Cadet Winton 2009 Amy and James fenced in the triumphant London Cadet Winton Team.
This is a competition held in December at Millfield School in Somerset. It is a team competition consisting of 10 different regions from across the country fencing foil, epee and sabre. London has now entered this competition twice... the first time winning both the Men's and the Women's foil in 2008.
This year London won the overall cup with the Women's foil captained by Amy and Men's sabre captained by Curtis Miller from Camden also winning the individual weapon awards.
Steve was the Squad Captain for the London Region and was responsible for putting the teams together. It was a great result for London... the first time in 22 years that London had won the tournament.

Barnet Celebrating Sports Awards 2009

In recognition of the achievements of young people in sports The London Borough of Barnet informed us that the Barnet London Youth Games Fencing Team had been short listed as one of the final nominees for the Junior Team (over 11’s) of the Year Award.  The team attended an award ceremony on Wednesday 4th November 2009 at The Arts Depot, North Finchley.

Well done to all the young fencers... great results... to our coaches who work so hard with them, to our team manager Sharon and to all the parents for their endless support and encouragement.
A big thank you also to all those who voted for them.
Both the Junior and Senior teams received their long awaited gold medals on the night for coming overall borough winners.

Thet were also presented with a certificate for "Runners-up" in the Junior Team of the Year

Leon Paul Team Event 2009. This event took place at Acland Burghley School on 29th November hosted by Finchley Foil. The Finchley Foil teams did very well taking the silver in both U13 and U15 age groups. The remaining tems came 6th and 13th in the U11 and 11th in the U13's. Great Results!
Congratulations to all the fencers... thanks to James and William who refereed when they were not fencing. Thanks to Amy and all the other volunteer referees. Thanks to all the newly qualified piste assistantswho made the competition run smoothly. Thanks to all the parent volunteers who helped the event run so smoothly and to Steve for all the armoury work, making sure there were no technical problems on the pistes as well as keeping all the fencers' weapons in good order.
Many notes of thanks have been received from visiting clubs and everyone had a great time too.
Click here for the full results

Bursary for Finchley Foil Old Boy James Davis has just started his first term at Middlesex Univer-sity with no financial worries. The University has awarded him £10,000 per year to support his Olym-pic ambitions. James was until recently a member of Finchley Foil, currently trains at Salle Paul and still visits the club when he is not training or competing.

Piste Assistants congratulations to Jesse. Kostas, Valerie, Daniel, William, Sophie, Stephanie, Kayla and Rianna who all passed their test for piste assistant. This role is important in major competitions, assisting the referees and organisers to ensure the competition runs smoothly. Some of the new piste assistants were very busy at the LPJS team competition and may well be called upon to assist at the UK School Games.

London Novice and Intermediate Competition 2009.  An innovation for London Region, this proved to be popular competiton for Finchley Foilists (and their fathers!).  The Men’s Novice foil was won by Christopher (his normal competition weapon is epee although he coaches foil).  Michael Bex (McKinley’s father) came 3rd, Cameron Shayle 7th, Peter Jordan 10th, Gerry Brosnan (James's father) 11th, Christopher Chamudon 12th, Jesse Cox 18th, McKinley Bex 19th and Timothy Chamudon 25th.  In the Men’s Intermediate Foil James Brosnan came 5th and Alexander Shayle 9th.  In the Men’s Novice Epee Phillip Jordan, (Peters father) took silver and James Brosnan – fencing epee for the first time -  came 12th.  This looks like becoming a regular event on the calendar so we look forward to more family based success next time.  Perhaps some girls and mothers might like to enter!

British Youth Championships 2009 – Congratulations to Isabella who narrowly missed out on a medal in the British Under 10 Championship.  She finished 5th overall.

Cadet and Junior World Championships 2009 For the first time in 40 years GB hosted a world fencing championship. It would not have been possible without the support of those who volunteered. 6 went from Finchley Foil... Fran, Daniel, Amy and Irina, James (Fran's cousin) and Clare who was on doping control.. Their duties varied from referee assistants, access control, DT to anti doping chaperones.They worked long hours and their help was really appreciated by the organising team. Congratulations to Alex Tofalides from Salle Paul who came 9th in the World Cadet Championship. It was a great experience to see a World Championship competition from behind the scenes... especially in the run up to the Olympics

Congratulations to Amy going from strength to strength who this year has won the Cambridge Winter Open, was 7th at the Gateshead Junior British Selection Competition and 5th at the BYC's Under 18's. Amy captained the Women's Foil squad for the London Region at Cadet Winton in December winning the Women's foil trophy. She also won Gold at the BYC qualifier for the U18s. and finished her final season 7th in the cadet rankings. Amy is a qualified referee having passed the Grade 3 & 4 Senior BFA refereeing qualification and is also a Leon Paul Junior Referee.
Amy came 3rd in the Public Schools in Foil, she entered all three weapons for the first time and came 10th in Epee and 17th in Sabre.
Amy finished 21st out of 83 fencers at the Birmingham International at the Easter weekend.

Amy was selected to fence for England at the UK School Games picking up a Silver Medal as part of the England Team. Despite picking up an nasty injury to her shoulder Amy continued to fence at the London BSC the following week where she came 22nd. Amy fenced at the Welsh Open and came 16th.. she also fenced at the Junior Championships where she came 10th..  Amy is currently 10th in the Junior rankings.

Finchley Foil Club Competition 2009—this term's competition was won by McKinley with Thomas in second place and Peter third. Isabella in fourth place was the highest ranking girl. Full results can be found here..

Congratulations to James Brosnan and Jessica Medhurst who travelled to Paris to compete in an International competition, the CEP Marathon on Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th February 2009 representing Great Britain.  They joined other fencers from Great Britain including England Fencing’s youth development section (Tomorrow’s Achievers) who sent 24 young fencers, 12 girls and 12 boys aged 11-14. The Paris CEP Marathon is one of the toughest U15 competitions on the European circuit and attracts over 300 foilists from 27 different countries around the world.  James finished 123rd out of 365 fencers and Jessica finished 71st.
He also came 27th out of 130 fencers at the Birmingham international... a very tough competition and previously came 20th at the Gateshead Junior competition and 19th at the Invicta Open. James is steadily moving up the cadet rankings. He also passed the grade 4 Senior BFA refereeing qualification. He is also a Leon Paul Junior Referee.

Congratulations to Jessica Medhurst who came 7th in the Nato Challenge in Brussels earlier this month and well done to James who finished in the last 32.

Congratulations to Gerry Brosnan and Michael Bex who made 10th and 11th respectively in the Veteran's Age group competition in January.

Congratulations to Daniel Habben for good results at the Slough and Aldershot Opens. Daniel has just started taking part in opens and we look forward to following his progress.

Congratulations to Clare who came 2nd in the foil at the Veterans National Championships and 3rd in the women's epee. Clare has also been re-elected to the FIE Medical and Anti-doping commissions.

Congratulations to Christopher who came 8th at the Plymouth Open. Despite injuring his right hand in the first poule Chris borrowed a left handed kit and continued by fencing left handed.

Congratulations to Ruby, Isabella and Helena who came in the top 8 of the U9 Girls in the 2008 Leon Paul Series. Last Autumn was a busy competition period, with more Finchley Foilists competing than we have had for quite a while... well done.

Congratulations to our young foilists who all fenced superbly at Eton, we had a record number of fencers competing over the weekend. For some it was their first competition, in the U9G Isabella won silver. Also thanks goes to Chris, Hazel, James B and Daniel J who all gave up their time to support and help the fencers over the weekend, well done to all. For the full list please check the LPJS results page.

Finchley Foil was again in evidence at the London Youth Games Fencing 2009.  Members of the club made up the teams for Haringey and Barnet (with some Salle Paul juniors), Finchley Foil provided pre competiton training for them and the Brent Team who were coached by Fran.  And our efforts paid off.  Harringey Juniors and Seniors came 10th and 8th respectively giving the Borough an overall position of 8th.  Brent juniors fenced brilliantly to win the Junior event, while  Barnet Juniors came 3rd (losing in the semi-finals to Brent), and Seniors came 2nd to Newham.  A great joint success which led to Barnet winning the overall cup for the first time in 10 years.  They will be sharing it with Newham who won the Senior Event and Enfield who came 2nd in the Juniors.
The Teams were:
Haringey Juniors - Chris and Timothy Chamudon with Liam and Rafe from Salle Paul. 
Harringey Seniors – Jesse. 
Barnet Juniors – Antonio, Cameron Shayle, Mckinley and Peter. 
Barnet Seniors – James, Amy, Kwan Hiu, Max, Daniel and Alex.

Brentwood Team Competition 2009 was held during half term so we were unable to field the number of teams we have in the past.  However our U15 team fenced brilliantly to take bronze medals

Maciej is now the Olympic Pathway Assistant Foil Coach for the Junior Men

Good Luck to our Duke of Edinburgh Awards candidates Kostas, Queenie, Valerie, Daniel J, Jessie Medhurst and James B who have all being helping at the club in so many ways. Thank you for all your hard good work and keep it up. Many members have chosen fencing as part of their DoE award scheme and Finchley Foil has decided to make the arrangement more formal with a target for the volunteers to aim at... such as refereeing or coaching. Progress will be assessed and marked at the end of term. This term will be a trial and if successful fully operational from September. For further information talk to Clare Hazel Chris or Sharon.

Congratulations to all those who participated in all the Leon Paul Foil Competitions... for Results click the LPJS button above.

Jack Petchey Award Scheme ... Jesse, Daniel, Fran and Max Pease... for their positive contribution to the club...Fran and Max were presented with their awards by Peter Jacobs, a member of the FIE International committee. The Jack Petchey award is an excellent scheme, providing funds for extra activities. We select a winner (age 11-25) every 3 months and there is an annual award for one adult over 25. Anyone involved with the club can put in a nomination – if you think someone has made great progress or contributes a lot – fill in a form. This is a generous, straightforward scheme with a minimum of paper work involved which helps us to afford new kit, extra coaching etc.

Previous winners have spent the money on new equipment, sponsoring individual lessons, coaching and armourers courses.

Please remember to submit a nomination whenever you spot someone being particularly keen or helpful.

We are in the process of creating a web page specifically dedicated to the Jack Petchey Foundation... if you are a previous winner and have photographs of the ceremony please send them to Clare or Mike Medhurst

Finchley Foil Old Boys Laurence Halsted has been awarded the British Olympic Athlete of the Year Trophy. His latest success was in the winning British Foil Team at the Berlin European Championship. His team mate Richard Kruse, also ex Finchley Foil was awarded the British Fencing Association 2008 Athlete of the Year award. We hope you have caught them on television in February at the GB/Poland match. They are rarely out of the fencing news and achieve excellent results on the international circuit both individually and as mainstays of the GB Foil team.