Just to be clear - I had no part in the organisation of the competion, nor am I in any way connected with Ashton Fencing Club. I am, however, very grateful as we all should be to them for putting it on. I would not like to see it be the next competition to vanish, like the Sherwood LPJS, the Kenilworth LPJS and the Amberton LPJS.
I think there was a lot to be said for the LPJS Young Referee scheme for 14-17 yr olds which seems to have fallen by the wayside. http://www.leonpauljuniorseries.com/?q=node/27 It was only ever in existence for foil - as far as I know the plans for epee and sabre never really materialised. My son did the foil referee assessment when he was 14. This spurred him on to getting the adult domestic referee qualifications in both foil and epee over the next couple of years.
There was a written multi-choice paper (similar to the one that BF used for assessing the lowest grade of adult referees) and a practical where you were watched refereeing at events (again similar to the adult assessment). The mark sheet from the practical was talked through afterwards. Leon Paul provided their 'qualified' Junior Referees with a polo shirt and a set of cards, if I remember rightly. They also linked it to an end-of-year voucher incentive scheme where you got points for the quantity of refereeing you did during the season.
I think it might really help competitions that are using young referees to look at this scheme and see if Leon Paul would get it going again (if it ever officially stopped). If your 'qualified' (and supervised) young referees are identifiable as such in t-shirts unique to their role they may get less flack and more support from fencers, parents and other onlookers. Anyone who has bothered to read that rule book is worthy of some respect! Could EEJS help to get the epee side of things going Chris?
My son found it straightforward to move on to getting the adult qualifications after having made the first step with the LPJS one.
We have had a refereeing course at the EEJS events in past years and we have another scheduled for our next event in March. In reality the EEJS plans to be self sustaining in Referees wherever possible, however that has taken a few years to develop down in Surrey and will take a few more to sort out in my new Oundle area. However it is well on its way.Originally Posted by Peaseblossom
In terms of refereeing, I also think that there should be a young referees award, and not restricted to over 14s. I have an 11 year old girl at my new club called Racheal who knows the rules better than most refs I know, seems to interpret them better than most older refs, controls the piste really well and is very enthusiastic. Obviously younger refs, Under 16/18 require adult supervision, but an award should be out there to encourage them to keep refereeing. If they need to be supervisedanyway, why restrict the age an award can be gained, it seems to give the impression that kids under a certain age are incapable of refereeing, which is certainly not the case..
At the last EEJS event we ran the County Youth event in conjunction and Racheal refereed the first round poules, completed the poule sheet perfectly and did the DEs to the final, obviously with someone overviewing her, however very much hands off as she did not need any help at all.
Oundle, Peterborough & Stamford Fencing
Great idea. If you want to encourage good referees, celebrate them with an award.
How do you judge it?
Edward Peck
BF have a 'Piste Assistant Award' which I don't think has a lower age limit.
We have run this at our County Comps that we host and Katie D/Jack B has run them on a bigger scale in Sheffield and Crystal Palace (probably more also).
This is a good start for youngsters. Would be better if you receive a badge when you pass to sew on fencing jacket sleeve.
Now that Graham Paul has re-established the Refereeing Committee perhaps he could take forward the idea of training and awarding of a young referees scheme.
Pity the LP one died out, it was for foil only but a good start.
Clubs and schools can run their own referees courses. We had Keith Smith run a course for our fencers then they were examined by Peter Huggins at a competition. Actually I'm sure a few of our fencers were under 14 when they passed.
Please don't give Rachael a set of cards Chris. Club nights would never be the same again.
Brilliant! My lot will be there if you do it.
H
“This place has become impossible. Nothing to eat, freezing cold and now a madman on the prowl outside with eels.”
Count us in too, especially if you could arrange a 10.00 U13 start.....[nice, house trained, laid back parents; polite, sporting fencer......]
In answer to this: I regularly referee. I also applauded the fact that the refs were getting priority etc right. What I criticised was the disorganisation of the competition as a whole (reinforced by other parents on this forum) and failure by referees to enforce the other rules. In respect of the fights where covering was an issue, the result was only affected once (by the referee not annulling a hit) that I saw.
I provided some honest feedback, and others appear to find it unpalatable and then refer to feedback as sniping. Oh well, I guess the organisers won't try to learn from this feedback. I can also confirm that I do not promote any other competitions, in competition with Ashton or otherwise. I am delighted that others were happy with the organisation and didn't experience or notice the same issues as myself. I can only speak for my own experience.
Apologies but I'm slightly lost here all of a sudden. You clearly have a better knowledge of refereeing than most parents, and as such I would have thought a discussion with the competition organiser would have been a realistic option about refereeing, but you seem to be saying that 'covering' was only materially a problem for one hit in one fight. Fully agree that it should have been picked up, even where materially not an issue, but returning to the nature of the refereeing cohort, that might have been challenging when not affecting the outcome.
Delays seem inevitable in many lpjs events for one age group or another, and often the older kids arrive first, and then instead of quick progression to round two of poules they are encouraged to referee the later arriving younger kids. I do think feedback is vital, as we too experienced an hour wait for poule one after check in closed, as there were no spare pistes. As Cesh says, if you know your numbers, you can plan your use of the pistes, and stagger properly. The Elite Épée has a good communication loop, and publishes check in later in the process to account for entry numbers. If the lpjs website updated entries, and was a point to amend check in times, wouldn't that be great.
On days when things have gone slowly I have perhaps been pleased with a fifth place, to avoid the wait for the medal ceremony. Clearly that wait compounded your issues on the day, but at least your young fencer came away with 'a trophy' from the event.
If you haven't done many lpjs events, as others have said you can get these issues, and sometimes just for a single age group. But if we didn't have the range of competitions on offer our little darlings would miss out. As it was, we had a couple of 400 mile round trips to get to the bigger épée events, but they were enjoyable. Not sure who was more tired though when we got home.
Feedback is always good. Not sure that this was the best way on this occasion. Though others may disagree.
If you mean by materially an issue that it only changed the result in one fight that i am aware of then yes. However i believe that repeated and blatant infringements in several fights (by the same 3/4 fencers) is material, irrespective of the outcome. The issues did not occur only when my fencer was fighting, they occurred in other fights I was watching - although admittedly with less interest as to how that effected the outcome.
I come back to my principal point: 11 fencers aged 9,10 and 11, nearly 8 hours. Other groups started later, had larger entries and finished earlier. Well organised?
I agree fully that covering should have been challenged. But in a scenario where you may have less experienced refs, and often without the oversight of someone more experienced, I would hope that with your greater knowledge of the rules than many parents, and hopefully the confidence to go with that, a word to the organiser on the day could have improved the experience for all. Maybe next time ...... We all learn.
In relation to delays, with pretty much every lpjs event doing two rounds of poules, it must be a logistical nightmare if anything builds in a delay. And sometimes things just don't go right. We went to one lpjs event with foil in the morning and épée in the afternoon, and permission to do both. The silver medalist for foil had to fight his semi after the épée DE, and final just before his épée semi. That was interesting ......
Back to Ashton. Entries posted on the website - good. Staggered start times - good. Metallic pistes - good and highly unusual. Splitting the comp over two days for two weapons - good. Independent refereeing - sounds like it was in place so good. All age groups bar the U11 foil working to plan - not ideal but not a disaster.
I don't suppose that these three or four fencers were also all from the same club, looking at the entry list??? Is that the issue???
I remember repeatedly carding one young epeeist at a LPJS event for parrying with his back arm. He eventually lost a DE fight because of it. He is now in the GB squad in Budapest. It doesn't seem to have done him much harm!
Advocate extraordinaire to Beelzebub.
I don't think so. I think they were from different clubs, but wouldn't swear to it. One of the fencers was certainly the only entrant from his club.
..although, presumably, his back arm is covered in scar tissue!
“This place has become impossible. Nothing to eat, freezing cold and now a madman on the prowl outside with eels.”
Would be good to see the final results posted for this competition.
Results now up on LPJS website
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