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Happy November, Members!
As the spooky season finishes and the holiday season comes into view, it was yet another busy month at USA Fencing — highlighted by our largest ever October NAC (#OctoNAC), a dominant performance from our Veteran national team in Croatia and our Para national team in Brazil, and an exceptionally promising performance from Cadet Epee in Serbia.
It’s a good time to be at USA Fencing. We’ve got a new full house of staff and recently welcomed Brad Suchorski from USA Lacrosse and Amanda Lilly, who joins us from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Foundation.
Speaking of the Foundation, last month I challenged you all to make a contribution to the U.S. Fencing Foundation and that I would match up to $50 of each person's gift. Well, I’m pleased to say you all have cost me approximately $2,700, which I will be donating to the U.S. Fencing Foundation this month. I’ve closed the match now, but I’ll be making some further donations to the USFF over the course of the year. With the addition of Amanda to our team, look for more opportunities to interact with the Foundation coming soon, including our Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games hospitality program.
I’m going to dive right in, though, with some of the highlights you might have already seen from a very busy USA Fencing Board retreat in our hometown of Colorado Springs, Colo. There were a few substantive discussions that make a difference to our members that I want to make sure are laid out for you here.
The first is the relaxation of the COVID-19 Vaccine policy. We will now make vaccination proof optional at events, and vaccination is no longer required for any USA Fencing-sanctioned event (therefore including regional and local competitions). This matches the current CDC guidance, the practice of almost every major organization at this time as well as the guidance of our partners at Mount Sinai and our Sports Medicine Resource Group. This step was taken in accordance with medical guidance, and we will continue to monitor the situation with our partners.
We also discussed at length the position of USA Fencing as regards to the potential inclusion of Russian and Belorussian fencers back into international competition at the FIE level. We looked primarily to our Athlete Council for their guidance on how they wished to see the organization vote in the coming FIE Congress on this matter. Thus, USA Fencing will vote to uphold the current conditions for these nations in respect to the FIE. We also matched our own domestic policy that if an individual has held an FIE license for the last three years for either Russia or Belarus then they may not fence in USA Fencing-sanctioned events. IWAS (the governing body for parafencing) has no plans to examine its stance on the same.
Another major item that I know is of interest to members is how we allocate our events. We’re going to go into more detail on this, but we’ll be expressing a preference to the sports events industry that we will place events with preference in cities that have open laws with respect to the LGBTQIA+ community and with laws that respect the health and well-being of our women members and participants. Placing events is much more complex than it looks on the face of it — one major reason for that is the sheer size of our events, which require around 200,000 square feet of flat space in one room. That’s about four football fields (the American football — hand egg — kind, not my native kind). That leaves you with about 35 cities in the USA that can actually accommodate us, and some of those are just not feasible (for example Boston and New York City). Another item to be aware of is that we have cities booked into 2025, including in some states with the above challenges (notably Texas). Speaking of which, we will be making much earlier announcements about where we are going for the coming year. As I write this, we are finishing off our placements for next season.
Similarly, we now have a formal transgender athlete and nonbinary athlete policy, which allows us to have a true pathway for our transathletes and nonbinary athletes to compete and to protect their rights in competition, while recognizing the concept of progress not perfection. To that end, we will be seeking a research partner to study this area specifically in the sport of fencing.
Ivan Lee OLY also became a vice president of our board. Ivan has a background in law enforcement and more recently has become the head coach of Long Island University, bringing a sport forward to the varsity level almost on the basis of sheer willpower alone. That aside from, of course, being an outstanding fencer in his own right. I look forward to working with Ivan going forward.
We’re progressing on our journey toward a coaching license program. We’ll have a single-level program with CEUs per year available from around our community approved by USA Fencing, including the USFCA. I want to particularly compliment Vinnie Bradford at the USFCA for her work together with me to bring USFCA and USA Fencing closer together. We anticipate this launching in time for next season and will of course publish more details as it becomes clear.
Well, that was just one weekend of progress in the organization but the product of significant work on the part of our staff, as well as members of committees, resource teams and the Board of course. We also welcome new committee members to various groups in our membership.
Our next board meeting (Saturday, Dec. 3, 2022, at noon ET) will see streamlined and more independent disciplinary procedures come to vote, as well as an important amendment to our strategic plan to focus our mind around the development of our Paralympic program. Meanwhile, we have the important task of seating three new impactful independent directors.
On the subject of discipline, we still need work on our culture with each other. We need to own this as a community. Sadly, we have had instances of unsavory behavior toward other members of the community. The respect for one another, quite frankly, needs to get better. Think before you act — think about the person receiving your action. If you were them, would you appreciate that action? With that said, if you have suffered under that behavior make sure to report it. It’s important, too, that we over time identify those in this community who refuse to respect other members of the community and simply make it clear they are not welcome.
Back to #OctoNAC — which feels like a long time ago now — it was great to be at my first NAC and see our athletes across the spectrum of USA Fencing in action. I’m looking forward to seeing more of you in Salt Lake City coming up in a few weeks. Some great bouts were had in Minneapolis — many with interesting or even surprising results. Two highlights might be the return of Scott Rodgers PLY to competition in our parafencing events, while Justin Haddad had an outstanding result in Division I Men’s Epee.
Many of the above initiatives above, and those to come, are reinforced, if not driven, by feedback we receive from the membership.
Much of that comes from people hitting reply to this email, answering surveys (club owners can expect one this month, alumni just had one and the results will be published shortly), or being part of the listening tour.
So hit reply, and let’s get more done!
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