The Annual General Meeting of Scottish Fencing Ltd will take place on 20 January 2026 via Zoom. All paid members aged over the age of 16 are entitled to attend and vote.
Papers for this meeting are listed below with links to each document.
Minutes of 2024 AGM - for approval
Accounts to 31 March 2025 - to follow
Special Resolution - Recruitment of Directors
How to register to attend will follow shortly.
Salle Holyrood are having an Open day and celebration at their new venue in Edinburgh.
All are welcome to come and visit their new salle.
Fencing demos and come and try sessions for adult and children will be running and if that isn’t enough to tempt you how about some festive refreshments.
Where: 41 West Bowling Green Street, Edinburgh, EH5 5NX
When: Sunday 14 December from 1.30pm - 4pm
Some results from the Women’s Sabre at the 2025 World Veteran Championships:
GB 70 Women’s sabre cat 4
The four ladies representing GB 70 Women's Sabre Cat 4 were magical Jenny Morris, lovely Linda Green, light-footed Louise Walker and smashing Silvia Brown.
The poules were a mixed bag which saw Louise go through as top Brit in 7 position and Silvia close behind in 10. It was, however, Silvia who put in a great performance to put out Louise in the last 16. Japanese second seed Amari proved too strong for Silvia in the last 8, leaving her in 8 position overall.
Silvia trains with Sancroft Blades in Linlithgow.
Grand Veterans Women's Sabre Team
GRand veterans women’s sabre team
The GB team were joyful Jane Hutchison, jazzy Jenny Morris, stupendous Silvia Brown, magnificent Michele Narey and lively Louise Walker.
The first match was against Australia who were really tough cookies, but not good enough to trouble our girls who won 45-41.
Next up was the semi-finals against the USA who didn't get off to a good start, but who put in a great shift in the middle legs to pull ahead and win 45-30. In the bronze medal match against Japan there was no way our girls were going to accept anything but a victory and they stormed through to win 45-25.
A bronze medal for our Grand Veteran Womens Sabre Team!
Well done ladies!.
Scottish Fencing is sad to announce the passing of Patsy Nicholls.
Her funeral service is on Thursday 27 November at Auchterarder Cemetery at 2pm. After which a celebration of her life will take place at Auchterarder Golf Club at 2.45pm. All family and friends are respectfully invited.
Family flowers only but donations may be made to Leukaemia Care and Ward 34, Ninewells, Dundee.
A snippet from a local newspaper, with text and images of fencers in their kit.
Fencing coach Tom Sorbie realised to his surprise that this year marks an impressive 50 years as a coach.
Seventy-eight-year-old Tom started fencing in 1973. He stumbled upon the sport when he went to join a badminton club and was told that there was a fencing club on instead. Tom decided to give it a go, and he has never looked back.
Tom recalls that in the 1970s there were few fencing coaches and it was not easy to get coaching in the sport. He decided to attend a residential coaching course at the National Sports Training Centre.
In 1975 Tom became a coach at Bellahouston Fencing Club in Glasgow. By 2004, he had also joined the coaching team at newly started club Blades of Fire in Newton Mearns.
Tom was a successful fencing competitor, winning the West of Scotland Men’s Foil Novice competition in his first year, and also several silver medals in the West of Scotland Foil and Epee Championships, and bronze twice in Scottish Junior Sabre. He fenced for the West of Scotland in the Intersection Competitions, and he was part of the Scottish Sabre Training Squad.
Unfortunately, an injury put an end to Tom’s competitive fencing. He continued to fence at club level, however, and he can still give young competitive fencers a challenging time.
Over the years Tom has helped to develop a number of fencers who went on to reach international standard. He has also run many taster sessions and after-school clubs. In 1988 Tom was presented with the Roger Crosnier Memorial Award for coaching achievement.
Asked to comment on his 50 years of dedication to coaching the sport of fencing, Tom said: “Time passes quickly when you are enjoying yourself”.
LEAP Sports are Scotland’s LGBTIQ+ sports charity. A number of their community projects have recently tried fencing.
Get Out Glasgow, a project which aims to provide pathways into sport and physical activity for LGBTIQ+ adults, collaborated with Bellahouston Fencing Club to run a fencing taster session, followed by a 4 week course that finished on Tuesday. Participants enjoyed learning the basic skills and techniques required for fencing, and finding out more about the sport in an inclusive and encouraging environment. Some participants gave the following feedback:
‘Well organised and really fun! The teacher Tom was great at making fencing accessible for us all’
‘It's lovely that Get Out Glasgow offer 4 week courses allowing you to get a good taste of the sport and determine if you want to pick up long term.’
The courses with Get Out Glasgow are very well-organised and worthwhile attending, benefitting both my mental and physical health. They are a good opportunity to try out different sports / activities that I wouldn't normally be able to and to meet others from the LGBTIQ+ community.’
People with fencing kit on taking part in the sport
Trans Active Edinburgh, a project for trans and non-binary adults, also ran a fencing taster session in June with Dunedin Fencing Club ahead of the club’s annual Pride Beginners Course. Three participants continued onto the beginners course:
‘This was huge fun, and I'm really keen to do more of it. I'm now signing up to the beginners' course with my partner’
‘Thank you so much for organising this, I really enjoyed learning to fence, and the games at the end’
Two people with fencing kit on preparing to fight.
Young LGBTIQ+ people in Glasgow have been giving the sport a go as well. The LLAMAS youth sports group offered 13-17-year-olds the chance to try fencing in a 5-week block in October 2024 with Braveheart Fencing Club, also known as Glasgow Epeeists. Following this, LEAP’s Family Group for gender diverse children and their families did a one-off taster of fencing this October with the same club. Young people and their families were excited by the sport and appreciated the chance to try it.
Every June LEAP Sports also runs Festival Fortnight, Scotland’s national LGBTIQ+ sports festival, which has included events run by Dunedin Fencing Club, Elgin Duelist Fencing Club, Dundee Fencing Club, as well as swordfighting with the Renaissance Martial Arts Society.
Lindsay from Elgin Duelist Fencing Club wrote a blog for LGBT History Month sharing what being part of an inclusive fencing club has meant to her:
‘When the rest of my world seemed to see me as not worth considering…at fencing I could forget it and just be me. It’s what made realising that I was bisexual so much easier. I had these feelings, they were real and valid, but even if I was worried or upset about them, fencing would help me forget for 90 minutes every Thursday night.’
If you’d like to run an event as part of Festival Fortnight 2026 please contact info@leapsports.org. Grant applications will open in April 2026.
Good luck to the Scots Fencing at the Veterans World Championships in Manama, Bahrain 10 - 20 November.
The Scottish fencers competing are:
The defending World Champions
Sheila Anderson (Ladies Foil) 2025 and Georgina Usher (Women’s Epee 2023 and 2024)
Scottish Fencers competing in their first World Championships for those in the 40 - 49 age group are Louise Dawson (Ladies Foil) Roz Graham (Women’s Sabre), Mo Mansoori (Men’s Sabre) and Paul Stanbridge (Men’s Foil). Linda Green (Women’s Sabre) is also competing with a last minute call up.
Nick Mort is competing in the Men’s Foil in the 50 - 59 age group
Competing in the 60 – 69 age group are:
Karen Grant, Hugh Kernohan and Maggie Tait, epee, and Michele Narey, Sabre
In the 70+ age group Sylvia Brown, Sabre, World Champion 2019
Women and girls face higher barriers to accessing sport with significantly lower rates of participation than men and boys. While participation is similar in pre-puberty groups, it drops significantly for girls during adolescence. This contributes to consistent gender imbalances in sports clubs and a sports industry that disproportionately favours men, reinforcing the bias in the sector.
Though Dunedin Fencing Club has achieved an equal gender balance in participants, (45% female and 5% non-binary) as well as with our coaches (3 male, 3 female), we continue to strive to improve engagement with women and girls. The key objectives of our Women and Girls project fall under three categories: Recruit, Retain and Train.
We received £405 funding from Scottish Fencing to:
Train 1 additional female coach
Run 3 subsidised taster sessions with guides groups in Edinburgh, reaching 60 girls
Roll out mentorship programme across the club, assign 10 students to 5 mentors using Sportmember system
In addition to these objectives, our broader goals are:
Run a women and non-binary beginners course.
Form partnerships with women's support organisations to offer fencing taster sessions.
Run additional active schools classes.
Promote full metal fencing classes to active schools groups.
Run an interclub Women and NB fencing event.
Run a club social after our beginners course and taster to bond new members together.
Run a coach development day with half price entry for women and non-binary participants
Provide training for our existing coaches on working with women in sport.
One female coach attended the coach ed training session on 22nd/23rd March (further funded by Scottish Fencing) and started first aid and CWPS training.
One female coach started her first aid and CWPS training and is now awaiting a coach ed course.
The grant did not cover all costs and the Club contributed additional funds.
Objective exceeded - 2 new coaches supported.
We ran 3 taster sessions with 156th, 125th and 215th Guides in Edinburgh introducing 25, 10 and 19 girls respectively to fencing. The total attendees was 54, falling just short of the target of 60.
The feedback from the sessions was very positive and we provided a discount to all participants to join a beginners course in the coming year.
Objective partially met - Three sessions delivered, slightly under attendee target.
We did not find a way to integrate how we wanted to run our mentorship system with Sportmember. Instead we created a spreadsheet tool to allocate and track pairings and record historic mentorships.
There was reluctance from our targeted mentors to engage as they had questions and concerns about what the scheme would mean for them. In consultation with potential mentors and mentees we created a mentorship guidance document to make it clear for volunteer mentors what the role entailed and what mentees were expected to do.
We have 7 mentors and 10 mentees allocated in the club.
We have two girls in the mentor scheme who are now pursuing competitive fencing.
Objective exceeded. Target for mentees met, more mentors recruited than expected.
While not all targets were fully met within the short timeframe, for example coaching qualifications are still in progress, we successfully launched coach development and mentoring pathways that will have long-term impact.
The connections we’ve built with Girl Guides Edinburgh will allow us to run future taster sessions with them and with more time to coordinate activities, we hope to draw more girls into the club from our taster sessions.
With more time to prepare and timeline activities, I think we could have a greater impact from this type of short term funding. Ideally, we would have had more time to distribute leaflets, marketing and partnership building in advance of a group specific beginners course. Having got the general principles in place, a future round of similar activities could have a greater impact.
We will also continue to work on the activities we have not yet started or delivered and to continue to champion women and girls in our club. In particular, a coach development day prioritising women coaches would both strengthen our team and highlight the contributions of our female leaders.
We would like to express our thanks to Scottish Fencing, particularly Daniel Baker, for their support in running this project and others at the start of 2025.
Shetland Fencing Club, with help of a grant awarded via Scottish Fencing, prioritised increasing the participation of women and girls in fencing this year.
Whilst a good working relationship with Active Schools in Shetland has resulted in healthy numbers of kids taking up fencing at the club, it has been noticed over the last few seasons that the number of girls and women joining the club has diminished.
Publicise fencing as an ideal sport for general fitness for girls in schools. Active Schools are ideally suited to support this.
Running girls-only taster sessions on Saturday mornings and after school. Initial attendees were encouraged to be involved with further publicity by producing their own posters and talking to school staff.
Providing new female specific kit, including club coloured training tops.
Hiring extra Hall space and time to run female only sessions.
Encouraging women (over 18’s) to take up fencing targeting those attending gym classes etc in local sports centres. Sessions benefitting existing fencers and non-fencers to be developed as ‘fence fit’ circuit training, based on well-tried ‘box fit’ sessions.
Overall, the grant has been split evenly between extra hall hire and new fencing kit to specifically cover female requirements/size etc. for our target groups. Publicity has cost, in effect, nothing by utilising existing club admin, using Active Schools and by involving the girls themselves in designing follow up publicity.
A significant increase in girls taking up fencing. 9 girls aged between 9 and 12 have come through the taster sessions to become full members of the club.
The girls, having started roughly at the same time, have formed a group who have organised themselves well, collectively increasing their enjoyment and competitiveness at the club. All have gone on to fence with full kit on electric scoring in a very short time and are participating in our recreational competitions.
We have found that utilising the new girl members in determining how to encourage more girls into the sport, - assisting in school holiday sessions and designing posters etc. is likely to result in even more girls taking up fencing.
We have found that raising the profile of women and girls in fencing has resulted in 2 women returning to the club after long lay-offs from fencing.
Encouraging women to take up fencing is a bigger challenge, and the fence-fit sessions are now planned for the autumn when more women would be thinking of winter indoor activities.
Realising the challenge of getting adults to take up, or return to more activity, especially women, has resulted in scheduling family sessions in ‘multi sport’ days held in the rural sports centres, in the school holidays.
When asked the girls joining the club were more likely to come along to girl only sessions, worrying otherwise they would be much outnumbered..
The girls starting together as a group clearly progress better all round.
Having role models in the club and it doesn’t always have to be a performance fencer.
To continue offering girl only taster sessions as this appears to be preferable for girls. This isn’t a problem once in the club as male / females fence naturally together.
To develop novel ways of increasing participation of women. Presenting fencing as a fun way to keep fit, without fully taking up fencing is a good ‘stand alone’ way of offering fitness as well as highlighting the benefits of fencing.
Shetland Fencing Club is looking forward to continuing to provide and support more women and girls to get involved in fencing in Shetland. The club would like to thank Scottish Fencing for the grant and their ongoing support for the club.
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