Hello Fencers!
We have received a last minute invitation from Clifton College to a friendly match at epee and foil. The match will be at Clifton College from 1.30 pm on Saturday (3rd November). I've proposed we should send two teams of three at each, with some, most or all doubling up at both weapons. This is to be a friendly match, so all levels of skill and experience should feel welcome to volunteer. Last December's match at Clifton was an exciting and enjoyable affair. Please let me know as soon as you possibly can if you'd like to take part in the match as time is short.
Our Epee Championship for October was won by Jon Mason (pictured right), with Nick Scott-Samuel and Patrick Durant respectively second and third.
This is McNeill Cup week, with our usual team slash feast sure to provide its usual share of drama for fencers, veteran and novice, young and less so.
I've scheduled our inaugural club foil championship for Wednesday 7th November and on the first Wednesday of each month thereafter. We'll thus complete our trivium of fencing competitions. Which stands for grammar, rhetoric or logic, I leave you to speculate.
The Bristol Fencing Academy session this week will be a quiet affair as many of our young fencers are away for half-term or engaged in extortion on Halloween. I'll be there from 6pm and happy to give lessons to junior or - for this session - adult fencers but there will be no formal session.
I've received a reminder from SW Secretary, Jane Browne, that there a competitions coming up in our region. The updated calendar is here.
The excecutive of our sport's governing body, the FIE, has made some radical proposals for changes to the rules that affect all three weapons. One is to remove off-target at foil, so it would be like sabre, with off target hits not registering nor stopping the bout. Another is to restore the fleche at sabre in some form. Neither is very likely to happen. Non-Combativity is also up for review, which affects foil and epee.There is a report on the proposals here and the full document is available here.
See you soon,
John