Every year Scottish Fencing presents three awards:
· The Crosnier Quaich for Performance,
· The Crosnier Coaching Award, and
· The Sword of Merit which is to recognise and reward an individual, club or organisation that has inspired or excelled.
As part of Scottish Fencing’s new tradition of opening up the awards to public nominations and vote the Scottish Fencing members will decide the winners for the Crosnier Quaich Performance Award and the Crosnier Coaching award. The Board of Scottish Fencing will decide the winner of the Sword of Merit Award.
We will announce all the winners at the Scottish Fencing AGM on the December 13th. Use this link to find out more about the Scottish Fencing AGM.
You can read about the nominations below and use this link to vote for the award nominees.
Please note there is one vote per member and we will only count votes that have a valid membership number.
Voting closes at noon on December 10th.
Crosnier Quaich – Performance Award -2021
Whilst there have not been many competitions there have still been some outstanding results for Scottish fencers this year. Below are the 2021 nominees.
1. Calum Johnston
Calum Johnston (Edinburgh Fencing Club) for winning the British Senior Epee title for a third time. A record for a Scottish fencer I am told and the first person to do it since Jon Willis. It is incredible that he has never won this award before given we don’t have senior British Champions every year.
2. Jamie Cook.
Since competition started back in June Jaimie, aged 16, has consistently excelled in competition, reaching the finals of every event he has attended:
June: Fencer’s Club London Senior Open, 3rd
July: British Cadet Ranking Competition, London, 1st; British Junior Ranking Competition, 1st
August: British Cadet Ranking Competition, Herts, 1st; British Junior Ranking Competition, 1st
Sept: British Cadet National Championships, 2nd; British Junior National Champion
Oct: British Under 23 National Champion
Nov: British Senior National Championships, 2nd
Jaimie is currently No 1 in the GB Cadet and Junior Rankings and No 3 in the Under 23 Rankings.
Crosnier Coaching Award -2021
This award recognises the hard work our coaches do in our clubs developing the sport and bringing the fencing community together.
1.Alex McLeod
Alex McLeod (Dunedin Fencing Club) for having the courage to start an entirely new club from scratch in the middle of a pandemic and putting the changing lives agenda at the top of the clubs agenda. The club is a charity with hopeful mission (To build strong and resilient people through fencing), vision ( A club that invests in the physical and mental wellbeing of its fencers to develop people who are happy, healthy and active members of society.) and values (Physical & mental health, service to others, fencer-lead, openness & accessibility and true athletes). His is a template that all new fencing clubs should follow.
2. Moya Nelson
Moya is lead Coach of Orkney Fencing Club with members aged 10-62. It is a strong community club welcoming those who need additional facilities and help to enjoy fencing. The advent of the pandemic and lockdown was a blow to this small community.
Moya worked to mitigate this using zoom to run strength and conditioning sessions ensuring everyone knew the club would survive the pandemic. She ran a summer camp this year with mainland coaches and fencers to stoke people’s passion to return to fencing.
She has been on local radio encouraging people to join, running the adult beginners session. She has not been put off by the variability of the numbers who turn up, but keeps volunteering, offering people the ability to be all they can be, at whatever level.
3. Naomi Farmer
Naomi is one of our prominent female sabre coaches. She is a coach at Edinburgh Fencing Club where her focus is on introducing young people to sabre fencing, building their enthusiasm and skills.
She was selected to be a member of the coaching group that accompanied the Scottish Team to the 5 Nations in Dublin and has worked on the two Pathways Squads. Within these squads she has contributed to the ethos and positive energy around these groups. Making the online sessions enjoyable when Covid ended the in-person sessions. On her recent video as Lead Weapon Coach she explained her philosophy of train hard and believe in yourself on the day of every competition.
4. Kevin Milne.
Kev runs a fun, inclusive and affordable club of which my son and I are members. The club has always been really well-run but the efforts Kev has gone to during lockdown have really brought to the fore just how dedicated and pioneering he is. Kev kept us all training for free during lockdown over Zoom and as soon as it was safe to train outdoors, we were. Members from other clubs were able to train with us whilst their clubs remained closed and while restrictions allowed. Kev always strives to provide an excellent service for a low price to keep fencing affordable and be wholeheartedly deserves recognition for his achievements.
