Code of Conduct – Medieval Combat Group

Medieval Combat Group operates a zero tolerance policy with regards to aggressive, violent, intimidating, harassing, or abusive behaviour, or unwanted attention or advances, or towards any of our members or anyone in attendance at any of our events.

Harassment, defined as any behaviour which is directed at an individual or group which is non-consensual. This includes sexual harassment such as cat-calling, groping or stalking.
Abuse, covering both verbal and physical abuse, including sexual assault, which results in an individual or group feel intimidated or unsafe.
Discrimination, including verbal and physical expressions of discrimination, based on any characteristics,
Violence, defined as any act of physical intimidation or aggression, including threats of violence.

All students, instructors, and visitors to the group are accountable for their own conduct and must refrain from any of the behaviours listed above. Medieval Combat Group reserves the right to expel offenders from any event or class and remove membership of the group.

Medieval Combat Group aims to be a welcoming and inclusive environment, whilst still providing a setting where our students can study and make progress in a safe fashion. To this end, we ask that all students, instructors, and guests of the class adhere to the following:

Arrive on time, ready to start the class.
Work diligently at the content – there is no such thing as ‘This is too basic for me to spend time on’.
Respect your training partners – they are allowing you to partner with them and drill with them, repay this by striving to do your side of any drill perfectly and safely. Keep them safe and keep your actions useful, and your conversations and treatment of them respectful.
Strive for good control in all of your drills and sparring. This will make you a better fencer and keep your classmates safer.
To help with the above, communicate with us and your training partners. Communication and calibration is key to safety in HEMA, check in with your training partner during drills, make sure everything is going okay and force levels are acceptable.
Respect the venue – we’re lucky enough to have nice venues, we would ask that all in attendance help to keep them that way.
Respect the taught content – if we’re asking you to do something as a part of a drill, there’s a reason. Please don’t try to work out ‘the next move‘ or respond with ‘But I could just do this‘ – if you’re unsure of the reason for the drill, please ask, rather than disrupting your partners training with what you think it should be. There’ll be time for experimentation and freeplay at the end of class.
Respect the lesson plan – if the instructors are obviously ready/getting ready to start teaching again, please stop any conversation you’re having and start paying attention. It is annoying to the instructors and the other students to be standing around waiting on two people to finish talking so the instructors don’t have to try and talk over someone whilst teaching.
Respect the instructors and committee members – Medieval Combat Group is a not-for-profit organisation, all instructors and committee members freely donate their time both in class and out of class to make the club run.
Be aware of the safety requirements for any drill or sparring and ensure that you stick to them! If in doubt, mask and gloves as a minimum for drilling, with jacket, etc added as necessary for various intensities of sparring.
Ensure that you have disclosed any pertinent conditions/injuries/aspects, medical or otherwise, to the instructors on your membership form. We strive to run an inclusive club where everyone can train but our ability to do so safely depends on us being made aware of anything that might require modifications to training, or lead to injury, or complicate first aid etc. All such disclosures will be held in confidence by the instructor group. However, failure to disclose will a) likely invalidate your insurance should anything happen, and b) likely be considered gross misconduct given the potential safety concerns, both for yourself and your fellow classmates.
Use of club kit is a privilege, not a right. Anyone abusing club equipment or leaving it lying around carelessly or generally not taking care of it, will find themselves banned from using it.
If we don’t teach it, or don’t have the safety gear for it, don’t do it. It disrupts the class and gets in the way of everyone’s training.

Equipment, Attendance, & Sparring

Students are only permitted to use steel swords in sparring if they have passed a steel safety check. This involves sparring two instructors with steel, who must both agree that the student has enough control and ability to be safe sparring other with steel.
Only steel blades checked by the instructors may be used in sparring.
If a students attendance is very sporadic, or has gaps of greater than a few months, a new steel safety check must be undertaken before sparring again. We recognise that there may be external factors limiting attendance, but it unfortunately does not change the physical reality of only having a limited amount of training.
Medieval Combat Group believes that sparring should sit alongside technical training. As such, we interleave our blocks of technical teaching with blocks of applied technical sparring. The applied technical sparring blocks of training tend to be higher intensity classes with less detailed teaching from the instructors, because of this, MCG may occasionally restrict attendance to these blocks to those students who have been training regularly in the run-up. This will never be a permanent restriction, and is a safety measure intended to ensure those in attendance have safe training partners.

Online Material

MCG uses a private discord server to discuss things outside class, organise attendance at MCG social events and demonstrations, help organise HEMA events, and with general logistics planning. We also use an app to manage class registration and attendance tracking for the main classes. Whilst we value everyone’s privacy, we ask that all students use their actual names on the discord server and the app, so that we can properly track attendance and organise everything.

All items in the Code of Conduct regarding how MCG members, students and instructors alike, treat and interact with each other, also applies to any online presence.

Public Events & Demonstrations

MCG will, on occasion, provide public demonstrations of HEMA at events or historic monuments (Narrow Water Keep, Dunluce Castle, European Heritage Open Days, conventions, etc.). Whilst we have no formal ‘demo team’, where we are restricted on numbers the committee will decide on a group based on recent class attendance/recent volunteering. All aspects of the Code of Conduct regarding how MCG members, students and instructors alike, treat and interact with each other, also applies to interactions with each other and the public during these demonstrations.

Scope

Note that whilst we expect all of our members to be generally good people, MCG Code of Conduct and remit for enforcing it extends primarily to our classes, MCG-run events whether social or training, HEMA events where attendance relies on membership, and online MCG-run channels and MCG-run social media.

Enforcement

Whilst we hope the above Code of Conduct will keep everything within the club on the right track, obviously things may arise from time to time which need addressed. If the above Code of Conduct is breached in minor aspects these will be met with logged verbal warnings from instructors and a one-to-one discussion on what form the improvements must take. Should the log of verbal warnings reach 3 warnings within a six month period, or 5 within a one-year span, an in-person disciplinary meeting with the committee will take place to address the situation. This may result in removal from the club, or a plan of action for remediation put in place with clear criteria/boundaries where if followed a probationary period may occur, and if not followed, removal from the club will occur. The specifics of removal or remediation action/plan will be decided on a case by case basis by the committee as dictated by the details of the situation. For example:

The instructors log multiple formal force warnings and the club member is brought before the committee, two outcomes are possible:

Where the instructors have a reasonable belief that the excessive force stems from lack of control as opposed to aggression, we might mandate a period of solo drills in class emphasising control with a probationary period afterwards followed by normal return to training if suitable control is clearly demonstrated.
Where the instructors have reasonable belief that the excessive force stems from aggressive intent/deliberate application of force, the offending club member will be removed.

If the Code of Conduct is breached in a major aspect, this will escalate immediately to an in-person disciplinary meeting with the committee. If the Code of Conduct is breached in an aspect which is both major and malicious*, the offending club member will be removed. In serious cases, the supervising instructors of any class have the power to remove individuals from that class directly without recourse to the committee.

*This may range from a malicious physical/verbal attack on another student, to repeated instances of ignoring instructor requests concerning safety and protection – for example not dialling back force when asked, attempting to spar with inadequate protective gear despite being told not to, trying to wrestle to the ground with no mats.

In cases of breaches at events, whether by MCG members or non-MCG attendees, this will be dealt with on a case by case basis. Minor breaches will result in logged warnings, the accumulation of which may lead to removal or barred entry to future events. Major breaches will always result in removal from the event, with the specifics of the breach being a deciding factor in any barring from future events. (Essentially, a major breach through stupidity will lead to removal, but will leave scope for a conversation about returning to future events. A major breach through deliberate intent/maliciousness will lead to removal and barring.)