Club Goals and Support

Dear Alumni, Supporters, and Friends of OUFC.

Oxford University Fencing Club is one of those rare clubs that really does it all for its sport. Its rich heritage, and traditions, provide its foundation, yet its members today are ever looking ahead as some of the sharpest minds, and keenest athletes in Oxford. While our teams are measuring their success against fencers across the world, the role of the sport within Oxford is more important than ever. In the last decade, the club has introduced fencing to over 1000 students. Some go on to join our teams, to compete in the fateful Varsity Fencing Match against Cambridge, some come to keep fit and learn new skills, and others come to let off steam or socialise with friends while staying active. In each of these cases, fencing has become a meaningful part of their lives, one they will remember as they leave Oxford. Similarly, we hope our teams and experienced members remember their time just as fondly.

Behind the scenes are a diligent committee of students, continually battling the rising costs of running one of Oxford’s largest clubs. Through prudent planning and management these committees have quietly worked to support the club, ensuring the same offering year-on-year, saving to ensure a memorable varsity fixture, and reluctant to call on alumni for support like so many other clubs. However, we feel the time is right to see what this club can truly achieve when it has access for further funding. The club is the largest it has ever been, with over 250 annual members, it is succeeding competitively; at home and overseas, and for the first time since 2019, both Blues teams hold their respective Varsity Fencing Match titles.

With this success in mind, we are pleased to present this vision for the future of the club, and encourage everyone interested in our sport, the club, and Oxford more widely, to consider supporting OUFC today. You can make an impact on fencing at Oxford, now and for decades to come.

For your interest, we thank you.

The Future of OUFC – A Five Year Plan

The club has committed to four key areas of improvement for the next five years.

• Sustainable Funding – To ensure we can continue to grow, weather unpredictable circumstances, and continue to host high quality Varsity Matches, we want to join the University Sports Endowment Fund to offer a source of additional regular long-term income. This will help us put into action the incredible potential the club has without impacting its current provision of fencing.

• International Success – Through expert coaching and equipment, we want to attract and support the best student fencing talent, providing the environment these athletes need to develop and improve while at Oxford. We also want to increase opportunities to attend international competitions, showcasing OUFC talent overseas, and giving vital competitive experiences for members, while improving our club profile internationally.

• Club Growth – Improving the comradery and transition between parts of the club, by developing our intermediate fencers, will improve how many members the club retains each year. In doing so, we will improve the depth of club knowledge year-on-year, and encourage more opportunities for parts of our club to socialise and build a strong ‘whole club’ presence within the University.

• Outreach – We want to use our unique platform to share our sport with those who may not normally encounter fencing, improving our club profile and that of fencing more widely, while encouraging more members to become coaches.

Further details on our Club Goals can be accessed here.

With these goals in mind, the club is actively seeking financial support in two main areas through an Endowment Opportunity and Immediate Club Development.

The club has been given a unique opportunity to join the University’s Sports Endowment Fund which offers an annual disbursement to the club at approximately 4% of what OUFC puts in into the fund.

The minimum amount required to join the fund is £52,000 (disbursing approx. £2000 each year) but this can be grown over time or a larger initial investment can be made for a larger annual return for the club. This would provide the club with a reliable source of long-term income, protected and grown by the University's investment vehicle (OUem), available as long as the club exists.

This opportunity would help the club achieve many of its goals, and provide genuine financial resilience amidst rising costs for decades to come. We envision this fund becoming the foundation of the club’s ability to excel and grow.

We are therefore seeking support in securing the minimum £52,000, or more, from one or several donors, to set this up for the club and are actively looking to discuss this opportunity with anyone interested in securing a strong future for Oxford University Fencing Club.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please do reach out to the club directly at president.oufc@gmail.com where more details can be shared. We have also been informed that if the club can secure the minimum by July 31 2025 the first disbursement can occur in the 25/26 academic year.

After this initial set-up, we seek to gradually build this fund over a number of years, with the aim of supplying at least £100,000 to the fund by 2030 - enabling the club to access approximately £4000 of additional income each year, for use by the whole club. This would help secure the Varsity Match venue at the historic Examination Schools, ensure the club has sufficient, safe, kit, and continue to develop talent through outstanding coaching and elite level competition equipment befitting a club of our size and reputation.

As those who have recently attended our Old Blues events can attest, the club has difficulty in providing competition level equipment and scoring boxes required for high level competition. In addition, much of our general club kit has been in circulation for 15+ years and have been used thousands of times since purchase.

While our armourers diligently repair and re-circulate what they can, the club is noticing a real impact on its ability to host competitions and provide kit for the larger cohorts the club is now attracting. Such investments towards these areas of the club, at the scale we need, have been difficult amid rising costs in other areas needed to run the club.

We are therefore actively seeking gifts of any size to support our purchase of new and up-to-standard equipment for OUFC.

• Phase 1 (approx. £16,500) brings us up to the level of other competitive Premiership universities and may be seen as urgent priorities for OUFC.

• Phase 2 (approx. £25,000) seeks to extend beyond this, attracting and retaining international talent, as well as becoming a club renowned for highly quality training and scoring equipment.

In lieu of the facilities afforded by a salle, the club feels the items detailed below will provide a dramatic improvement to the club within a short space of time.

Gifts towards Immediate Club Development items can be made through the link at the foot of this page, and do feel free to reach out to president.oufc@gmail.com if you had a particular set of items in mind for your gift.

Phase 1 Equipment - Short-term

• Two roll-out Pistes - £4500

  As a part of the competitive circuit, OUFC hosts matches throughout the year. We are currently unable to meet the competitive standards outlined by BUCS due to the lack of conductive pistes, therefore the procurement of two conductive pistes is vital.

• Training Aids - £1500
  The club currently relies on coaches bringing their own training aids when needed, so the club would like to purchase a number of standard training items such as targets/dummies, footwork ladders, resistance bands, jump boxes and more to support of team’s development.

• Whites & Masks - £6000

  Due to the large number of beginners and intermediate fencers which OUFC attracts on a yearly basis, it is vitally important to have the club well stocked with whites & masks which meet the safety standards outlined by British Fencing. We believe that the success of our beginners course has been in spite of the quality of kit we currently offer, much of which is long overdue being retired. By improving the state and range in size of kit we will help encourage members to stay with the club, in particular intermediates who may not bring their kit to Oxford but who could very well begin to compete within our teams. We aim to maintain 50 full sets of whites and kit at any one time, replacing much of our most aged items.

• Weapons - £2500

  Club weapons are used by members of all ability levels, and so having a well stocked armoury can help address the financial stress of having personal kit break, whilst also enabling us to run beginners sessions knowing we can equip everyone with a weapon. More weapons will also increase available electric kit for intermediates and those who may be transitioning from our beginners programme into our experienced sessions.

• Boxes & Spools - £2000

  A majority (4/7) boxes are currently on outdated, pre-2016, FIE timings meaning they are unable to be used for competitions. As a result OUFC is reliant on other universities bringing equipment (boxes, spools, and ground leads) when we host large multi-university competitions (quintes).

Phase 2 Equipment - Medium-term

• Additional roll-out pistes and a metal plate piste (inc. mat) - £15,000

  This will allow us to run our large multi-university competitions whereby every piste is up to BUCS standards 

• Whites & Masks - £3000

  Increasing the number of kit sets to accommodate more fencers. 

• Boxes & Spools - £5000

  We want to acquire two world-cup standard boxes from Favero (FA-07) with tower lighting to help us run high level competition.