Women and Girls Club Development Fund Project Report
Women and girls face higher barriers to accessing sport with significantly lower rates of participation than men and boys. While participation is similar in pre-puberty groups, it drops significantly for girls during adolescence. This contributes to consistent gender imbalances in sports clubs and a sports industry that disproportionately favours men, reinforcing the bias in the sector.
Though Dunedin Fencing Club has achieved an equal gender balance in participants, (45% female and 5% non-binary) as well as with our coaches (3 male, 3 female), we continue to strive to improve engagement with women and girls. The key objectives of our Women and Girls project fall under three categories: Recruit, Retain and Train.
We received £405 funding from Scottish Fencing to:
Train 1 additional female coach
Run 3 subsidised taster sessions with guides groups in Edinburgh, reaching 60 girls
Roll out mentorship programme across the club, assign 10 students to 5 mentors using Sportmember system
In addition to these objectives, our broader goals are:
Recruit
Run a women and non-binary beginners course.
Form partnerships with women's support organisations to offer fencing taster sessions.
Run additional active schools classes.
Retain
Promote full metal fencing classes to active schools groups.
Run an interclub Women and NB fencing event.
Run a club social after our beginners course and taster to bond new members together.
Train
Run a coach development day with half price entry for women and non-binary participants
Provide training for our existing coaches on working with women in sport.
Outcomes
Train 1 additional female coach
One female coach attended the coach ed training session on 22nd/23rd March (further funded by Scottish Fencing) and started first aid and CWPS training.
One female coach started her first aid and CWPS training and is now awaiting a coach ed course.
The grant did not cover all costs and the Club contributed additional funds.
Objective exceeded - 2 new coaches supported.
Run 3 subsidised taster sessions with guides groups in Edinburgh, reaching 60 girls
We ran 3 taster sessions with 156th, 125th and 215th Guides in Edinburgh introducing 25, 10 and 19 girls respectively to fencing. The total attendees was 54, falling just short of the target of 60.
The feedback from the sessions was very positive and we provided a discount to all participants to join a beginners course in the coming year.
Objective partially met - Three sessions delivered, slightly under attendee target.
Roll out a mentorship programme across the club, assign 10 students to 5 mentors using Sportmember system
We did not find a way to integrate how we wanted to run our mentorship system with Sportmember. Instead we created a spreadsheet tool to allocate and track pairings and record historic mentorships.
There was reluctance from our targeted mentors to engage as they had questions and concerns about what the scheme would mean for them. In consultation with potential mentors and mentees we created a mentorship guidance document to make it clear for volunteer mentors what the role entailed and what mentees were expected to do.
We have 7 mentors and 10 mentees allocated in the club.
We have two girls in the mentor scheme who are now pursuing competitive fencing.
Objective exceeded. Target for mentees met, more mentors recruited than expected.
While not all targets were fully met within the short timeframe, for example coaching qualifications are still in progress, we successfully launched coach development and mentoring pathways that will have long-term impact.
The connections we’ve built with Girl Guides Edinburgh will allow us to run future taster sessions with them and with more time to coordinate activities, we hope to draw more girls into the club from our taster sessions.
Further Development Work
With more time to prepare and timeline activities, I think we could have a greater impact from this type of short term funding. Ideally, we would have had more time to distribute leaflets, marketing and partnership building in advance of a group specific beginners course. Having got the general principles in place, a future round of similar activities could have a greater impact.
We will also continue to work on the activities we have not yet started or delivered and to continue to champion women and girls in our club. In particular, a coach development day prioritising women coaches would both strengthen our team and highlight the contributions of our female leaders.
We would like to express our thanks to Scottish Fencing, particularly Daniel Baker, for their support in running this project and others at the start of 2025.
