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Post by schlager7 on Jan 22, 2006 21:46:55 GMT -6
I recall reading this when the magazine came out. I was reminded of this tonight when I saw it quoted in an unrelated thread on Fencing Net. It's from American Fencing magazine, the Summer 2005 issue:
"We currently have some 24,000 members. However data indicates that there are almost 100,000 people in the United States involved in fencing in some way, although a vast majority is not included in the USFA membership."
Most, but certainly not all, of those using this forum are members of the USFA. Many, in fact are current or past division and section officers. I guess I was curious if anyone had any thoughts about the 70,000 + people involved in fencing who have not become USFA members.
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Post by kd5mdk on Jan 23, 2006 2:04:00 GMT -6
Well, I think it depends on what you mean by fencing. I gather the larger number are drawn from estimates from fencing equipment sales. Not sure how they account for that.
Thoughts: 1) There's a lot of people fighting in the SCA. I wouldn't be surprised if there were 10,000 of them at least, (to pick a random number) or even twice that.
2) City and such Rec programs can bring in a lot of people who might never show up on the competitive scene, but if each program taught 5 classes of 20 students, that's a hundred "fencers" per program, and there's tens of thousands of towns in the US.
3) Many USFA fencers are children, and presumably one or more parents is "involved" in fencing if only to bring them to practice and bake cookies for the salle bake sale, let alone the tremendous amount of volunteer work that others do to organize and run things.
4) I have no idea what the size of classical fencing is, there could be several thousand of them.
5) Many fencing suppliers (such as AMFence and Triplette) are also stage combat suppliers as well, and every high school, college etc has a theater department which orders gauntlets, swords, etc from time to time. Some of these sales may be counted as well.
Just my ideas.
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Katman
Squire
[ss:Default]
Posts: 269
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Post by Katman on Jan 23, 2006 22:30:18 GMT -6
Yah, we've got a fair amount of fencers at the UH club that aren't USFA members. They're just in it for SWIFA and meeting hot college fencing chicks I suppose. Now that I think of it, USFA members in the UH club are probably in the minority.
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Post by Dan Gorman on Jan 24, 2006 11:43:42 GMT -6
I used fencing to meet hot college fencing chicks. Then I married the hottest one I could find. More on topic, A&M and Purdue both had a majority of non-USFA members. A&M is trying to change that though by encouraging members to join. Maybe go to tournaments even... Most the beginners I teach through Salle Mauro are non-members too, although we try to bring them into the fold as soon as possible. Part of our plan for world domination. Don't tell anyone I said that. Dan
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Post by Prudence on Apr 28, 2006 21:15:56 GMT -6
Aww Dan, that is so sweet. Oh and I'm with ya on that whole world domination thing.
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