So apparently we have a board election coming up, let's chat
I got a nice email from candidate Nona Lim, who seems fine. I did note that one of her points is:
>Sustainable Growth
>The future of our sport depends on strong pathways for athletes at every level — from youth development to collegiate opportunities through NCAA programs and the continued growth of the veteran fencing community.
People have said stuff like this for years, and yet US Fencing continues to not demonstrate any interest at all in growing fencing in the US.
Two immediate places one might look at, if one really did want to grow fencing in the US, are coaching development and fixing the competition ladder:
Restart something like Coaches' College. We get all kinds of excuses as to why it's not feasible, none of which really hold any water. Every other sport I've been involved in has recruited coaches like hell. I got recruited to be a coach multiple times a year when I was a US Sailing member, for example. If we want to grow fencing we need more coaches. Coaches make fencers. All the outreach and publicity and so on in the world won't help if those newly interested prospective fencers look around and find no place near them to fence.
Competition pipeline. Right now the national competition pipeline does two things: It runs Div II and Div III events, which kneecap large local events. And it features a huge, largely unavoidable hole once the fencer ages out of Juniors. A 25 year old B has no reason ever to go to a NAC. It cuts the center out of post-college fencing in the US. We all know this, we've known it for decades.
Are there any prospective board members who actually plan to address any of this?