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Post by August Skopik on Apr 25, 2005 11:52:03 GMT -6
Dear Fencers, The Gulf Coast Division, the Southwest Section and the sport of fencing have a tremendous opportunity in that the Houston Sports Authority has agreed to participate in helping with the Southwest Section Circuit Cup being hosted in the Gulf Coast Division. This group was responsible for bringing the NCAA championships to Houston, and is currently bidding on future NCAA championships. These are opportunities that will help the sport grow and become more noticed by the sports public. This is the email I sent to the division officers, John Trojanowski, David Sierra and Oscar Barrera. "Dear Officers, The Katy Blades Fencing and the Houston Sports Authority, (the group that sponsored the NCAA championships in 2005), is pleased to accept the offer to co-host the 2005 - 2006 SSCC, (Southwest Sectional Circuit Cup). The Katy Blades Fencing Academy will offer the technical expertise and tournament administration, and will be working with the Houston Sports Authority in determining and obtaining adequate facilities, media, hotel and housing, etc. The Houston Sports Authority website is www.hchsa.org/, and they are creating bids for the upcoming NCAA championships plus they are very interested in bidding on future Junior Olympic/NAC and National Championship events. This group has been a tremendous partner to fencing in the short time of its relationship, and is very interested in partnering with fencing in the future. Please call me at 281.703.5064 with any questions. August Skopik Katy Blades Fencing Academy" The fencing community has the ability to partner with a know marketing and public relations entity, and this is an opportunity our sport needs to take advantage of and can be replicated in every city with similar assets. Please support this opportunity, or voice your opinion on why this is bad for the sport of fencing.
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Post by Giorgio Bassa on Apr 25, 2005 13:00:09 GMT -6
Dear Fencers, .......... This is the email I sent to the division officers, John Trojanowski, David Sierra and Oscar Barrera. .......... Augie: I congratulate you for all the work you do to help all the fencers in our division grow, learn, and have fun in a healthy environment. Your hard work to get the HSA to help organizing a major Sectional event is terrific and I hope that everyone will pitch in and help you in this endeavor leaving the petty squabbles aside for a while. I think however that you should make some corrections and clarifications since people get easily confused between Division tournaments, Sectional tournament, and USFA tournament. According to the SW Section official website, the officers of the Section are: Angela Torres, chair David Sierra, vice chair Terry Harkins, secretary Anjea Ehrle Ray, trewasurer John Trojanowski and Oscar Barrera are not officers of the Section, David Sierra is one. The other point is that in the rotation between clubs to host major division and the sectional tournament as circulated by Matt, KB is #3, after WCFC and SHHS. If KB is now #1, this should be reflected in the official page. With these two corrections, I support you completely in all your efforts.
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Post by MJ WYSOCKI on Apr 25, 2005 13:50:17 GMT -6
Augie, there is another potential problem. I didn't think that the SSCC's could be awarded untill the annual meeting of the section at the earliest. If that was not communicated to Katy Blades I would double check on that. The section rules say (see the sscc rules section 2-tournament designation) that the DIVISION awards the tournament with sectional approval. Has this occured? If not if the other clubs in the division might want to host it as well, there could be a problem! The section rules also say that if the division does not designate a LOC then the section has a right to award the tournament. Assuming that our Division executive board has apporved this, congrats to all.
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Post by August Skopik on Apr 25, 2005 13:50:58 GMT -6
Dear Giorgio,
Thanks for the support. Katy Blades is the next club on the rotation per an email from Matt today. Westchester will host JO qualifiers and South Houston will host divisional qualifiers.
I copied Oscar because we have spoken about this possibility as far back as 1981 - 82 as to what was needed to help fencing grow, and only more on a personal interest and not official notification. I did have to copy John Trojanowski per Matt's email, although what his official capacity is now I am not certain.
I had to make some assumptions in working with the Houston Sports Authority as to which tournaments Westchester and South Houston would accept, since I had 24 hours to respond. As you have pointed out in the past, the website may need updating, but in this case it is a good reason behind it.
Now if we can get the public notified of this sport properly, we may actually have spectators at our event. Since the competitors will include US team, National team and World Cup medalists, we certainly have a product to offer to be proud of.
Augie
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Post by August Skopik on Apr 25, 2005 13:54:48 GMT -6
I am copying Matt's email from today, 4/25/2005 at 11:01 am.
"Augie,
I am writing to you on behalf of, and at the direction of, John Trojanowski, designed by the Executive Committee to be administering "the rotation". Westchester Fencing Academy, the club at the top of "the rotation" as the 2005-2006 allocation starts, was offered the opportunity to host, in fencing year 2005-2006, any one of the JO qualifier, Divisionals, or the SSCC tournament. Within 24 hours, it accepted the offer to host the JO qualifier. South Houston High School Fencing Team is the next club on the list. When Westchester responded, a formal offer existed for SHHSFT. SHHSFT had already communicated to us that if offered it, it was to be considered to be accepting Divisionals. So, SHHSFT is considered to have been offered Divisionals or the SSCC tournament, and to have immediately accepted Divisionals. Katy Blades is the next club on the list.
Katy Blades is being offered the opportunity to host, in fencing year 2005-2006, the SSCC tournament. I wish I could have given you more warning than you already received about this impending offer, but it has been less than an hour between when the first club was extended its offer and when yours, the third club, is getting its offer!
You already received the URL for the Web page on the Division's Web site with extensive information about "the rotation" including some useful information about the three tournaments you are being offered and the recent history of them.
Note that within the Executive Committee there has been a proposal to fix the split between the host club and the Division of any profit or loss at a ratio different than the status quo. The status quo is that for the SSCC tournament, the host club gets 100% of the profit or loss and the Division gets zero, and that for other tournaments the host club gets 50% and the Division gets 50% (and the Officers of the Division are understood to have more obligations than with a typical tournament). The proposal which has been advanced, but not formally considered and decided upon, is that the Executive Committee should change the ratio for all these tournaments to 80% for the club and 20% for the Division. Please bear this possibility in mind when making your decision.
Please respond to me on behalf of John, and to John (and for good measure CCing all of us Officers -- come to think of it, just plan on doing a "Reply All"), about the decision of Westchester Fencing Club within 24 hours of this offer, i.e., by 11:00 AM Tuesday, April 26th.
Whether you select this tournaments, or decline it, Katy Blades will be moved from first in the list to 17th in the list, and all other clubs will move up one spot.
Matt Delevoryas Secretary Gulf Coast TX Division"
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Post by Oliver on Apr 25, 2005 19:58:22 GMT -6
Opinion:
If you have the funds, and you want to make this an effective sell to the consumer, I would offer multiple attractions to attendees geared towards education and interest building. I feel a fencing touranment, with its long duration, multiple encounters, and difficult to track progress and identification of fencers makes traditional spectator sport treatment unlikely to succeed. People would walk away confused and disinterested. Why not include side rooms for spectators including:
1. Basics of fencing seminar & demonstration every hour during the event. During non-seminar hours include displays (of target area etc) fencers standing around answering questions.
2. History of fencing exhibit, with displays, historical replicas.
3. Fencing skills test room for agility, coordination and reactions. Tryout with plastic weapons.
4. Competitive Fencing Universe room, describing different organizations, tiers of competition (from Div to Olympics), schools offering scholarships.
5. Local club & college booths with handouts. Venders with equipment and museum replicas.
6. Well known celebrity like Antonio Banderas or some Lord of the Rings guy.
With a packaged attraction, you will be able to charge more, have a higher turn-out, and spectators will walk away with a broader understanding of the sport the are watching (truely increasing public knowledge and recognition of the sport). You'd probably get a higher level of fencer participation too.
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Post by August Skopik on Apr 25, 2005 20:59:31 GMT -6
Dear Oliver,
Those are wonderful ideas, and we in the fencing community should incorporate every one in this tournament and other events. Not only that, we should look for opportunities to make more events like this happen in the Houston area.
How can we get you to run for office? You have put years of ideas very elegantly on one page.
I will go even further. How do we get more fencing spectator and Olympic coverage on TV? We give the event proceeds to a known charity such as Ronald McDonald House or something like that, and let McDonald's sell the tickets and TV rights with the understanding that all proceeds go to the charity. We then talk to the media and help them do their job well and look good by providing and discussing stories of fencing in the area. We then step back and help McDonalds market.
I am excited to see such a positive program explained in such a manner. I hope every fencer in the division and nation reads the above message and does one little part of the program outlined. Fencing would move into the 21st century as a spectator sport.
Thank you Oliver!
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Post by Oliver on Apr 25, 2005 23:10:34 GMT -6
Shucks Augie, you're making me blush.
Well, I think media coverage means it has to be interesting, buzz worthy and easy for everyone to understand. While we're all proud of Ben, Francesca, Joe and all our section's other fencers...they just arent a huge media/spectator draw.
A fencing competition/mini-festival with stuff to do, see and learn would definitely get some time on the local news and raise peoples interest.
If you want fencing to be noticed and have more money circulating into it, you need to spend money to provide the right product - worthy of mass consumption and media participation.
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Post by night fencer on Apr 28, 2005 8:59:18 GMT -6
Outstanding
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