Blog
Term Three!
We’re back!
Monday club resumed last night with 21+ fencers!
We welcomed newcomer Skye, who started learning Foil with Coach Daniel and Julia, Matt and Titia focused on their Sabre skills, and the rest of the fencers trained their footwork through the theme of “Exploiting Distance”, followed by a lot of bouting on and off the electrics.
Thank you to everyone who came along and made a great night of it!
Guest Epee Coach Naiara Aldana!
We are so excited to have this incredible opportunity for members seeking Epee lessons from a highly experienced international fencer!
Naiara will be here during Term One and she is offering 20-minute lessons for $40.
This is a fantastic opportunity to develop your fencing skills with an experienced international level fencer who has trained at Maestro Enrico di Ciolo’s club in Pisa, Italy, for twelve years.
Naiara is friendly and encouraging, and has years of experience fencing at FIE tournaments.
So we can make the most of having Naiara here, please email or text Coach Avery to discuss booking lessons with Naiara during club sessions.
Let’s level-up our fencing this term!
2024 Brian Sibson State Foil Championships
Saturday, November 23rd, saw twelve Tasmanian Foilists come together at Tarremah Steiner School in the South of the state to compete in the Novice and/or Open Senior events.
DT’d by Karina Halys, and with volunteer referees (Emil, Daniel, Isaac and Tim), volunteer score-keeper (Jacqui), volunteer and photographers (Alma - 8 years old - and Avery), the tournament ran smoothly and had a lovely, friendly atmosphere.
The tournament’s namesake, Brian Sibson, stayed for the whole day both spectating and providing valuable coaching insight. Everybody shared a delicious cheesecake to mark his October birthday belatedly.
We had the pleasure of meeting friends and loved ones of some of our fencers. :)
Our Novices all fenced so well, with only a couple of points between places after their pool. Both semi-finals were close - won 10-9! In the end, Tom emerged as the 2024 Novice Champion - in spite of having begun fencing at the start of this term!
There were eleven entrants for the Mixed Open Seniors event. Three of our novices entered, putting up a good fight. After several hours of energetic and sometimes very tense fencing, Karina emerged as the 2024 Open Champion, having beaten Noah in their Finals match, and prior to that narrowly beating Quincy by one point in their Semi-final.
Final results:
Mixed Novice:
1st: Tom Galpin
2nd: Willem Harrison-Narraway
3rd: Newton Jones
4th: Vienna Rule
Mixed Open Seniors
1st: Karina Halys
2nd: Noah Clarke
3rd: Isaac Laredo
=3rd: Quincy Green Carlos
5th: Daniel Muller
6th: Tim Harvest
7th: Ashley Collison
8th: Titia Bohlken
9th: Newton Jones
10th: Vienna Rule
FOR PHOTOS FROM THE EVENT, VISIT OUR FACEBOOK PAGE AT THIS LINK:
October Update!
It’s been a busy few months for the club!
Quincy attended his first National event - the National Cadet (U17) Champs in Sydney.
Quincy attended his first Open Nationals - AFC #1 - in Perth.
Tim attended his first Fencing Victoria B-Grades Seniors Epee in Melbourne.
Coach Avery collected a pre-loved Tarago from Sydney. This will make transporting club equipment much easier!
Noah, Tim, Quincy, and Titia have been training hard to prepare for AFC #2 Nationals in Melbourne at the end of October.
This will be Tim and Titia’s first National tournament!
Abi, Quincy, and Noah have registered to attend the Sydney International Fencing Camp in January 2025 as athletes, and Coach Avery has registered to attend for coaching development.
Term Four details are out - if you didn’t receive an email please contact Coach Avery so he can send you one.
September/October Snaps
Some snaps from September & October; club footwork, Quincy at AFC #1 in Perth, Tim at Fencing Victoria B-Grades Senior Epee in Melbourne, and Max’s new Quokka friend, Floreat.
2024!
Happy New Year everyone!
2023 was a big year and we’re gearing up for an even bigger year in 2024!
Coach Avery had been busy planning sessions, ordering medals, making a display at the Kingston Library, and lots more!
Term One details are up and registrations for our Term One beginner courses are open!
The club resumes on the following dates:
Tuesdays: Feb 13th
Saturdays: Feb 17th
Mondays: Feb 19th
See the ‘Fees’ page for term fees.
Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram for regular updates. :)
We can’t wait to see everyone!
Best wishes,
The VDFC Team
2023!
Happy New Year!
Summer Camp
This year we’re kicking-off fencing with the 2023 VDFC Summer Camp on January 21st (Tarremah Steiner School hall) and 22nd (Claremont Memorial Hall).
The camp will be a good way to brush the cobwebs off and give a boost to your fencing skills going into the new Tassie fencing year.
Third Club Location - Hobart!
Late in 2022 we organised to take-on Monday sessions due to the sad closure of the Tasmanian University Fencing Club. We’ll be welcoming their fencers, and their fencers will be welcoming us to their space, from January 20th.
Our Club Values
Members recently voted for the values they believe represent our club, and which they feel are important to uphold. Meet our official club values:
COMPASSION
INCLUSION
HONESTY
RESPECT
HUMOUR
and two bonus values
PERSEVERANCE
RESILIENCE
We love that so many members were of the same mind when it came to selecting the key values.
We really loved the additional suggestions too and we wish we could adopt all of them, but the list would have ended up seventeen values long!
6-week Beginner Courses in Term 1
We’re kicking-off the New Year with some beginner courses!
As a special for our new Hobart Monday sessions, we’re offering a $45 course fee plus a friend for free! The classes start on Monday, Feb 20th, running from 6 pm to 8pm.
Participants just need to text us to register their interest: 0428 057 473, and bring full length pants, sneakers and a drink bottle.
In Huntingfield, we will run a course starting on Saturday, February 11th, from 1:30 pm to 3 pm.
This course will be the standard $75 fee, but we’re also inviting beginners to bring a friend along for free!
Participants just need to text us to register their interest: 0428 057 473, and bring full length pants, sneakers and a drink bottle.
Term 4...
Well, Term Four was off to a lovely start with a hall full of fencers (new and experienced) fencing all three weapons.
The State Epee Championships were to be the first tournament in quite some time.
The tournament was scheduled for October 16th. It was precisely 18.5 hours before the first Epeeists were due to start bouting that it was announced that Southern Tasmania was going into lockdown for the weekend plus Monday.
Luckily fencers are adept at being flexible, handling sudden changes with grace, and making the most of any opportunity to get in a few more weeks of training before a big tournament, so they all got ready to focus on their footwork and target practice at home instead.
The State Epee Championships have been rescheduled to November 20th, 2021.
The next fencing tournament is the Brian Sibson Tasmanian Foil Championships which will be held on Saturday, October 30th, 2021.