Slight Change of Plans

We spent the better part of an hour yesterday discussing our options in creating a Missoula High School League. I have good news!

It's not gonna happen! No High School League, at least not yet. Instead, MFA is going to create a youth league that starts next month and will have a tournament once a month thereafter. All youth events will be open to all young fencers within the Inland Empire and the events will not be USFA sanctioned. We are not 100% on the schedule just yet, but we will be soon.

The reason we decided to abandon direct school affiliation is cost. We lack the overall resources to invest in a program with direct affiliation with the school system. We also think that our current method is more conducive to immediate growth within the division as opposed to the amount of time it would take for us to garner school approval. But not to worry, someday in the future we will have a high school league up and running, just not within the immediate future. This model can be changed or adopted elsewhere in Montana as well. We will have a meeting with Bozeman & Helena fencers this weekend about youth league set up and the like.

Y12, Y14, Cadet, & Junior events will be held at each tournament. We are also organizing a points list calculator on AskFred to keep track of individual fencers. At the end of the season, we will award one fencer in each age/blade category the cup for that season. We eventually hope to add a team bracket as well, but it may be a while before we can deliver that.