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March NAC Postponed
Due to the current situation regarding the coronavirus (COVID-19) in the United States, the March North American Cup that was scheduled to take place in Detroit from March 20-23 will not be held at this time.
USA Fencing understands that this was a competition opportunity that fencers and their families were looking forward to; however, this is an extraordinary situation and our top priority remains the health and well-being of all of our members, athletes, tournament staff and participants.
All participants will receive refunds of both event and registration fees for the tournament. Refunds will be processed within 5-7 business days.
The USA Fencing national events staff is looking into the possibility of rescheduling the event to a later date in the year. Any details regarding future dates will be released at www.usafencing.org.
Fairfax Challenge Postponed
The Fairfax Challenge has been postponed this weekend until some unknown date in May as a precautionary measure related to the recent outbreak of COVID-19. Please send any question to fairfaxchallenge@hotmail.com or call (551) 221-2211. You can also visit their website @ http://www.fairfaxchallenge.com for more information when it becomes available.
VA Division Junior Olympic Qualifier Registration Is Open
Registration is now open for the 2019 Virginia Division Qualifier to the USA Fencing Junior Olympics. This qualifier event will be held on October 12th and 13th at the Richmond Fencing Club.
Fencers must complete their registration and pre-pay all entry fees by Wednesday 10/10/19 at midnight to compete in Saturday or Sunday’s events.
Preregister here: https://askfred.net/Events/Prereg/prereg.php?tournament_id=44916
More Information below, or on AskFred! See you there!
Saturday, October 12th
9:30AM
Junior Women’s Epee
Junior Men’s Foil
Junior Men’s Saber
12:30PM
Cadet Men’s Foil
Cadet Women’s Epee
Cadet Men’s Saber
Sunday, October 13st
9:30AM
Junior Women’s Saber
Junior Women’s Foil
Junior Men’s Epee
12:30PM
Cadet Women’s Saber
Cadet Women’s Foil
Cadet Men’s Epee
NOTES:
Junior (U20) events will be held before the Cadet events on the same day.
Virginia Division Members Only!!! A member can declare a Division affiliation based on his or her residence, location of the school that member is attending or location of club that the member will represent in USA Fencing competitions. Each year a member must declare the Division affiliation for that membership year. That Division is then the one from which the fencer must qualify to the USA Fencing National Championships and the Junior Olympic Fencing Championships.
Fencers under 13 can compete in the Cadet event if they are on the NRPS for Y-14.
Number of Qualifiers for Junior Olympic Fencing Championships and USA Fencing National Championships from Division Qualifying Competitions (25% rule)
# Competitors 1 2 3 -12 13-16 17-20 21-24 25-28
# Qualifiers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
VA Division Election Update
With elections just around the corner on the 15th, I wanted to update you with some additional people who have stepped forward to run for our Board.
For your consideration – Scott Farber, Nic Papodopoulos, Julia Jiang and Damien Lehfeldt have decided to run for the VA Division Board with existing Board Members – Greg Kaidanov, Amy Papodopoulos, Ted Smith and Meredith Powers.
Stepping down from the Board are Jacob Duell and Melanie DeMaree. (Thank you both for your many years of service and support of the Virginia Division!)
Elections to be held at the completion of fencing this coming Saturday, no earlier than 5PM, at NOVA Fencing Club.
If you cannot be in attendance, please forward a proxy statement (With an original signature) to any officer casting your vote(s) for one or more of the people running. The proxy form is on the election announcement page.
VA Division Introduces International Competition Expense Grant
The Virginia Division of USA Fencing, LLC., has implemented a program to offer its fencers financial assistance when they compete internationally.
Starting on August 1 of each fencing calendar year (Current being 8/1/2018-7/31/2019), grants of $400.00 are available to individual fencers who are members of the Virginia Division to reimburse expenses related to competing in international Veteran, Senior, Junior and Cadet level USA Fencing designated competitions.
Eligibility is limited to one grant per season and is available for expenses not fully reimbursed from other sources.
To receive these grants, fencers should complete and submit the VA Division Grant Application with copies of all the relevant receipts for evaluation, approval and reimbursement to grants@va-usfa.com
It would be appreciated if all grant reimbursement requests are submitted before the beginning of Summer Nationals (approximately June 30th) of each calendar year, to support the July 31stfinancial close required by USA Fencing. For this season (2018-2019), this deadline will be pushed back until after the completion of Summer Nationals.
Any questions regarding this policy can be sent to grants@va-usfa.com.
Proposed Changes to VA Division By-Laws for 2019-2020
The below four small changes to the “VA Division” By-Laws have been proposed :
PROPOSED CHANGES:
1.
From: BY-LAWS: VIRGINIA DIVISION OF US FENCING, INC.
To: BY-LAWS: VIRGINIA DIVISION OF USA FENCING, LLC.
Reason: The actual incorporated name of the VA Division is “Virginia Division of USA Fencing, LLC.”
2.
From: ARTICLE I The Virginia Division of US Fencing, Inc., (“the Division”)
To: ARTICLE I The Virginia Division of USA Fencing, LLC., (“the Division”)
Reason: Same as above #1.
3.
DELETE ARTICLE V “The Divisional Representatives on the Sectional Executive Committee shall be the Divisional Chairman and one other divisional executive committee member, who shall be designated by the chairman.”
Reason: USA Fencing no longer recognizes “Sections”. Irrelevant
4. DELETE ARTICLE IX “The Divisional Championships shall be CLOSED unless specified otherwise in a general meeting. The qualifiers to the National Championships shall be the same as the Championships, provided it is in conformity with the requirements of the USFA.”
Reason: The VA Division Championship Tournament is no longer a qualifier to a Summer National Championship event. Irrelevant.
Voting on these changes will occur at the VA Division Annual Meeting and Elections to be held at NOVA Fencing Club on June 15, 2019 at the completion of fencing for that day (Roughly 5pm).
2018 Kickoff Classic Registration is Open
The Virginia Division is hosting the KickOff Classic at the Richmond Fencing Club on September 8th and 9th. It features Senior Open events and Mixed C & Under events. Although not a ROC this year, still expect great referees and tournament management, a great venue, plenty of happy faces and medals to the 8! Register Today!
Virginia Division 2018-2019 Tournament Schedule
The Virginia Division is pleased to announce that we have posted its 2018-2019 Tournament Schedule. We will do our best to link events to the calendar as they are added to both AskFred and the new USA Fencing registration system.
Do not hesitate to reach out with any questions or comments.
2018-19 VA Division Election Candidate Statement – Richard Weiss
Hello Virginia Division! I will not be in attendance for the Virginia Division Elections this coming Saturday at the Richmond Fencing Club. My sincerest apologies, but my daughter has her end of year Dance Recital, and well, you know…
It would be my pleasure to again serve as Chair of the Virginia Division of USA for next season. Since I will not be able to be in attendance, I wanted to let you know that we had a successful year, but not without some issues.
We need to think as a Division how to better support our local club tournaments. This is not a “VA Division” problem, we hear about local events being overlooked by their members nationwide in lieu of regional (SYC, JRCC, ROC) events that offer “points”. One thought is to work together with our surrounding divisions to further reduce the picking of an event over another where age/ratings of events overlap on a given day or weekend.
I had hoped to implement a program this year that would offer support to VA division fencer(s) who might need some assistance with travel/accommodations to cadet and junior competitions internationally. I feel strongly about this, and commit to putting something together this year.
I’d like to run two (2) referee clinics annually to support the development of our division members who have interest in refereeing. This may include a high level clinic for those who are currently referees, but wish to go to the next level. These clinics will be offered specifically for the development of VA Division members/referees to support tournaments in the VA Division.
Finally, I couldn’t end this note without making a comment about Allen Evans. Allen has decided that he’s had enough of us (my words, not his) and will not run again for VA Division Board. I’ve had the pleasure of serving with him for many years, both locally and on the Division Resources Committee with the National Offices. Everything he says is so well thought out and insightful, and I know that the Board will not be the same without him. Thank you, Allen, for everything.
Announcement from the US SEMI Committee on Saber Machine Timings
US SEMI is aware of certain SG12ST and older SG21 machines that seem to not have the recent saber timing despite being upgraded. US SEMI believes the upgrade programming mechanism or device used to update the machines has some kind of fault that caused the machine to not be upgraded when it should have been. We believe that you can determine if your machine is faulty by setting it to Saber, turning it off, and turning it back on again. A correctly upgraded machine will not have the audible alarm that indicates the B-C connection is open. A faulty machine will sound the alarm. The lights will indicate the open condition on both working and faulty machines as normal. This was a change put into the software with the timing upgrade and can be used as an indication if the upgrade was successfully applied. The presence of a sticker is not an indication of whether the machine has correct timing. US SEMI has NO indication that any forfeiting of stickers has occurred.
US SEMI believes that it may be possible to fix the fault by repeatedly applying the “flash” programming sequence until it is successful. This would have to be done by a factory authorized technician, and would require the machine to be sent to the technician.
We would stipulate that anyone bringing an older machine that they think did not re-program properly and proof of purchase from Absolute Fencing or Ted Li could have them re-re-programmed at the Absolute Fencing Gear booth at the USA Fencing National Championships and July Challenge or the 2018 October NAC at no charge, but that lacking proof of purchase they would pay the standard fee.
We recommend that faulty machines not be used for tournaments in which rolling points will be awarded. Use for other tournaments is at the discretion of the organizer.