Tonight is the last night before the Holiday break, we return on Monday January 6th. Also, we FINALLY have our first official swag, HRFC patches have arrived! The patches are $3.

Christmas is right around the corner, so I thought I better remind everyone of our Holiday schedule! We will be open this Monday and Thursday as usual (Dec16th & 19th) and then we will be closed until Monday, January 6th. The Hangover Classic Tournament is on Jan  11th-12th at the University of Richmond, the first tournament of 2014. The event will have strong Open mixed Foil, Saber and Epee events as well as Women only events.  Absolute Fencing will be there to sell and repair equipment.  http://askfred.net/Events/moreInfo.php?tournament_id=24511

   Thank you to everyone for keeping things running smoothly these past three weeks. I am now back and I will try to get things up to date and back to regular postings.
   First things first, Bobby Robinson is supposed to be back out to HRFC this Thursday, Dec. 5th, so let us know if you are interested in a private lesson. As of right now, we have three 20 minute slots left.
  Secondly; the facility will be closed for the holidays, so there will be no club  from  Mon. Dec 23rd - Thur. Jan 2.   We will resume our schedule on Monday, Jan.6th 2014

Congratulations to Rhiannon for her 2nd place finish in the Virginia Division Junior Olympic qualifier!  With that finish she has qualified for the 2014 Junior Olympics to be held in Portland, OR in February.  Way to go Rhiannon!!

Things are coming together one step at a time! I am happy to officially announce our list of assistant coaches : Alex Fish, Balint Joo', Ed Setnicky, and Liz Young.  They are all doing a wonderful job helping Coach Scott!  Thank you to all our coaches!

  We would like to give a big "Thank You!" to the Harvey family, because of their generous donation we will have another strip to play on tonight!  

HRFC had a nice showing this weekend at the W&M Halloween Open. On Saturday all our foilists  won a DE, that is amazing! Rhiannon made it to round four of  DE's finishing 8th! Scott advanced to round three of  the DE's , finishing 14th, and  Shane and Bryce made it to round two of the DE's, Shane finishing 23rd, Bryce 32nd. They all had teeth-clenching, fingernail-biting matches that had their cheering squad on the edge of their seats!  The fun continued on Sunday with epee; Scott had another good day, advancing to the 4th DE, finishing 6th. Alex had an awesome day and advanced to the 3rd round of DE's, finishing 13th! Bryce and Riley made it to the 2nd round of DE's, Bryce finishing 21st and Riley finishing 32nd! Dean had a very close match at 15-13 and finished 36th.  Congratulations to all on jobs well done!    

Reminder: No club tonight! 
Good luck this weekend to all our fencers who are going to the W&M Halloween Open: Alex, Bryce, Dean, Ed, Rhiannon, Riley, Scott & Shane!

There will be no club on Halloween. So don't  come out next Thursday or you may be fending off some ghouls, but you'll be doing it without any back-up!

November is almost upon us, so just a few notes to keep in mind, there will be no fencing on Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 28th. There are a couple of local tournaments in November for those interested: The  Halloween Open is  Nov 2- 3 @ W&M  and the  Thanksgiving Throwdown Nov 23-24 @ Richmond Fencing Club  The Virginia Division 2013 Junior Olympic Qualifiers are also in November on the 16th and 17th @ Richmond Fencing Club.

Our Rhiannon Harvey has been making herself known on the fencing circuit! She has been racking up more than just frequent flyer miles, this weekend she went to the NAC in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and took home a very admirable 8th place finish in a field of 139 fencers in DIV 2 ! All her hard work is paying off, we are so excited to see where she goes from here, big things are in her future! Congrats Rhiannon!

We had another great turn-out last night! Thanks to everyone who came out and welcome to our new-ish members, Cole and Zach, who have returned from hiatus with Poquoson Fencing Club. Coach Scott made an announcement last night, since some of you were not there, here it is: Starting next Monday, Oct 7, Coach Scott will be doing some drills and warm-ups with anyone who would like to arrive between 6:30 and 6:45pm. Come out and join in, this is great for the beginners who need some extra help and can keep some of our more advanced members on their toes as well! We have not forgotten about classes, we are still working out the details and will let you know as soon as we have it all worked out.

Remember, tonight, Monday, Sept. 23, we fence in our new space: Boys & Girls Club Yorktown; 11201 George Washington Memorial Hwy Yorktown, VA 23690 (map).

A few things we need to mention:

1. Due to our insurance requirements, all fencers must be members of USA Fencing, join  @ www.usfencing.org  If you are not planning to compete in tournaments you may get a non-competitive membership for $5, competitive memberships are $70.
2. We will be starting fresh tonight with Liability waivers/medical emergency info for Hampton Roads Fencing Club, I will try to make sure everyone receives a form, but if I miss you, please ask for one. 
3. PayPal is now up and running for HRFC, so any payments made on the IWFC page will go to HRFC, as always, checks and cash are fine as well.  Dues are still $25. 
4. Scott Young is stepping up as our new coach, he is awesome, but keep in mind that right now we are not doing classes, we are doing "open club" only till we figure out how to make everything work. What does that mean, you ask? Well, it means that Scott is there to help fencers with questions, do some light coaching, and to do some fencing of his own. Even Uber Fantastic Coach Vicki didn't coach the entire time on "open club" nights. We are working on getting some classes set up, and hopefully an assistant coach or two as well, as soon as we have clearance on them we will list their names for you. 
5. See you on the strip! Let's make Coach Vicki proud of the group she gathered together. 

We're Moving!

Those of you who were at club Thursday probably heard that we have found a new home. Starting Monday, Sept. 23rd we will be at Boys and Girls Club in Yorktown. 11201 George Washington Memorial Hwy  Yorktown, VA 23690 (map). The Boys and Girls Club is attached to the back side of York Middle School, there is a parking lot in back with a Boys and Girls Club sign, it is separate from the school lot that is in front. Please park in the lot and walk down the sidewalk to the back corner where the entrance to Boys and Girls Club is. Do not park down by the entrance as the gate will be locked before the end of club.  We will have club Monday and Thursday from 7-9 pm. Things might be a little crazy at first while we iron out all the wrinkles, but we know Coach Vicki gathered a great group of fencers and we will make her proud. We have to note that Boys and Girls Club has been wonderful to work with, they have gone above and beyond to try and make this happen for us and they continue to try to make this transition as smooth as possible.

 View of the facility from the parking lot.  Please don't drive through the gated area.

 This is the entrance to the Boys & Girls club.  No parking down here.

When you enter the Boys & Girls club the gym is straight ahead.