regional competitions. To help with this we have appointed Della to be our Competition Secretary. She’ll keep us up to date with what’s coming up and will no doubt be leading the way in representing the Club at regional comps.

In September we took part in a Fencing Mob, with a group of keen people heading up to Lewes Castle to show people what fencing is all about. This was part of an international Fencing Mob, the Facebook Page has lots of photos from around the world including our team putting on a good show at the castle.

We started Wednesday Night Fight Night, specifically for people who have their own kit. These sessions will continue in 2015, running from 6.30pm to 8pm at Southover School. Price is just £6 per week on a PAYG basis. We start again Wednesday 7th January.

And to round off the year we had out first Club Christmas lunch. It was great to see so many people attend and the food was both good and bountiful. We had our awards ceremony which, although was not quite the Oscars, did give us a chance to celebrate individual achievements. The full list of winners is shown in the side panel.

2014 Awards
2014 saw our first set of awards, and our winners were…….
Best style (Junior) – Rebecca Stanley
Best style (Adult) – Jakki Hall
Most Improved (Junior) – Rob Stone
Most Improved (Adult)- Claire Cox
Most Competitive – Della Bowley
Best Swashbuckler – Otto Albuquerque
Most Unique Kit – Gus Wray

Well done to everyone, and now you know what to work towards next year.

If you weren’t able to come to the Christmas lunch we will make sure you get your award on our next club day.

Next Term

Our Dates for your 2015 diary are:

Sunday 4th January – Sunday 8th February

and Sunday 22nd February – Sunday 29th March

The Leisure Centre has put up our hire costs again but we will continue to keep the costs to fencers the same.
4th Jan- 8th Feb (6 weeks)
Adults £36, Juniors and Concessions £30, PAYG Piste £8/£6
22nd Feb – 29th Mar (6 weeks)
Adults £36, Juniors and Concessions £30, PAYG Piste £8/£6

We would like to close this year by thanking everyone who has fenced with us. We believe Lewes Fencing Club is one of the friendliest and most attended clubs in the South East and this is all because of you. On behalf of everyone at Lewes Fencing Club, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

We look forward to seeing you on piste in 2015.

LFC Committee
(Arran, Della, Gerad, Gordon, Jakki, Jon, Simon)
Lewes Fencing Club

The club will be running this Sunday (31st) from 10-11, for any club members who can fight on the piste. No coaching will be available.

£5 per person.