We are adding another archery session to our timetable! Come join us on Saturday mornings from 10.30am until 12 noon for some target practise.
Suitable for beginners and more experienced archers from age 8.
Blog
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New Dehumidifiers for the Vanguard Centre
We have made quite a large purchase of dehumidifiers for the Vanguard Centre, re-investing recent membership fees back into the Centre to make the place nicer for everyone.
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Change of class times
We are having a slight change to scheduled class times beginning Monday 1st of October.All classes are staying on the same days, we are just moving the times slightly so that classes run a bit more smoothly and we aren’t rushing you all out the door before the next session begins.
The timetable has been updated here on the website, we hope this new schedule gives you all a better experience here at The Vanguard Centre.
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Working with charities, and an antique book
Over the last few months, we have been working with charities in and around Glasgow, offering some public and community outreach. It’s always nice to offer help to good causes! We also have some further partner activities planned for the coming few months.
A while ago, we ran a fundraising campaign to buy an interesting antique book for donation to the Triquetra Collection of antique swords and books: the Seal of Cause and Bye-Laws and Regulations of the Incorporation of Fleshers of Glasgow, printed in 1887. It offers quite a fascinating insight into the world of the Victorian era trade guilds in Glasgow, although the guild itself received its seal in 1580, and was probably established quite some time before that.
We managed to raise sufficient funds to make the purchase and to digitise it. A digital copy will be going to those generous individuals who made a donation towards the project (thank you very much!) in the next couple of days. The book itself has been donated to the Triquetra Collection as per the plan; and there will be an article on the trade guilds of Glasgow appearing on the Triquetra website at some point soon. Once the article appears there, we will be working with the “Wikimedian in Residence” at the Scottish Library and Information Council to make the digitisation suitable for inclusion in the Wikimedia Commons.
We are delighted to have been able to bring this project to its current state, and we are grateful to everyone who helped with donations. Thank you!
Stay tuned for further information about this project as the article progresses, and look out for an announcement about our next fundraising project about late 19th / early 20th century martial sports!
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The Vanguard Centre is 3 years old today!
As of today, we are celebrating the 3 year anniversary of the Vanguard Centre! We opened our doors on the 11th of September 2015, and so today marks three full years of being open.
They say that most businesses fail within the first year, and of those that survive, most fail by the third year. Well, we have just sailed through that landmark, and even though people have doubted us in the past, we are still going strong and have plenty of exciting plans for the coming year.
This is quite a remarkable achievement, since the Vanguard Centre is a full-time training centre in a commercial warehouse, and the rent isn’t cheap! The landlord always wants the rent paid on time, and raises the rent every year; the utility suppliers keep raising the price of water, electricity, and telecoms, while rarely ever doing their own job properly (and causing us no end of headaches). Nonetheless, against these odds, we have kept the doors open, and the future is looking bright.
During our third year, we have been doing a lot of community outreach with charities, museums, and social enterprises in and near to Glasgow. It has been a pleasure to share some of our historical activities with people who wouldn’t otherwise have had the chance to try them.
Our staff are dedicated and enthusiastic. We work well as a team, we solve problems as they appear, and we have fun while getting on with things. It has been a pleasure to reach this milestone with this group of people! And of course, we love our regulars 🙂 thank you to everyone who has come to play with us and participate in one activity or another over the last three years, and we hope to see you all soon!
Birthday party on Saturday the 15th
We would like to invite our regulars and anyone who has come to play with us in the last few months to join us for our birthday party on Saturday the 15th. We’ll be open for the whole afternoon, doing some HEMA, archery, and blacksmithing (a great time to drop by and see what it’s all about if you are thinking about joining!) all free of charge, and then we’ll be downing tools (and bows and swords) for a barbecue.
We’ll provide some food, but bring a dish of your own to share (preferably something that doesn’t need cooking on site). Bring your favourite drinks and let’s celebrate our three year mark in style!
On a related note, if you are interested in hosting a birthday party, stag party, or hen party with us (or really, just any kind of party!), get in touch and we’ll be delighted to arrange something for you.
Archery, Blacksmithing, and HEMA in Glasgow
We offer HEMA classes in Glasgow, near the city centre and right next to the Bridge Street subway station, so we are very conveniently located for you to get to your regular weekly classes or to the one-off events and seminars that we run from time to time. If you have ever wanted to learn the medieval longsword or the Scottish basket-hilted broadsword, get in touch with us and invite yourself to come along and give it ago.
We also offer an indoor archery range where you can come to go your target practice a couple of times a week. With the weather being what it is in Glasgow, especially as we come into the autumn and winter, why not come and visit for a bit of shooting and socialising? Not only do we have the archery range, we also have tea and biscuits!
Our third main activity, which is growing in popularity greatly over the last year, is blacksmithing – if you sign up to our beginners blacksmithing course of lessons, you will learn how to make a variety of items using several different techniques. Drop us an email or give us a call on 07477234020 to have a chat and make your booking!