This year Dunedin have the pleasure of welcoming up and coming fencers to the Under 15 and Under 17 National Championships - held over Easter weekend (4th - 6th April). 

The event information page is available here: http://goo.gl/bsSrAU

There is a link to the entry form on the event information page. 

It will be a fantastic event and good luck to all the competitors! 

Fencing North Committee Meeting

Wednesday 4^th March 2015, 7.30pm

Meadowbank Community Centre, Meadowbank

Present:

John Garelja (President)

Linda Boyd (Treasurer)

Oliver Agnew (Secretary

Hamish Bulmer

Chris Lear

Gaylene Ongley

Jeremy Dyson

Apologies:

Laura Harvey

Eric Buisman

Judit Fliszar

Meeting starts 7.35pm:

Minutes from previous meeting:

Jeremy Dyson moves that we accept these, Chris Lear seconds. All in favour.

Matters arising from previous minutes:

None

Treasurer’s Report:

No report yet – we need to set Linda up with the tools to do this.

Linda Boyd is trying to contact Incorporated Societies about updating our official documentation. Running into issues with access to their site – need a specific login. Oliver will follow this up by contacting David Greig.

Event in Provinces:

Karl Snell supports running a competition in Hamilton – he’d also like an opportunity to give some extra training to fencers from Tauranga. We need to think about when to run this event and if we should use the opportunity to run a training camp.

Clubs Running Events:

Ongley Open – Auckland Swords
Regional U15s – Auckland High Performance
Regional U17s – North Harbour Fencing Club
Regional U20s – University of Auckland Fencing Club

Fencing North agrees that these clubs can run these competitions. We had originally decided that we would let clubs run up to 5 events total – only four clubs came back to us so Fencing North will run the 1 event left over.

Meeting closed at 8.40pm

We are really excited to announce that entries are open for our first event of the year - W Dawn!
The competition is at Massey High School on the 14th March. To find more information for this event, click through to the info page here: http://www.fencingnorth.com/competitions-and-results/competition-info-and-entry-forms/item/262-w-dawn-14th-march-2015

Mixed Epee
Mixed Sabre
Men's Foil
Women's Foil

Mixed Epee:

Round #1 - Pools

Direct Elimination

Mixed Sabre:

Round #1 - Pools

Round #2 - Direct Elimination

Men's Foil:

Round #1 - Pools

Round #2 - Direct Elimination

Women's Foil:

Round #1 - Pools

Round #2 - Direct Elimination

Please arrive 15mins before your event starts to complete registration.

We will be accepting affiliations for 2015 at this event, but affiliated members from 2014 are able to compete in events until the end of March. This year's affiliation form can be found here: Affiliation Form 2015

The 2015 seasons is kicking off soon! If you want to compete in regional, national, or international events - you need to affiliate! 

Last year lots of fencers found it easier to email their form to us and pay via Internet Banking.
This year we are formalising Internet Banking as a method of payment and we hope this saves you all time. All the payment details are on the affiliation form, which is available here: http://www.fencingnorth.com/useful-files/documents/138-fencing-north-affiliation-2015

Affiliations need to be paid before your first competition of the season. Our first regional competition this year is W Dawn on the 14th March, keep an eye out for some announcements about it soon.

Fencing North Committee Meeting

Wednesday 4th February 2015, 7.30pm

Meadowbank Community Centre, Meadowbank

Present:

John Garelja (President)

Eric Buisman (Vice President)

Linda Boyd (Treasurer)

Oliver Agnew (Secretary)

Hamish Bulmer

Chris Lear

Laura Harvey

Gaylene Ongley

Jeremy Dyson

Judit Fliszar

Anya Kamynina

Apologies:

None

Meeting starts 7.35pm:

Matters arising from previous minutes:

Gaylene queries the need to submit our officers to the incorporated societies. 

The officers are available as part of our AGM minutes that we send to incorporated societies.

Chris Lear moves that the minutes are correct, Gaylene Ongley seconds. All in favour

Treasurer’s Report:

There was no treasurer’s report this meeting

Email Actions from Vicci Lamb (Secretary of Fencing NZ):

We received an email from Vicci Lamb asking for responses on three actions.

1: Acceptance of Selection Criteria for Commonwealth Cadets:

A selection criteria had been provided that sets out three tiers for selections. Fencers selected into the first tier are expected to win team medals. Fencers selected into the second tier are expected to be able to place in the top half. The third tier lets fencers be selected who still have two years left in the cadet age group, this provides a development opportunity for them. The document provides specific criteria that needs to be met at each tier (including requirements to attend specific tournaments). 

Our response is that we don't accept this selection criteria. The document is designed to prevent people from attending if they don't exactly meet one of these tiers (for whatever reason), and we think this needs to be more flexible and provide that if the team isn't full once nominees have been selected against the criteria (as is often the case) we are happy to let fencers attend even if they don't meet the criteria. Giving the opportunity to participate is extremely important to us, and the argument that "we will look bad" if our fencers come last is nonsensical. It should be in FeNZ's interest to grow and develop the sport by sending as many people as we can, as such the selection criteria should only be used to prioritise which fencers should attend in a situation where more fencers meet the criteria than there are positions in the team.

2: Commonwealth Cadets and Juniors Manager:

A call for nominations to the position of manager for this team was put out, there was one response (from Charlotte Dewsnap). Vicci is looking for us to endorse her as manager.

Our response is that we support Charlotte's selection as manager and think she'll be a fantastic person to work with parents and fencers in organising what's required for this competition. One thing that we want to be sure of is whether or not the number of fencers who end up being selected will require a manager to travel with the team. If numbers are low it would be sensible that the manager doesn't travel with the team. Another thing to we discussed is that there may be parents/coaches travelling with the team that can take on the management duties at the event.  

3: Fencing New Zealand Affiliation fees for 2015:

At the last FeNZ meeting in December 2014, Vicci Lamb and Ken Claridge (President FeNZ) mentioned there are opportunities to lower the affiliation fee for particular age groups. Vicci said she would conduct analysis into alternative fee structures, but she hasn't done it. As a result she's recommending that we keep the same fees as 2014 ($50 for full membership (fencers) and $20 for associate membership (non-fencers)). 

Our response is that we agree to keeping the same fees as last year, but we still insist that this analysis occurs. The aim of the analysis should be to work out the lowest fee FeNZ we can charge fencers in order to cover their operating costs. Additionally we recommend that fees need to be set at the end of Q3 in FeNZ's financial year. 

Selection Issues:

There are issues with Fencing New Zealand's selection process that Oliver will address at this Fencing New Zealand's February meeting. In short, nominations are opened far too late and the process takes too long. This means less fencers are able to represent New Zealand at these important competitions. Additionally fencers and their families often have a terrible experience dealing with FeNZ.

For some recent context: 

Asian Cadet and Junior Championships are being held from the 28th February this year in Abu Dhabi. FeNZ called for nominations on the 12th December with a cut off date of the 21st December. Selections still hadn't been made by the 16th Janurary and weren't finally announced until 2nd February (for a competition that begins on the 28th February). This is appalling.

The same process is in the works at the moment for World Cadet and Junior Championships which start on the 1st of April in Tashkent. Nominations for this event closed on the 1st February and we're waiting to see what happens now, but any fencers selected will have hardly any time to book flights/accommodation and plan their trip.

In contrast to this, the Australian Fencing Federation were able to announce their team for Asian Cadet and Junior Champs in early December (before FeNZ had started their nomination process), and their team for World Cadet and Juniors in early January (also before FeNZ had started their nomination process).

This has been an ongoing problem with Fencing NZ and a solution is required.

Calendar Issues:

Move SS1 to the 9^th
Move Macleavey to 16^th
Move SS2 to the 23^rd
Oliver to check Macleavy/Fenton/Larsen are in the calendar
Oliver to forward competition dates to Massey High/John so we can book the gym for the year.

Oliver will put a call out to clubs for interest to run specific competitions. Fencing North are prepared for clubs to run up to 5 events (not the SS Circuit/North Open Champs). Auckland Swords have indicated they want to run Ongley Open and Auckland High Performance have done the same for Regional U15 Champs. This leaves 3 events for other clubs to run, contact Oliver Agnew by 1st March if you're interested. If no other clubs indicate an interest Auckland Swords/Auckland High Performance will be able to run additional events. 

Gear Lockup at Massey High School:

John Garelja want us to spend ~$600 for gear containers for Fencing North equipment to be stored at Massey High School. Gaylene Ongley moves that we do this and Jeremy Dyson seconds, all are in favour. 

Tournament Sub-Committee:

This year we are re-establishing the tournament sub-committee. This committee will organise all regional tournaments, this also involves managing aspects of our website and Facebook page to distribute event info and entry forms.

Members:
Laura Harvey (Leader)
Heather Claydon
Eric Buisman
Gaylene Ongley
Hamish Bulmer
Chris Lear
Chris Bell
Stephanie Wyllie

More members may be added as required.

Discussion about using a subscription management system:

Oliver is able to build a subscription management system into our website to collect affiliations (and payments) online. From initial discussion it sounds like everyone is keen to do this, but we need to do some research and look into how this business process will work. 

Bills to pay:

$127.10 to Oliver Agnew for annual website hosting and domain registration for www.fencingnorth.com

Meeting closed at 9.50pm

Congratulations to Daniel Garelja on being selected to represent New Zealand at the Asian Junior Fencing Champs in Abu Dhabi. The competition is in early March and Daniel will be competing in Mens Foil.

Fencing New Zealand are holding their 2014 AGM on the 1st March at 10am. 

Instead of travelling to Wellington to attend the meeting, we will be holding a Skype meeting in Auckland that will connect into the session in Wellington. 

The location for our end of the Skype meeting is the Garelja Bros Strawberry Gardens Office at 63 Fred Taylor Drive, Massey. Please make sure to be there by 9.45am if you're coming.

Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you have any queries.

FeNZ have given notice that their 2014 AGM will be held via Skype on the 1st March 2015 at 10am. We will organise a location for people to meet and join the meeting, watch this space!

For more information, see this page: http://www.fencing.org.nz/news.php?cod=2541