The meeting was held at the Hertfordshire Sports Village, Hatfield Herts, prior to the team foil. The meeting was opened at 12.10 p.m.
The report was fairly quick. All competitions have been run this year as normal. James Lee (St Albans) has liased with Steve Jackson and run a couple of Armoury courses. New trophies were purchased with the profit from last year. Four trophies were bought for the U10 and U12 age groups and presented at the age group competition to much delight. The website has continued to be viewed regularly and all clubs reported that attendence and interest has been high this year. It was advised that all people fencing at any club should have social membership of the BFA to cover them for insurance purposes.
Entry was down slightly in the age group competitions. The entry for the senior and novice foil was very good, but the epee and sabre was down, due to St Albans being away on a skiing trip that weekend and having few people to attend. It was mentioned that there has been a low turn out at many of the Eastern Region Competitions and it was agreed that details of these should be sent out as soon as possible as they are normally good fun. Liam Harrington (Watford) had proposed that either the clubs or the county fund a new trophy for the team foil. This was voted on and it was decided that the county should provide a replacement trophy. The winners of today's team foil will be responsible for deciding on the trophy and the county will reinburse them.
The event winners so far were as follows:
Men's Foil: Paul Davis
(St Albans)
Ladies' Foil: Rachel Thomson (St Albans)
Men's Épée: Liam Harrington (Watford)
Men's Sabre: Andy Aitken (North London Sabre)
Ladies' Épée: Juliette Hall (Watford)
Addendum : The Team foil event was won 43:42 by Watford. They will sort out the new team foil trophy.
James Lee (St Albans) has been sending out details of coaching courses as and when he has the details. Liam Harrington (Watford) was congratulated on passing the first of his coaching exams in the last year. James will continue to speak with Steve Jackson about arranging armoury courses. these have always paid for themselves so far. It was decided that the cost of these courses should be £5 in future, instead of £3. With the extra we could either put towards running future courses or running a free course aimed at beginners.
This year the HFA has made a slight loss of £24.31. Last year we made a profit of over £200 so we can cope with a small loss as our current balance stands at just under £2400. Four new trophies were purchased at a cost of £120. A question from the floor regarding our account was raised :- Do we still get interest on our account as apparently Lloyds have changed the way they operate many accounts? The chairman is to look into this. The accounts for last year were proposed by Tony Bardell (Watford) and seconded by Terry Sandell (University)
All clubs were reminded of the regulations regarding new kit from January 2006 and it was bought to clubs attention that Duellist have had several offers and that these would be continuing. Most clubs have been replacing kit on a regular basis. The University always have a lot of fencers in September, but this normally drops off a lot by Christmas and they should have enough kit to Fence after Christmas. However September 2006 may see 2x1 hour sessions being run instead of 1x2hour session. All competitions, including Age Groups, next year will require full kit including breeches.
People were asked for their views on the website. The content was generally good as was the availability. People were asked to submit any requests for anything to be added. The only negative comment was that the URL for the site was not very easy to remember. It was decided that the chairman should look into checking what domain names we could register. Preferred name would be hertsfencing.co.uk or org.uk.
The commitee had all agreed to stand for their current positions for a further year. Terry Sandell (University) commented that the current committee were running things well and thanked them for their hard work. Nominations were taken from the floor and there were single candidates for each post who were then elected unopposed.
The new committee was as follows:The meeting was closed at 12:40 p.m.
