Hi Fencers,

I’m writing with some great news: on Monday, Feb 14th, we will finally get back to training! Hooray for that – it will be great to see everyone again.

(Yes, that’s Valentine’s Day. Yes, swords are very romantic)

I also have some less good news: given the omicron situation, and the requirements of our venue, we are going to move to a slightly stricter set of covid safety protocols.
Specifically, we are going to require:

1. Proof of vaccination
2. A covid mask which is rated N95, KN95 or KF94.

I do apologize very profusely to everyone whose life is made more challenging by these requirements. On the up side, hopefully they will help keep us all safe.

(In some ways the changes aren’t huge: we were already requiring vaccination in principle, but from now on we will require proof of it. Similarly, we were already requiring masks, but from now on we will require N95, KN95, or KF94-rated masks, specifically)

So please don’t forget to bring (or send me) proof of vaccination, and a N95, KN95, or KF94 covid mask! We really don’t want to turn people away if we can possibly avoid it.

Lastly, I just wanted to share a rather striking graph which gives a sense of my rationale for having shut down classes over the last few weeks – and also my rationale for thinking it will be ok to open up again on Feb 14th:

Seeing the size and timing of that last spike makes me feel good about having shut down training when we did, and also makes me feel good about our plan to reopen on the 14th.

All the best to everyone, and hoping to be stabbed by you on Monday 14th, when our love affair with swords will resume…

Joe