NWFC Pricing Starting September 1st
Dear NWFC Community,
As we wrap up Nationals and reflect on the last fencing season at NWFC, we are incredibly grateful to you, our members, and your ongoing commitment to the sport of fencing and dedication to our club. You all bring such diversity and positive attributes that make our facility a great place to train, gather, and exchange.
We are grateful for our talented staff and their dedication. They teach thousands of classes and lessons, maintain our great facility, organize dozens of in-house competitions, work late hours, and travel long weekends away from their families, while maintaining an enthusiasm and professionalism that is exemplary.
A lot has also happened behind the scenes during this year as we transition towards new leadership. We’ve worked diligently on our operational budgets in recent weeks to aim at closing a significant budgetary gap. We’ve had to carefully review income streams and expenses to keep the club operating at its best while remaining financially sustainable.
We are dedicated to maintaining all of our programming that makes fencing accessible for all, and makes Northwest Fencing Center a safe space for so many families. We are also committed to maintaining our staff while offering them decent wages and proper benefits. Unfortunately, as you all know, the cost of living continues to steadily increase, and we’ve been on the receiving end of that battle. Our rent alone takes on a 3% increase each year, the cost of utilities and maintenance is also increasing, and sending coaches to events out of town is more expensive than ever. This has led us to do a lot of strategic thinking and make some difficult decisions.
We are officially announcing a formal price increase starting on September 1st, 2026. The details for each class and program are now available on our website.
We’re moving away from Schedule Fencing software to a more modern interface that promises to be more user-friendly and will now accept ACH payments to minimize our considerable credit card fees, which totaled over $35,000 of missed revenue last year. For those still wanting to use a credit card, there will now be a processing fee to help cover what we pay in credit card fees.
We’ll also be introducing a mandatory coaching fee for the out-of-town tournaments that our coaches travel to. This is a new practice for NWFC that is in line with what other fencing clubs have been doing nationwide for years. Our current optional coaching fee introduced last year for NACs, while generating $7,650 in revenue, has fallen far short of the $25,000 to $35,000 per year we spend sending our coaches to support our fencers at these tournaments. This new coaching fee will be scaled in three tiers according to the location of the tournament in order to be predictable for families.
On a positive note, we’re preserving our Financial Aid Program, which provided over $57,000 of financial support year to date to those in need, in line with our mission of making fencing available to all. We are also continuing the merit scholarship for the Comp Team, which has provided over $8,000 of financial support so far this year. If you were awarded Financial Aid last season, the window to apply again will be October 1st and will close October 31st.
We are officially adding Saber and Para Fencing to our programming. We have increased the number of Regional events we will be hosting in-house to 7, allowing our families to compete at the Regional level without the cost of traveling. Finally, we’re continuing to apply for grants to help us run our programs, as well as outreach to the greater community with a focus on sponsorship and increased membership.
We are so grateful for each and every one of our members and for all of your contributions to the club. You are what makes NWFC a great place! We look forward to sharing the next fencing season with you, and we hope our transparency helps you understand the difficult, yet necessary, decisions we make.
Sincerely,
NWFC Board of Directors