Source: Beazley

2012 was a fantastic year for Beazley and our relationship with British Fencing; with the Olympics in town the stage was set for an exciting year. We held the third in our series of City pop-up fencing events at Hay’s Galleria in April. These pop-up events are a unique way for Beazley to entertain our broker partners as well as a great opportunity to showcase the sport in a public setting.

Chelsea Flower Show followed in May with our innovative sponsorship of the Hillier Nurseries exhibition and the creation of the ‘Duel and The Crown’ fencing theme, which culminated in Her Majesty The Queen visiting the garden to meet James Honeybone and Alex O’Connell. The dynamic fencing at Chelsea generated a lot of media interest. Beazley and fencing featured prominently on several media outlets including BBC South Today, BBC online, The Daily Telegraph, Metro, The Independent, The Mail online, ITV online.

The Olympics and Paralympics dominated the summer and our four-day corporate programme during the Olympics was a huge success as 240 guests were brought closer to the sport of fencing. For almost all of our guests this was their first experience of fencing and we had many positive comments on how well it was presented and the speed and skill of the sport. We were also able to offer some lucky employees access to tickets for the Olympic and Paralympic fencing, which proved very popular and helped strengthen enthusiasm for the sponsorship internally.

Alongside the Olympics we ran our own internal Olympic competition – the ‘Team GBeaz Challenge’ which was launched by the 12 TeamGB fencers in early July. The competition involved a series of challenges for each team and provided a fun way to engage with the fencers and the Games. The Team GBeaz Challenge also included our own version of the Olympic torch relay which saw Beazley’s homemade torch go to all of Beazley’s 24 offices across four continents in 24 hours!

Following the excitement of 2012, we are now working with British Fencing to create a lasting legacy, with a particular focus on grassroots initiatives to increase participation in the sport.