Fencing Sprouts

We recommend outreach through community centers and elementary/middle schools nearby. Leaving up fliers at community centers works well and is a straightforward way to get people to know about the organization.

Outreach to individual schools is often tricky because many of these schools are often unresponsive over email. What works faster and better is simply showing up and talking to the front office in person. From there, holding demonstrations and maintaining a long term relationship with the administration would be a great way to achieve a steady flow of students.

Should you choose to email, here is a recommended email template for getting in touch with individual locations:

"Dear (Head of Local Chapter’s Name),

USA Fencing, the national governing body of the sport, has launched an initiative called Fencing Sprouts to expand access to the sport of fencing for youth across the nation. My fencing club, (Name of Club), has joined this effort and will be offering free fencing classes in our area.

The goal of Fencing Sprouts is to make fencing accessible to kids across the country. As part of this program, we’re hoping to partner with (Name of Local Organization) to offer free, weekly, hour long fencing lessons for your students.

These sessions are:

1. Fun, interactive, and safe
2. Led by youth fencers, with adult supervision from our club coaches
3. Completely free for your organization and families

My name is (Your Name), and I’m a (Fencer or Fencing Coach, if coach remove the information on being a student) and a student at (Name of School). I am leading this effort for (Club Name)

Would you be open to scheduling a short demo session at your location? We can bring all equipment and materials.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Best regards,

(Your Name)"

Demonstrations

Once you hear back, it’s time to schedule the demo.

These demos are best held in the location of the organization, for groups of kids. This ensures that many potential future fencers will see the demo at a place where they are already comfortable, with kids they know.

The demo lessons work best when you can engage students -- letting them hold equipment and showing them that fencing can be fun. Encouraging the shy children to hold a weapon (or a pool noodle) and lunge to attack you is the best way to encourage kids to come to classes. It is recommended to bring a coach with you to supervise the first demonstration, especially in the context of safety, but from there, it is up to you to decide if that is necessary.

Make sure to bring fliers which emphasize that the classes are free, and include the information of the club and the class (when it is, where it is). Here’s a sample flier.

First class

When parents and kids show up to their first class, remember that unlike most parents who know a lot about fencing, this is the parents and kids’ first look at a real fencing club. We will succeed when we help make it a warm and welcoming atmosphere.

• Collect the emails of the parents so that you can update them on any changes in the schedule or anything that might come up
• Ensure that the parents sign your club’s liability waiver for Fencing Sprouts attendees.
• Ensure participants sign up for a free USA Fencing 90-day trial membership. This is an important step for your club to comply with its USA Fencing membership.

Engagement with parents

After the first class, it’s important to give parents a full idea of what the schedule will look like. Set expectations that the kids will have fun and improve when they attend regularly, and that the parents should let you know if the child cannot attend a class. Be sure to let them know them when classes might be cancelled due to major tournaments (NACs) and the club’s holiday and practice schedule. It is important to ensure that the program runs smoothly for the kids and also for the parents.

Engagement with partner organizations

In the long term, it’s important to keep in touch with the partner organizations and keep them updated on how Fencing Sprouts is going for their students. At the end of each semester, send an email to your contact with an update and some pictures to share how many kids are signed up, and how they are progressing. This will also help ensure you continue to receive a steady flow of students. Sending these updates goes a long way. Consider inviting your contact to observe and participate as well!

Payment

It’s important that the class remains free for kids from nonprofits, as well as for any children from local charter schools, youth programs, or public schools that serve deserving communities.

You may find that other kids also attend and come from families who could afford regular membership at your club. They may be using Fencing Sprouts as a way to see if their children enjoy fencing. For these parents, suggest a $50 monthly donation to USFA. Here is the link where they can make the donation. These funds go toward supporting communities in need.

Coaches

Fencing Sprouts classes will be largely youth led, but should have a supervising adult coach to ensure that classes are safe and enjoyable. We believe that having youth fencers run these programs will be a great opportunity for them to get involved in expanding the sport, and that there’s a significant amount of youth fencers who would be interested in doing so. We recommend one hour long class a week initially.

Classes

The age of the kids who end up at your class will likely be variable -- a number of them could be the same age, but there’s also the possibility that they could be a variety of ages. At the start especially. it’s really important to keep these kids interested -- for a lot of these kids, this will start off as a fun activity they’re doing on the weekends, not a competitive sport.

Additionally, when you have younger students(6-8), many of them will have lower attention spans, especially for seemingly tedious activities. As such, we recommend keeping activities short and fun, especially early on.

Shown below is how we initially structured our lessons this year. Furthermore, in the “Personal Anecdotes + Advice” section, you’ll find some important tips and tricks we learned through the year which would likely be useful.

Lesson Structure

Warming up (5 -10 minutes)

1. Footwork+Speed Ladder (10 - 15 minutes) -- We treated footwork as more of a game/competition than a drill. This was very important for keeping them engaged.
2. Drills/Games (15 - 25 minutes) -- We never made drills serious initially. They would always be somewhat fun activities such as balancing on two balls and parrying, or racing to see who could hit the bag first. We found that this kept them motivated to fence at the end of the class.
3. Fencing (10 -15 minutes) -- We took fencing very slowly at the start. Teaching them the basic rules (on guard line, instructions, don’t turn your back) and then letting them slowly work out right of way and more complex rules through fencing worked pretty well.
4. Cooldown game (5 minutes) -- Usually just a fun game to relax the kids and have fun before we send them home.

As kids progress through the year, the way that you structure the class can change. Remember that many of the students will see the class as a fun activity. However, later in the year, as these kids become more familiar with fencing, you can potentially make the class more fencing/drills heavy.

Oftentimes, as kids become more interested in the sport itself, this will be something they actively want. It’s important to listen to the kids and ask them what they’d like to do -- something as straightforward as asking “Who would like to fence a lot today?” can help you decide what direction to take the class.

Incorporating New Kids

Throughout the year, you might have new kids unfamiliar with fencing joining when you already have a group of kids who are at a similar level. We recommend taking lessons with new kids a little bit slower -- especially if these kids are on the younger side.

Reiterating how to do a proper advance, going in depth on explanations of the rules -- all of these ensure that new students aren’t left with gaps in their knowledge and can easily integrate into the class.

Additionally, make sure to have the parents of a new student sign the club’s liability waiver.

Over the past two years of running this program, these were the key takeaways that we had in regards to running successful classes and a successful program:

1. Keep things interesting

For a lot of these kids, this will be a fun activity during the weekend. When lessons are too hard or stay on one thing for too long (e.g. footwork), and there’s not some sort of “fun” element, kids can become disengaged. We have found that by gamifying parts of the lesson, we can keep kids active and motivated. For example, if we’re having them work on footwork, we’ll have them compete with each other to see who can take the most amount of advances from one end of the strip to the other.

2. Know your audience

Some classes might have twelve year olds and eight year olds together, while some might be all eight year olds or all eleven year olds, etc. Keeping in mind the attention span of these kids and making sure to balance the class to appeal to everyone is important. With a younger audience, it might be better to keep things more fun and have less actual fencing in equipment, while with an older audience that might not be the case.

While some kids may want to compete as they get better, make this an option, not a requirement.

3. Stay in touch with parents

It’s important to make sure that parents are always in the know as to when classes are and that they are updated on any changes to timing or location. This not only prevents confusion but also helps to maintain long term and positive relationships.

4. Stay in touch with your partner organizations

If you’re partnered with an organization, it’s important to give them updates on how the students are doing and to be proactive in outreach. Doing so prevents the relationship from dying out and allows a more consistent flow of students, and it also gives the organization a positive image of you.

While having a large amount of students participating in the program is great, this is not the only measure of success. Here are some metrics that are important:

Student Enjoyment and Engagement

We want students to be happy. Fencing Sprouts should be something that they enjoy and that they find enriching. In doing so, they’re more likely to want to fence long term.

Retention

Having kids enjoy fencing and want to come back is success. There may be kids who just want to fence for fun and we should welcome these kids and let them enjoy fencing. For the kids who want to be competitive, we want to nurture fencers who can eventually be great. Fencing is a sport which takes a long time to truly be successful, and making sure that students participate for not just one year but multiple can allow us to help these students reach their full potential.

Parent Satisfaction

One of the biggest joys in running this program is when parents tell you about how much it means to their kid and by extension themselves. We want parents to be able to look at the program and think that it’s a worthwhile place for their kid to spend their time. This serves a twofold purpose as this often leads to the student continuing to come to the program in the long term.