Hello everyone
There are a few items to cover in this week’s news update with the major news being the appointment of our Performance Consultant.
Keith Cook has been appointed to the role and we are delighted someone of Keith’s calibre is joining the team. As the outstanding submission within the tender process, the panel were delighted to hear his thoughts on how we could maximise the next 7 months to prepare the team to deliver its strongest performance at the upcoming Commonwealth Championships in London.
This is an exciting time for all those keen to represent Scotland in London this year. Adding Keith’s expertise is critical to forming the team, its environment and its values and his clear experience as a Coach, athlete and mentor will be key skills for the team to draw upon. We can’t wait to see what the future brings.
This past week also saw success at home and abroad for Scottish athletes and its great to see so many people able to compete as restrictions become further reduced. As ever, if you can tag Scottish Fencing in any of your social media posts it would be great and we can share these too. On that note, we will shortly be advertising training opportunities for clubs and volunteers to get some social media training from an external training resource. Any member can access this and we would love to help create a new field of volunteers for clubs to own and “take over” fencing social media. We will release confirmation of dates and times next week.
At Scottish Fencing HQ, Clare Queen has been continuing to engage with clubs and members since she joined the team in January and you can keep track of where she has been out and about on the SF social channels. Recent highlights were a visit to Braveheart Fencing in Glasgow (pics on facebook) and also some engagement with Scottish Student Sport to help support some on-campus initiatives.
As mentioned last week, we are approaching a busy competition time with Scottish Student Fencing Beginners happening this weekend and in a couple of weeks we have the Scottish Open. Please have a look at the Scottish Open FAQ document here.
Thank you again to everyone who has entered these events and also thank you to those who attended the recent Foundation for Scottish Fencing YDS in Edinburgh last weekend. The next YDS event is on March 27th back at St George’s school in Edinburgh.
One of my favourite fencing-related emails arrived a few days ago in the form of the “The Duellist” – a wonderful newsletter from Elgin Duellist Fencing Club which is beautifully presented by Michael and Robin. If you aren’t on the mailing list please do contact the club or even better, get a read here. It’s a wonderful way to spend 20 mins with a coffee and a biscuit as the club updates on activities large and small.
Thank you again to everyone (family, coach, club committee, volunteer, friends) who keep the fencers motivated and committed to the sport. It’s great to see the community come together as we begin resurfacing from the pandemic and as my colleagues have written in previous weeks I look forward to seeing faces old and new on or beside a piste soon.
Sheila
Sheila Anderson – HR Director
#ForgingTheFuture
