BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.2.3.1//EN BEGIN:VEVENT UID:18@wessexleague.org DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251025T090000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251026T180000 DTSTAMP:20250922T170924Z URL:https://wessexleague.org/events/wessex-league-2025-bracknell/ SUMMARY:Wessex League 2025 - Bracknell DESCRIPTION:This year at Wessex we will be ensuring parity in Open and Wome n's+ tournaments - if we run an Open\, we will run a Women's+ in the same weapon. As a result we are no longer running beginners tournaments and the re have been major schedule changes from previous years that will affect b oth Opens and Women's+ events. We have also made some small changes to swo rd rules to codify decisions made last year and have further changes plann ed in 2026 so please read the below carefully even if you have been to Wes sex League before. \n\nWe have had to be creative with the schedule to al low for a full set of 8 events\, half of which also have A/B skill divisio ns. Many W+ events run at the same time as an open - this is unfortunately unavoidable. Please do not enter tournaments that run at the same time. T he exception for this is Women's+ Sabre - you may enter this and either Op en Sword &\; Buckler or Rapier &\; Dagger but not both. We will try to avoid clashes by running a round of pools overlapping each open tournam ent and place you accordingly. If this is not possible with the number of participants\, we will contact you to discuss which you prefer and refund you for the other tournament.\n\nSkill Divisions\nWe aim to run skill divi sions whenever the number of participants and schedule allows. For this ev ent that will be Open Longsword and Open Sabre. Participants will be divid ed into each tournament based upon their HEMA Rating shortly before the ev ent. Those without a public HEMA rating will be placed to the best of our abilities.  Simply sign up for the tournament and you will later be place d in the appropriate event.  In future events\, medalists from earlier le ague events this year will also be placed into the the A division regardle ss of rating. The league points for A and B are the same\, but you cannot win a league medal if you have not reached a quarter final in the A divisi on for the weapon or an undivisioned tournament. Anyone with enough points to be considered for a medal will be placed in A for the final event.\n\n We will be running  the following competitions:\n\n Open Longsword (A &a mp\; B)\n Open Rapier &\; Dagger (No division)\n Open Sabre (A &\; B)\n Open Sword &\; Buckler (No division)\n Women's+ Longsword (No D ivision)\n Women's+ Rapier &\; Dagger (No division)\n Women's + Sword &\; Buckler (No Division)\n Women's + Sabre (No Division\n\nIf you mi ss out on tickets for a particular tournament there is a waiting list whic h we will offer tickets to as and when they drop out. We recommend registe ring for any other tournaments you are interested in\, and then filling ou t the waiting list form here.\n\nSchedule\n\nPlease note that to accommoda te the changes all finals for every tournament on the day will be at run a t the end\n\n\n\n \;\nVenue &\; Travel:\nGarth Hill College\,\nBull Ln\,\nBracknell\nRG42 2AD\nSocials\nFriday social: The Bull at The Lexico n\,\n56 High St\, Bracknell RG12 1DP\nSaturday social: The Bull at The Lex icon\,\n56 High St\, Bracknell RG12 1DP\n\nMeals and refreshments:\nWe rec ommend bringing food with you. There is a large Waitrose across the road f rom the venue..\n\nPizza\, tea\, coffee and biscuits will be provided for staff only. Anyone staffing at any point over the weekend may help themsel ves at any time.\nRules &\; Equipment\nPlease be sure to read the tourn ament rules and minimum required equipment requirements. It is your respon sibility to make sure you have the correct equipment for the event - if yo u do not have sufficient or appropriate equipment you will not be allowed to fence in the tournament. If you are missing particular items please con tact us and we may be able to arrange something to be borrowed.\n\nSword C hanges\n\nThe following rules codify how Wessex League the "vibes based" s word check run prior to 2024\, or make changes that either increase permit ted swords or do not block swords used last year. Almost all swords that p assed checks last year will pass this year\, although some swords may need to be tipped that weren't previously. These rules will be changing from 2 026 to further reduce swords that are too stiff.  We are giving a year gr ace period to allow people to acquire new swords if necessary.\n\nMaximum flex on swords (measured by pushing the sword into a scale from the crossg uard and taking the maximum reading):\nLongsword: 20kg (16kg in from 2026) \nSabre and Sword &\; Buckler: 14kg\nRapier: 12kg\n\nTip Area\nNo sword may have a tip area below 75mm2 (9mm bullet case\, Sigi Standard Longswor d)\, with a preferred tip size over 120mm2 (greater than .323 bullet case\ , or Regenyei Standard rolled tip). Swords with plastic tips may be up to 1cm longer than the normal allowed sword length maximum to allow for the e xtra material in the tip.\n\nNote: please check your sword before coming\, in particular sabres\, sideswords and arming swords as many of these have smaller tips. Many smaller tips (e.g. heat shrink end caps) can also come below this minimum. We will have tipping supplies present but you must ti p your sword at least 45 minutes before you are fencing to allow the plast ic to set. PCL thermoplastic (recommended brand: Whitemorph or Colourmorph by Thermoworx) remains our preferred method for tipping\, see this articl e for best practice on tipping: https://historicalfencingresearch.com/2025 /06/13/common-thermoplastic-tip-failures-and-how-to-avoid-them/\n\nSword L ength\nSwords for Sword &\; Buckler may be up to 95cm in length. This r eflects the changes in the market since the rules were first written as ma ny sidesword providers do not offer swords within our original permitted l engths.\n\nSword Mass:\nThe maximum mass for longsword is reduced to 1700g \nThe minimum mass for sabre is reduced to 750g\n\nWomen's+ Tournament Ent ries\nThe women’s category in HEMA tournaments was originally created to provide meaningful challenges for women. The ultimate aim of providing th em has been to: allow fencers to test their skills in a situation without routine physical disadvantages\; understand their progress relative to the ir peers year on year\; give greater access to tournaments to an under-rep resented gender in our sport\; ensure people realise that their gender doe s not prevent them from participating in HEMA.\n\nWhile the primary intent in the past has been to support women\, we recognise that many of conside rations above apply equally to many non-binary fencers as well. Therefore\ , this tournament is open to:\n  a) Women (for the avoidance of doubt: ci s or trans)\n  b) Any non-binary fencers who feel the issues above also a pply to them\, and that their presence in the tournament wouldn’t detrac t from the aims in regards to women\n\nWe recognise that there are a wide range of non-binary genders\, and not all of them will feel comfortable pa rticipating in the women’s tournament. It is entirely up to the fencer i n question whether they think the Women's+ is suitable for them. The Open tournaments are all open to any gender. \nVolunteering:\nIf you would lik e to volunteer but haven't signed up\, there may still be opportunities de pending on how many volunteers we have. Please fill out the Volunteering d etails below and email at wessexleague@gmail.com so that we can apply the discount after the fact.\n\n Competitors who would like to help us as vol unteers receive a free lunch and a discount on your ticket \n This year we are offering one free tournament entry for volunteers\n Volunteers als o get early booking for each event\n If you have received a volunteer cod e\, please use it at checkout\n ONLY volunteering as an official\, withou t participating in any tournaments – FREE of charge. We will pay up to £75 towards your travel costs and will provide lunch on a day of volunte ering.\n\nCost to attend: \n• ONLY volunteering as an official\, with out participating in any tournaments – FREE of charge.\n\n £35 per o pen competition entry\n £30 Women's+ tournaments\n\nDisclaimer: By regis tering you agree to the following statement:\n\n“I understand that whils t every care will be taken to give safe instruction\, I accept full respon sibility and consider myself fit to participate\, and that there are inher ent risks with competitive martial arts. I will follow instructions by jud ging staff and tournament organisers\, be respectful of my fellow competit ors\, and use equipment in good condition with no known flaws. I have answ ered all questions correctly and all medical and health considerations are noted below.”\n\nHow we use your data: Your will be used primarily for managing our events\, and for research into safety at HEMA tournaments.  By registering you agree to share the data from your matches with HEMA Rat ings and HEMA Scorecard\,. We cannot accept your registration if you do no t agree to this as these are necessary to run the event. Your results will also be posted on our website. We record injury data as part of understan ding and managing risk across our events. Anonymised data (including injur y data) may be shared with researchers for specific projects\, but we will not share your name or other details\, and your data will never be used f or marketing purposes outside of informing you of our own events. For a mo re detailed description see our privacy page.\n\nIf you don't want to appe ar in HEMA Ratings\, you can contact HEMA Ratings directly and ask for you r record to be anonymised. Your data will still be submitted\, but it will not appear in any public page. If your HEMA rating is anonymised\, please email us about whether you feel Tier A or Tier B is more appropriate for you in any of the tournaments you have registered for.\nIf a tournament do esn't appear in the list below it means it is sold out. If you missed out on a tournament please sign up to the waiting list by clicking here. If an yone drops out we will contact you. 2 weeks after booking opens we will be reviewing W+ spaces and may expand opens if there are free pistes. LOCATION:Garth College\, Bull Lane\, Bracknell\, United Kingdom X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Bull Lane\, Bracknell\, Uni ted Kingdom;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=Garth College:geo:0,0 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20250330T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20251026T010000 TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR