June 2005
Dear All,
A few days ago I was in London at a London2012 briefing, one of many, this one dedicated to volunteers. Remember the day, JULY 6th, when the vote of the IOC takes place in Singapore. If we are awarded the Olympics then there will be opportunities to volunteer and to be a part of what promises to be a wonderful occasion. England Fencing has promised to be a source of volunteers and you will be contacted. At the same time the IOC will be voting sport by sport on which sports to be included in future Olympics; after some refereeing problems in Athens fencing got a poor report so fingers crossed all round please!
We are going to be faced with some unpopular choices over Regions. Up and till now I have been aware that at some time in the future we would have to consider changing our Regions to match the SportEngland Regions, have a look at the Sport England boundaries at (http://www.sportengland.org/index/about_sport_england/about_regions.htm) and you will see just how major the changes would be. I am going to ask people to think about this, as the ongoing strategy of government is to feed more and more money into local bodies to give out. Starting with Sport England Regions funding the sports within their regions, then the Counties. There are currently 20 "County Sports Partnerships" and there will be a further 20 by the end of the year - these will have large funds to disburse, but we will only get a look-in if our counties have contacted these bodies and are actively involved. There are many funding agencies and everyone could well read the web page in Sport England about funding. (http://www.sportengland.org/index/get_funding/how_funding_works.htm)
Many millions of pounds are being poured into the development of Youth Sport if you are working in a school or with youth fencing then please find out about "Step into Sport" in your area (http://www.youthsporttrust.org). It is really important that we no longer operate in isolation but be a part of the National input into sport.
One of the key performance indicators that we have been asked to meet by Sport England is a strategy for the implementation of the clubmark scheme, we plan to have this in place with Fencing as one of the recognised sports by the end of the year. Please go to the website http://www.sportengland.org/clubmark, you might want to download the pdf files there. We will have to modify these documents to be fencing specific and then apply to Sport England for accreditation I will let you know when we get there.
The largest number of emails that I have received have been about coaching, I am pleased to say that great progress has been made. An England Coaching Panel has been appointed under Bob Bales that represents all parts of England and includes Laszlo Jakab, Jonathan Katz and Norman Golding. They are busy appointing the Educators, the list I have seen includes many familiar names who are currently running courses; this will be published when finalised as we are still awaiting formal applications from a couple of coaches. The British Coaching Panel has announced their decisions which are summarised here:
List of Decisions taken at the Meeting of the British Fencing Coaching panel on 30/04/05.
1. The decision sheet will be published on the British Fencing web site after agreement by the Panel.
2. The decisions will be as recorded in the Decision sheet, subject to ratification by the panel. The ratification shall take place by the secretary emailing the record to each home country and allowing a week for objections. Unless objections are received within that week the decision sheet is final
3. A record of the discussions will be kept for members of the panel but not made generally available.
4. The committee will consist of 2 representatives from each home country, one main and one alternate, with the Chair being appointed by British Fencing.
5. The panel can conduct business in the event that each home countries only provides a single representative.
6. In the event that a single country cannot attend the panel may proceed with its discussions but the missing Home country representative must explicitly ratify the decisions.
7. It was agreed that revalidation of coaching qualifications should be required.
a. This was to cover:
i. Health and Safety education
ii. Child Protection Education and a repeat Criminal Records bureau check
iii. First Aid certification (Emergency Aid certificate)
iv. Technical update (rule changes new coaching ideas)
b. It is not expected that coaches will be re-examined in coaching a weapon.
c. It was agreed that all coaches registered with the BFA must attend at least one revalidation session every three years. The revalidation sessions must be conducted by a person approved by the Panel and follow a pattern approved by the Panel.
8. It was agreed that the coaching courses would be based on the current BFA coaching scheme with the following changes:
a. The levels known by numbers
i. Level 1 - 5 can be taken at any weapon without restraint i.e. a coach can hold level 5 foil and no other coaching qualification.
ii. Level 5 can be taken at a single weapon but to obtain the Diploma all 3 weapons must be offered to the same standard.
b. All coaches will have to complete Criminal Records Bureau check at enhanced level and have an acceptable risk result, i.e. certain types of criminal record will be acceptable for coaches.
c. All coaches at every level will have to have gone through as part of their training an Emergency Aid course, a Health and Safety brief and a Child Protection awareness brief.
d. The elements in b and c are only valid for three(3) years and will have to be revalidated as described in paragraph 7 if the coach wishes to continue coaching with BFA approval and remain on the coaching register.
9. The Chairman will write to BFA to ensure that if the BAF becomes an associate body then the requirement for revalidation will apply to its members and will be handled in the same way as all other BFA qualified coaches.
10. The Chairman will write to BFA to ask "What is BFAs responsibility (in particular the responsibility of the Coaching Panel) if a coach continues coaching after withdrawal of their BFA coaching qualification?".
11. The Chairman will write to the BFA to enquire how the Alan Skipp qualification for uninsured coaches stands and to pass on the view of the Panel that this cannot be a recognised coaching qualification of the BFA
12. It was agreed that existing qualifications (BFA, AFA or foreign national governing body) would be accepted and allow the holder to be recorded as a coach on the BFA coaching register, subject to the holder meeting the requirements in decision 8 b&c. The level of the qualification recorded on the coaching register will be decided by the coaching panel and will be the best estimate of the standard held. This also applies to members of the BFA holding BAF qualifications.
13. BAF Members registering as part of the agreement between the BAF and the BFA will simply recorded on the register as BAF Coaches with no distinction as to level
14. It was decided that the minimum age to obtain a coaching qualification would be 16 but coaches under 18 would have to work under direct supervision of an adult coach (i.e. present in the same room) what ever grade of qualification they obtained.
15. Qualification as a coach would depend on the achievement of the required standard assessed over the period of training by the Coach Educator, however to ensure standardisation of qualifications across Coach Educators candidates will be asked to present two modules for assessment by a panel of 3 educators, unless this is impractical when a video of their presentation will be an acceptable alternative. For all levels 1-4 courses, a pre-selected random sample of the candidates may be videoed. Candidates will also be expected to present documentation of their Emergency Aid qualification and Child Protection awareness course and may be interviewed about the matters covered by decision 8 b&c. In addition to the educators a representative of the BFA Coaching Panel may also attend, who may also be one of the assessing panel members.
16. Coach educators will be selected from the qualified candidates in each Home Country, by the Home Country committee. The BFA Coaching Panel reserves the right to require a Home Country to remove an individual from their list of Educators if requested by the British Child Protection Officer or is shown to be unsatisfactory in the performance of their duties.
17. It was agreed that, if a candidate fails to satisfy the assessing panel of their capability as a coach, the candidate may be asked to deliver an additional module, if this is still unsatisfactory then the candidate will be asked to attend a future assessment, where they will be asked to demonstrate the original modules and another chosen at random from the syllabus.
18. It was agreed that the coaching register will be a subset of the BFA membership register, maintained by the BFA.
19. It was agreed that Chairman will write to BFA HQ to find the best method of producing Coaching certificates.
20. It was agreed that the basic coaching language will be Anglo-French.
21. It was agreed that Mr R Bales would initially produce a draft syllabus for levels 1 to 3 based on his existing work and the current BFA syllabus and then for levels 4 &5.. This to be circulated electronically and agreed in time for the new scheme, for levels 1-3, to start from 1/8/05
The syllabus has been written and is currently awaiting approval from the other Home Countries, this is due to be the BFA syllabus and examination system with effect from 1st August 2005. Though I must stress that anyone currently on a course under the current system will be allowed to complete their course with the result being registered at the appropriate level, but any new courses starting after 1st August must be under the new system with an approved educator (which includes members of the England Coaching Panel).
We have offered the posts of Officials and Junior Teams to two good applicants and I am pleased to report that we have appointed Tristan Parris to be the Junior Team Manager with Peter Huggins being responsible for Officials and I would like to wish them both well. We did have more than one applicant for the Officials post and both were excellent candidates, but the Executive Group felt that Peter has wider experience of all aspects of the post, combining his refereeing and armoury expertise. We have been less successful with the posts of Publicity and Promotion, here we will be re-advertising, including outside fencing.
We have also been unsuccessful in attracting anyone to make our website more attractive and user friendly. We have a small sum of money set aside to pay anyone interested, but I must stress this is far smaller than a web designer would expect for a commercial project. Anyone interested should contact me.
We are expecting the money from Sport England very soon now. I have received the agreement papers around 20 sides of A4 these have been signed and returned so we should receive the initial payment of £12,500 any day now.
Nobody seems to want the £20,000 we have set aside for Grants! I find this difficult to believe please send in your applications NOW.
The next meeting of Council is on 26th June, if your Region is not going to send a representative ask them why not. If you have something you want to raise then contact any one of the following listed below: A member of the Executive, an Officer, your Regional Representative or one of the four independent elected representatives. You will find all the contact details on our web site in "contacts" with email addresses below.
Best wishes to you all for the British Championships and the holidays.
John Ramsay
England Fencing President
Please do not hesitate to contact me at president@englandfencing.org.uk
Future scheduled meetings Executive and Council on June 26th, Executive August 21st with the AGM September 10th (At the AGM two members of Council will be retiring though eligible for re-election at the AGM)
Attendees at Council:
Executive Group
President John Ramsay * president@englandfencing.org.uk
Deputy & Treasurer Alan Gardner * deputypresident@englandfencing.org.uk
Secretary Lyndon Taylor * secretary@englandfencing.org.uk
Teams Karen Saunders * teams@englandfencing.org.uk
Youth Peter Wright * youth@englandfencing.org.uk
Coaching Bob Bales * coaching@englandfencing.org.uk
Officers
Grants Penny Spink Pennyspink@aol.com
Armourer Steve Jackson * armourer@englandfencing.org.uk
Teams Administrator Stephen Domek * teamadministrator@englandfencing.org.uk
Communications Peter Smith * communications@englandfencing.org.uk
Competitions Barry Flood competitions@englandfencing.org.uk
Doctor Anton Pollard
Junior Team Manager Tristan Parris juniorteams@englandfencing.org.uk
Officials Peter Huggins officials@englandfencing.org.uk
Press Officer VACANT
Publicity Officer VACANT
Legal Nigel Beadsworth legal@englandfencing.org.uk
Child Protection Officer Ismay Cowen cpo@englandfencing.org.uk
Elected Members
Till 2006 Peter Smith * peter.smith@englandfencing.org.uk
James Williams
Till 2008 Laurence Burr lawrence.burr@englandfencing.org.uk
Roger Barnes * roger.barnes@englandfencing.org.uk
Athletes Representative/s VACANT
Regional Representatives
London Len Harris, * London@englandfencing.org.uk
South East Peter Huggins South.East@englandfencing.org.uk
Southern Sylvia Brown Southern@englandfencing.org.uk
South West Jane Hutchison South.West@englandfencing.org.uk
Eastern AnthonySach, * Eastern@englandfencing.org.uk
East Midlands M Harrad East.Midlands@englandfencing.org.uk
West Midlands Colin Holburn West.Midlands@englandfencing.org.uk
Yorkshire John Crouch johnandmoya@barwick50.freeserve.co.uk
OR Andrew Chang Yorkshire@englandfencing.org.uk
North West Graham Kemp North.West@englandfencing.org.uk
North East Carole Seheult * North.East@englandfencing.org.uk
Channel Islands Mita Rahman Channel.Islands@englandfencing.org.uk
* Present at last meeting SE represented by Andy Reynolds
Apologies received from Laurence Burr and Penny Spink
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