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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!

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/

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.)

Back in July, we received some funding to deliver a small project to provide subsidised participation in sport, at our HEMA classes in Glasgow.

In partnership with the Triquetra Services (Scotland) charity, the Vanguard Centre received funding from the Arnold Clark Community Fund, enough to subsidise 40 places in our HEMA sessions. These were snapped up quickly, and we continued to offer some additional free sessions to help even more people have a first taste of HEMA.

However, the funding for this project has now run out, and we must return to our usual prices for attending HEMA classes. We hope that if you attended one of our sessions during this time, you enjoyed yourself, and that we will see you again!

If you are interested in getting involved with HEMA, but missed out on this project, we have some other exciting plans in the works. Our intention is to start running some beginners courses soon, giving you a structured introduction to historical swordfighting, and preparing you to join our regular weekly sessions. There will be more announcements about this as we get everything organised.

For now, if you are interested in having a go, please do book into any of our various HEMA classes, turn up, and give it a shot. We will look forward to seeing you soon.