The club will be CLOSED the following days:
Wednesday, Dec. 24 (Christmas Eve)
Thursday, Dec. 25 (Christmas)
Saturday, Dec. 27 (Winter Camp in MN)
Tuesday, Dec. 30 (Winter Camp in MN)
Wednesday, Dec. 31 (New Year’s Eve)
We hope everyone has happy holidays and a fun winter break!
We’re closed Dec. 24th-30th! Enjoy your holidays and break!
We’ll be back to regular hours starting Tuesday, Dec. 31st!
The club is closed Saturday, April 20 – both coaches and quite a few fencers will be at tournaments in either West Des Moines or Chicago. See you next week!
RDF will operate on a reduced schedule for the month of August, to give our coaches and fencers a bit of an end-of-season break before we go back to our full schedule in September. This means there will be no lessons or practice on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and no lessons (except for a few introductory lessons). Tuesday and Thursday practices will operate on their normal schedule (Youth practice 5:30-6:30, Teen/Adult 7:00-8:30).
Regular schedule resumes Saturday, Sept. 2, with lessons starting at 9:00 a.m. (by appointment), Y10/Y12 practice at 10:00 a.m., and Teen/Adult practice at 11:00 a.m.
The club is closed Saturday, Feb. 25 so they can do some work on the building. Electricity will be shut off, and it’s pretty hard to fence in the dark! See you next week!
We are taking Wednesdays off in the month of July, as well as the first two Saturdays (2nd & 9th) and Thursday the 7th for Summer Nationals.
We are also taking a break from private lessons in July – the format is group practices only:
Tuesdays:
6-7 pm – Y10
7-8:30 pm – Teens/Adults
Thursdays:
5:30-6:30 pm – Y12
7-8:30 pm – Teens/Adults
Saturdays:
10-11 am – Y10 & Y12
11 am-noon – Teens/Adults
The final schedule for the (now not-quite-appropriately-named) Equinox Epee is two events on Sunday, April 10: Senior Mixed Epee at 9 am and D & Under Mixed Epee at 1 pm. Unfortunately, we’ve had to cancel the smallest event, Women’s Epee.
The venue is the old Franklin Jr. High, which was used as a megachurch before being purchased by a private entity that is trying to creatively repurpose it. Parking and entrance are on the northeast side, off 48th St. in Des Moines.
We’ve rescheduled the senior events (D & Under, Mixed, Women’s) for the Equinox Epee tournament from March 26-27 to April 9-10 (yes, it is no longer anywhere near the actual spring equinox, but we’re sticking with the name). The Y10, Y12, and Y14 events will be held at the club on Sunday, March 27, and you can sign up for those here: https://askfred.net/Events/moreInfo.php?tournament_id=50113
There are a couple reasons for the reschedule: April 9-10 is a better date for referees and we need enough lead time to get plane tickets for a higher level referee (we like to use this as a training & development opportunity for local referees), the Minnesota division has scheduled a tournament for the original weekend, and the school district whose facilities we used to use no longer allows tape on their floors, so we’re working on an alternative facility. The amount of space and time we get will determine the schedule of events, so please don’t make any non-refundable travel plans yet. If you preregister for the tournament on askFred, you will receive an email as soon as we know the schedule.
We’re not currently planning to do youth events on April 9-10, but depending on how much time/space we can get, we may add a 4th event.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
We’ve added an hour long small group class to Thursday nights! This will be one consistent group and (non-fencing) masks are required.
We are continuing private lessons (email us for the link to the sign up), as well as online footwork on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We also welcome beginners to sign up for private lessons – contact us for more info.
Ideally, we’ll be able to continue adding back group sessions to get back to our pre-pandemic schedule and phase out online footwork. However, this will depend on interest (and the ages & experience of those interested) and local conditions surrounding Covid-19.
As our spring members know through email, we have opened this week for private lessons only.
Our plan for June is to continue with both private lessons and online footwork sessions – we completely understand that many people do not feel comfortable doing in-person activities at this time. If you’d like to join online sessions and weren’t a member this spring, send us an email and we’ll get you the link! You can also follow along with prior workouts on our youtube channel.
For in-club activities, we are following the same procedures as the week before we closed – cleaning of high-touch surfaces, keeping doors open as much as possible (easier now with better weather!), no shared equipment, no handshakes, 10 minutes between lessons, etc.
We are not requiring (non-fencing) masks at this time, although you are welcome and encouraged to wear them! We’re a little worried about how practical mask-wearing will be for those actively fencing and coaching – being able to breathe and communicate is important, too! However, fencers may want to consider trying to fence with a mask under their fencing mask as we aren’t sure what will be required when competitions resume. The coaches are trying to figure out a mask/mask combo that will work for us, too!
We also now have a way to pay online! We’re offering our usual monthly membership and a punch card that is good through August.
To schedule lessons, check your email for the link to the scheduler (only June is available right now). If you weren’t a spring member, send us an email to request the link.
We are also figuring out how to work in beginner lessons – stay tuned!
Depending on how things are going in the coming weeks, the next step is to start doing small group classes as well.
We hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. We appreciate your patience and support as we muddle through this!
red door fencing 