​THE ROGUE FENCERS GUILD

The Rogue Fencers Guild.

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It actually grew from a situation in which I found myself teaching fencing at three different school districts and for the parks and recreation departments of three different small, (more or less) nearby cities. Initially I treated them as unique, separate. Over time, individual fencers from these groups began wanting to try their hand at competition. This required USA Fencing membership for them... and their "clubs".

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Initially I made each an "affiliate" club, which I could just afford out of pocket.

 

In time, however, the number of different groups I was teaching and the number of fencers wanting to compete began to grow. Homeschool groups were added. Then I started coaching a group from the local chapter of the National Federation of the Blind. Shortly thereafter I began coach a group from the Christina Sullivan Foundation. That was a lot of small, but individual, "clubs." 

 

At the same time, USA Fencing ended the affiliate club category. It was not financially possible for me to make each group an individual  premium club. Given that the clubs produced just enough in class registrations to allow me to eke out a living, it would have been a hard stretch even to combine them into a single premium club.

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USA Fencing did, however, allow for a "social" club membership. Since I/we had no space of our own, but used city, church and school  facilities, and no staff existed beyond me, this became an option. It was, however, economically imperative for me to fold them all into one single social club,  the Rogue Fencers Guild (RFG). All the while each continued to operate as if they were their own clubs. When the fencers compete, however, they are all RFG fencers. In many ways, each group is more like a "chapter" or "local" of the core organization.

 

So while USA Fencing no longer sees (for instance) the Alvin Fencers club as an active, unique club (and they aren't), the Alvin, Deer Park, League City Fencers Clubs and the others have their own logo, FaceBook page, Wix website etc.