Blog

  • November 2026 – Monthly Update

    Ahoy, all! Dress up warm and take your vitamins, winter fast approaches, and get out of the house and active with plenty of interesting opportunities for sports, improvement, and socialising around The Vanguard Centre.

    Calendar

    First up, here is the monthly plan of events, alterations, and additions to the usual timetable.

    • Thursday 5th, 7.30pm: HEMA Workshop: Sword & Buckler How to Avoid Doubles With The Double Machine
    • Saturday 7th, 11.00am: Morning Members’ Archery Session has been rescheduled to begin at 12.30pm
    • Tuesday 10th, 9.30pm: R.F.A. Social Night, at The Laurieston Bar after class
    • Thursday 12th, 7.30pm: HEMA Workshop: Test Cutting with Sharp Swords (Members Only)
    • Sunday 15th, 11.00am: The Winter No-Nonsense Archery Tournament. Tickets available here!
    • Sunday 15th, 11.00am: Regular Open Archery Session Cancelled
    • Wednesday 18th, 9.30pm: Broadsword Social Night, at The Laurieston Bar after class
    • Thursday 19th, 7.30pm: HEMA Workshop: Sabre Games & Scenarios
    • Tuesday 24th, 7.30pm: New 4-week R.F.A. course begins: English Quarterstaff and Billhook! Tickets available here!
    • Thursday 26th, 7.30pm: HEMA Workshop: Rapier Study Group (Members Only, fencing jackets mandatory)
    • Thursday 26th, 9.30pm: Workshop Social Night, at The Laurieston Bar after class
    • Saturday 28th, morning: Adam hosting the Archery sessions. (We don’t know why that’s announcement worthy, but everyone seems to like swarming in when Adam’s hosting things, so here, you get advance warning this time!)

    New Course: English Quarterstaff and Billhook

    Something we’ve been looking forward to all year has been the return of BIG STICK martial arts, and in late November we get that treat!
    Starting on Tuesday 24th November in the usual Rotating Fighting Arts time slot at 7.30pm, we will begin a 4-week course on Elizabethan English pole-arms training. Taken from such notable (and deplorable) fencing masters as George Silver and Joseph Swetnam, this short course will look at the method, mechanics, techniques, and tricks of renaissance era staff fighting, as informed by fencers of the day and soldiers of pike and shotte battles.

    You can get information and tickets for the course here.

    Thursday HEMA Workshops

    For the last few Thursdays of the year, we are trialling a series of one-off workshops for different HEMA disciplines and subject matters. We have a collection of topics from the usual HEMA options like Longsword and Sabre, but also the more specialist weapons usually featured in Tuesday Rotating Fighting Arts courses, like Sword & Buckler, Thrust Fencing, or Messer, but also wildcard options useful to all swordplay styles or for a complete departure from our normal offerings.

    So far we have had successful classes on Ringen Am Schwert (grappling with and against longswords) and new interpretations for Messer, but we have a few classes to highlight in November.

    On Thursday 5th at 7.30pm there will be a Sword & Buckler workshop hosted by Angus Dingwall about avoiding doubles with combination weapons, ensuring your own safety against an impetuous or unskilled opponent. This workshop will be open to novices and experienced S&B practitioners alike.

    Thursday 12th will feature a class on test cutting with a variety of sharp swords. We will have 2 cutting stations set-up with re-usable clay prepared for fencers to work on their method and follow through, and cardboard poster tubes to serve as a challenging cutting medium for people to test their new found skills on. We will provide sharp longswords, one-handed swords, and even spears for people to try their hand with. This workshop is only open to participants with up-to-date HEMA practise insurance, such as included in our membership.

    Thursday 19th will be a beginner and veteran friendly circuit training session in various sabre games and scenarios – get used to attacking and defending with different positions, restrictions, and challenges imposed by circumstance. As well as learning games to improve your basic fencing tactics and mechanics, there will also be themed scenarios from historical writing to give you something else to think about.

    On the 26th of November, we will have the long awaited return of our Rapier Study Group for Thrust Fencing. This will be aimed at more experienced HEMA fencers who have both memberships/insurance, and their own fencing jackets for absorbing thrusts. We have a handful of club rapiers and suitable simulators, but fencers are encouraged to bring their own and any spares they may have to share the love with each other. We will be taking a look at the concept of tempo from Capo Ferro’s Gran Simulacra, as well as a review of basic Rapier fencing concepts.

    Thanks for reading, hope to see you in the tunnel!

  • Updates about our team of staff members

    The Vanguard Centre - archery, blacksmithing and HEMA in Glasgow!

    There have been a few exciting changes recently in our team of staff members at the Vanguard Centre.

    At the end of last year, some new faces joined our team, so we have quite a few instructors for the HEMA classes and archery sessions now. Welcome to Joshua Stocks and Duncan McLaren, along with Paul Durkin coming on board a bit more formally!

    This means that Jonathan Spouge, our chief instructor, has a bit more opportunity to take time off to rest and recuperate, without having to cancel classes. There are several people able to run sessions in his absence, making our team much more resilient and able to cover the schedule when something crops up that would previously have caused problems.

    However, Sam Lawrie, our venue manager for the last few years, has now moved on to lend her considerable experience and management skills to another business in need of her help. We would like to thank her for her immense contributions over this time – the place would not be the same without her input! Without a doubt, her new colleagues will be glad to have her aboard.

    What’s happening at the Vanguard Centre in March?

    You won’t see many new events or activities for a little while, because our current focus is squarely on making sure that our regular activities manage to keep running, while improving the physical space in the venue and streamlining a few of our processes behind the scenes.

    Like a swan, things will appear visibly calm and serene, while there is a huge amount of activity happening out of sight beneath the surface!

    We hope to have some new announcements soon. But in the meantime, keep booking in to come along to do your archery or to play with swords, and we’ll keep improving things in the background. See you soon!

  • Vanguard Christmas Opening Hours

    Ahoy, Vanguardians!

    Seeing as the festive season is galloping up on us at a pace, we have planned out our opening hours and commitments for the holiday period, listed below:

    We will be closed from Wednesday 22nd December 2021 to Tuesday 4th January 2022 inclusive. The centre will be open as normal with all our scheduled activities up to and including Tuesday 21st December 2021. In the New Year we will be reopening for classes on Wednesday the 5th of January 2022.

    As advance notice, there may be opportunities for some bookings for private tuition, parties or Vanguard Members to join us on the 28th, 29th and 30th of December.

    If you are looking for a private Christmas party booking, the following dates are available: Friday 10th December from 8pm and Friday the 17th from 8pm. We do have some availability in the afternoons running up to Christmas and you can contact us at https://www.vanguardcentre.com/contact/ to arrange a booking.

    In the mean time, remember to book into your classes with the relevant booking system, or make inquiries about private tuition or party groups on our website: https://www.vanguardcentre.com/

  • COP26 Glasgow

    Hi folks!

    As you are all probably aware the COP26 climate change summit is being hosted in Glasgow very shortly. There will be some road closures from the 23rd of October until the 15th of November with some routes being closed up until the 21st of November.

    Although no roads around the centre are closed we expect that the traffic and parking in the Tradeston area will be a bit chaotic around this time and so we urge you to plan ahead when making your way to and from the centre…..we also encourage you to use public transport if possible.

    We would also like to remind you that carrying training swords and archery equipment to and from the centre should be done  as securely and responsibly as possible.

    Further information on the road closures in Glasgow can be found here:

    https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/cop26-road-closures-map-glasgow-travel-advice-climate-change-summit-roads-closing-1255183

  • Announcement about blacksmithing

    Hi everyone. We have a large announcement today.

    Our blacksmith Paul is heading off to pastures new. We would like to wish him well with his new employment, and we’d also like to thank him for making the forging session such a great experience for everyone who has been in for them over the last few years. The Centre will seem an emptier place without the heat and noise of the forge!

    This means that we will no longer be offering blacksmithing sessions at the Vanguard Centre from the 1st of November onwards. The remaining October sessions are now filled, so there are unfortunately no further opportunities to redeem a voucher for blacksmithing.

    If you had an outstanding voucher for blacksmithing, we can offer two options:

    1. We would be more than happy to put a blacksmithing voucher towards archery or HEMA, whether for attendance at our regular sessions, private tuition, or a private party.
    2. Alternatively, we can refund the person who purchased the voucher, if this person sends us a written request through email before the end of December 2021.

    Please note that all vouchers issued before the pandemic will expire by the end of December this year 2021, so you will need to contact us by email before this deadline if you would like to do anything with your voucher before it expires.

    If you would like to put a voucher towards archery or HEMA, we can extend the expiry date until the end of February 2022 as a goodwill gesture, so that you have a little more time to make your arrangements and book in for something. Just get in touch with us by email and let us know what you would like to do.

    (Please note that even if we extend the expiry date until February 2022 for utilising the voucher, the hard deadline for requesting a refund will remain as the 31st of December 2021, this will not change.)