Wessex League 2024 – Oxford

General Booking closes September 13th at 6pm

The closest Rail Station to this event is Radley – please check the travel information carefully

Reminder: Volunteers, please don’t forget the discount code 

The open leg for Wessex 2024 will take place in Oxford, hosted by The School of the Sword Oxford.

This will be the largest of the events this year – if you can only make one, we recommend you make it this one

• Open Longsword A & B
• Open Rapier & Dagger
• Open Sabre
• Open Sword & Buckler
• Women’s+ Longsword
• Women’s+ Rapier & Dagger
• Beginners’ Longsword
• Beginners’ Rapier & Dagger

If you miss out on tickets for a particular tournament there is a waiting list which we will offer tickets to as and when they drop out. We recommend registering for any other tournaments you are interested in, and then filling out the waiting list form here.

Note: The beginners and women’s tournaments run alongside each other with opposite weapons, and you cannot compete in two events running at the same time, so please take care when booking not to choose the two that clash. Please see below for entry criteria.

Venue:

Radley College, Kennington Rd, Radley, Abingdon OX14 2HR

Travel Info

• Closest station to the venue is Radley (5 mins walk from the venue). There are regular trains from both Didcot Parkway and Oxford to Radley.
• The local number 35 bus travels between Oxford City Centre and Abingdon Town Centre stopping at Radley Station between 6.30am and Midnight on Saturday and 8am to Midnight on Sunday.
• Local taxi companies in Abingdon are: Abingdon001 Taxis, Abingdon Taxis, Go Green Taxis and Su’s Taxis (plus several others). Uber does not work in Abingdon and Oxford. FreeNow is the only booking app that works locally.
• Free parking at both the tournament and social venues.

Meals and refreshments:

Friday Social

• The Boundary House: 69 Oxford Road, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, OX14 2AA
• From 7.30pm. No formal booking, but plenty of space for food and drink.

Saturday Social

• The Boundary House, Abingdon (same as Friday). 
• Booking from 7:30pm under the name Charlotte Barlow. 
• We have a reserved space but the venue has asked for table bookings to be made separately where possible.
• If you’re attending the Saturday social, please give them a call on 01235 555110, giving them your group’s arrival time and mention you’re part of the above booking. 
• Kitchen closes at 9pm.

Rules & Equipment

Please be sure to read the tournament rules and minimum required equipment requirements. It is your responsibility to make sure you have the correct equipment for the event – if you do not have sufficient or appropriate equipment you will not be allowed to fence in the tournament. If you are missing particular items please contact us and we may be able to arrange something to be borrowed.

Open Longsword A & B
Open Longsword will be split into A and B divisions. We will be taking all Open Longsword entries and splitting them into two groups, based primarily on HEMA Ratings. In later events, past medallists of Longsword B will be put in Longsword A for the rest of the tournament season.

Women’s+ Tournament Entries
The women’s category in HEMA tournaments was originally created to provide meaningful challenges for women. The ultimate aim of providing them has been to: allow fencers to test their skills in a situation without routine physical disadvantages; understand their progress relative to their peers year on year; give greater access to tournaments to an under-represented gender in our sport; ensure people realise that their gender does not prevent them from participating in HEMA.

While the primary intent in the past has been to support women, we recognise that many of considerations above apply equally to many non-binary fencers as well. Therefore, this tournament is open to:
  a) Women (for the avoidance of doubt: cis or trans)
  b) Any non-binary fencers who feel the issues above also apply to them, and that their presence in the tournament wouldn’t detract from the aims in regards to women

We recognise that there are a wide range of non-binary genders, and not all of them will feel comfortable participating in the women’s tournament. It is entirely up to the fencer in question whether they think the Women’s+ is suitable for them. The Open tournaments are all open to any gender. 

Beginners’ Tournament Entries

The beginners’ tournaments are open to any gender. While we are not putting strict rules on “beginners”, these events are best for people who have never entered a major tournament and have less than 2 years experience. Some fencers may still consider themselves a beginner even after this point – if you are unsure, speak to your instructor or the Wessex team.

If you are a regular competitor, instructor, and/or have multiple years of martial arts & HEMA experience, please enter the Opens instead.

You may not book both the beginner tournament and ANY open tournaments. The beginners are intended for people new to competition: if you are comfortable in an open for any weapon you should stick to the open tournaments.

You may book the women’s+ tournaments and the beginners’ tournaments, as long as you are not booking two tournaments running at the same time.

Volunteering:

If you would like to volunteer but haven’t signed up, there may still be opportunities depending on how many volunteers we have. Please fill out the Volunteering details below and email at wessexleague@gmail.com so that we can apply the discount after the fact.

• Competitors who would like to help us as volunteers receive a free lunch and a discount on your ticket 
• This year we are offering a £25 off your booking for for volunteers
• Volunteers also get early booking for each event
• If you have received a volunteer code, please use it at checkout
• ONLY volunteering as an official, without participating in any tournaments – FREE of charge. We will pay up to £60 towards your travel costs and will provide lunch on a day of volunteering.

Cost to attend: 

• ONLY volunteering as an official, without participating in any tournaments – FREE of charge.

• £35 per open competition entry
• £30 for beginners’/women’s+ tournaments

Disclaimer: By registering you agree to the following statement:

“I understand that whilst every care will be taken to give safe instruction, I accept full responsibility and consider myself fit to participate. I have answered all questions correctly and all medical and health considerations are noted below.”

How we use your data: We will only use your data for managing our events. By registering you agree to share the data from your matches with HEMA Ratings and HEMA Scorecard,. We cannot accept your registration if you do not agree to this as these are necessary to run the event. Your results will also be posted on our website.

If you don’t want to appear in HEMA Ratings, you can contact HEMA Ratings directly and ask for your record to be anonymised. Your data will still be submitted, but it will not appear in any public page.

If you missed out on a tournament please sign up to the waiting list by clicking here. If anyone drops out we will contact you.