2024-25 BF Standing Committee Reports

Reports from Rules, Safety, Honours & Medical Committees. This article forms part of a series of reports which accompanies the 2024-25 BF Annual Report.

Rules Committee

Over the course of the year, the Committee has corresponded over proposals made by members who have attended both FIE and domestic competitions.

These proposals were aimed at:

• Tightening the current rules over matters of safe clothing for fencers and coaches taking or receiving lessons.
• Establishing correct saluting procedures after team events.
• Reinforcing definition of situation of coaches concerning proximity to individual fencers and teams during fencing.
• Defining a correct dress code for coaches.

The proposals were forwarded to the FIE for presentation to the Congress.

Steve Higginson, Chair

More information on the Rules Committee

Safety Committee

Throughout 2024-25 the Committee continued to discharge its responsibilities which include:

• Advising BF on safety issues.
• Responding to members’ queries.
• Reminding membership of specific safety related requirements and rules when considered necessary.
• Monitoring and investigating incidents and accidents and assessing the risks facing those involved in our sport.

At its meeting on Zoom on 6th February 2025, following a comprehensive analysis by Felicity Marsh, the Committee discussed the need for a Significant Incident monitoring system and agreed to add an alert in the injury reporting system by adding a column for ‘significant events’ (defined as any unintended or unexpected event, which could or did lead to harm including near-miss incidents which did not cause harm but could have done, or where the event should have prevented’).

The Committee also agreed to allow the wearing of trousers over 350/800N breeches for a further twelve months, as long as the trousers are tapered/straight cut (i.e. not baggy) with openings/pockets zipped/sewn/taped closed.

The Safety Committee would like to take this opportunity to remind all members to fence in a safe way and with equipment and clothes that fully protect themselves and their opponents. In particular, we would remind you again of the danger of badly fitted masks, and the requirement for sabre gloves.

To help ensure that Fencing continues to have one of the best safety records across sports, the membership is strongly encouraged to report all incidents, accidents and near misses to the Safety Committee. Forms can be found on the BF website: https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/58ff7faa98ed427fa6f9049f8ea99762

Peter Jacobs, Chair

More information on the Safety Committee

Honours Committee

The process for proposing 2024 BF Honours by the membership closed at end-May 2024, and the Honours Committee met by Zoom on 11th June 2024. The BF Honours for 2024 were listed here, and were announced at the 2024 AGM.

Proposals for the next round of BF Honours, for the 2025 AGM, were solicited from the membership from the beginning of January 2025.

Peter Jacobs, Chair

Medical Committee

Committee Membership: Aug 24 – Noah Blackmore and Brent Myers joined

• April 24 – Guidance on Fencing in Cold Weather published.
• June 24 – Involvement in classification discussions for ParaFencing.
• July 24 – Analysis of 20 years of injury reports completed by Felicity Marsh for her medical student dissertation under Peter Hughes supervision.
• Aug 24 – Start of project for post-surgery women with breast cancer based on the French Solution Riposte programme which uses sabre exercises. Lead by Mary Cohen and Brent Myers.
• Oct 24 – Ongoing review of levels of medical cover suitable for fencing events.
• Working with BF events manager on medical cover for BF run events.
• Nov 24 – Contributed to the South Africa Fencing Federation pregnancy and maternity policy.
• Nov 24 – Felicity Marsh presented her poster on fencing injuries at the British Association for Sports and Exercise Medicine annual conference.
• Nov 24 – Survey of injuries to the non sword hand in sabre fencing; results to go to the Safety Committee.
• March 25 – The Sword article submitted “Modern Fencing – a safe fighting sport” based on the injury data. (Published in April).

Year-round responsibilities

• Injury Surveillance
• Safety Committee input
• Responding to requests from clubs and individuals for advice
• Support for Safeguarding as required

More information on the Medical Committee.

Click here for the full 2024-25 Annual Report.

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