I Really Really Really Really Hate Greedy Fencing Club Owners.

Below is a transcript of a message sent in a online community site where kids and parents have access to read,


Blah blah blah blah blah... A few members asked how the process works for the tournament selection etc and a re-cap of the meeting - I don't have much time but for those whoare interested here it is. All club representatives show up for meeting. They have on poster sheets of paper the tournaments andeach rep goes up and puts the clubs name by it who wants to host it. Then the organizer goes through the list and takes bids andarguments etc on who gets it, and then assigns it, and sometimes it getsheated! They try to give about the same number to each club and give thelarger events to larger clubs. After much infighting we decided to break into weapon groups to try and work out who took what - with allot of horsetrading going on. This system worked real well except I had to be in three groups at once foil, epee, and saber, but hey, I coached three weapons and 80 fencers at competitions by myself for 15 years so I could handle this. I succeeded in getting what I wanted (Oh really now?!?!?! HOW AMAZING!!!) as far as the way it showed up at the end of the meeting - I need to look at the schedule tosee if it was recorded that way. a couple foil, a saber, and an epeeevent as I recall.

THE LARGEST CONTROVERSY (there is always one and I will sahre that one each year): Myself and another coach and others hated the idea of these large youth events on Saturday they had planned and many people voiced this as crazy - why? because most younger children train on Saturdays and do otheractivities as well, the big clubs like ours and others cannot host big tournaments because we have classes and practice on Saturdays, and coaches cannot attend these with their youth fencers as we teach and give lessonson Saturdays (TWO HUGE REASONS NOT TO HOLD THEM). If you want sat tourneys use small ones so they can be held in the afternoons after clubs are done for the day, and because coaches do not often coach junior and above BayCups so do these if you must on sat evenings everyone voiced. One coach (with a new club - between my two clubs) bidded for these large youth sat tourneys and was outvoted on holding them, he cussed under his breath and walked out of the meeting thus showing his lack of support and most importantly the youth fencers. this was discussed briefly later when the local tournament committee turned to him to actually give him one event he requested on sat to make him happy but he was gone - sohe got nothing at all...The kids are important and the youth kids need to have their coachespresent - We should all think of the kids first may be. So that is my report and good luck this season.

The Muscle Man

I have a lot of problems with this message sent to kids and parents. Why would I unearth the drama or controversies to the parents? Like seriously, why would you do that? I've worked in service industries and in my brief years working, I've learned that it is very important for customers to not know the bad stuff that's going on behind the scenes. If you're eating at a restaurant, do you really want to leave the stinky bathroom door open? It's actually one of the major rules of business, don't wash your dirty laundry in public.

I ask earlier why someone would do that? One definite reason is that this person has a motive and desire to crush the competing club. 'One Coach (with a new club in between MY two clubs)...he cussed under his breath and walked out of the meeting...' First, it's not your club; of course you own it, but you can't have it with out the fencers so call it their club not yours. And what benefit would the proceeding details give the parents? None. It would only benefit you, Muscle Man, because you seriously want to paint him bad.

"The kids are important and the youth kids need to have their coaches present - We should all think of the kids first may be." Or to those stupid people who don't see his hypocrisy, I think we should all think of his pocket book because I'm sure he wants to remain vaccuuming money off parents' pockets so he could feed his horses (not kidding, he has horses).

People could judge me for this... but i just really really really hate greedy fencing club owners.