The HEMA Alliance currently offers a variety of services for Individual and Club members. These services go beyond the Alliance’s web content, all of which is always available to the general public. Instead, the Alliance’s member services tap into the organization’s funding and network of volunteers to provide individual practitioners and clubs some of the resources, connections, and “weight” that would normally only be available to a large national or international-sized organization.
HEMA Alliance Services Currently Available
Use of HEMA Alliance Name and Official Nonprofit Status
HEMA Alliance-Associated Clubs are fully independent Historical European Martial Arts schools, academies, clubs, groups, and organizations which join the HEMA Alliance to participate in a larger community network. Members of all stripes–Training or Supporting Members, and Charter or Affiliated Clubs may be able to use the HEMA Alliance Logo, name, and official educational nonprofit status when organizing events, making arrangements for training spaces, or coordinating with other institutions such as museums and universities.
Use of the HEMA Alliance identity for public events or business arrangements involves accepting and implementing some HEMA Alliance standards. Affiliates, Chapters, or Members planning on representing themselves to outside organizations in this way should contact the HEMA Alliance Governing Council.
HEMA Alliance Email Address
HEMA Alliance Members will automatically receive an official HEMA Alliance email address ending in “@hemaalliance.com” upon request. Your HEMA Alliance email address will automatically forward to the existing email account you include in your membership application.
Web Hosting for Groups at HEMAAlliance.com
Chapter and Affiliate groups can host their own club or group webpages at HEMAAlliance.com. Member groups which opt to use their own web space can still use the HEMA Alliance’s page to re-direct viewers from HEMAAlliance.com to their off-site page. All member groups will be linked from the Alliance’s Links page. Member groups may make arrangements by contacting adminteam@hemaalliance.com.
The HEMA Alliance Press
The HEMA Alliance Press’s purpose is to increase the availability of worthwhile in-print publications of current research, translations, transcriptions, and interpretations of HEMA-related materials to the community as a whole. The HEMA Alliance Press is not a for-profit publishing house such as Chivalry Bookshelf, Paladin Press, or Greenhill Books—all publishers who have provided the community with some of the highest quality HEMA-related books available today. Instead, the HEMA Alliance Press is a no-frills, “University Press” level undertaking meant to help new voices get heard in a “substance over style” format. This service is available to all Training Members on a first come-first serve basis. Please read the HEMA Alliance Press submission guidelines.
Mentoring Program
This program for Charter Club members links new clubs or those embarking into new areas of study with members of the Curriculum Council or their representatives. These mentors connect Charter Club members to people with the right skills and knowledge to help the member club reach its goals. Fledgling clubs and clubs wishing to grow to a new level of organization will also receive Club Development Mentors.
Project Teams
Service to the HEMA Alliance is service to the Membership. All Training and Supporting Members are invited to join a Project Team that will help them focus limited volunteer time in the areas of their interest. Whatever you’re doing with HEMA now, you can do more and better in a Project Team. Let us help you find people who share your passions.
General HEMA Support
While our web-resources are all publically available, our time for individual attention as volunteer leadership is necessarily limited. Membership is the primary way that the HEMA Alliance is supported, and it means a lot to us. We hope to be able to respond to every contact we get from anywhere, but as a practical matter, Members come first, and Members who volunteer come firster.
Services in the Works
As resources allow, the Alliance will be adding more services over the coming months and years. If you have any questions about present or future services, or feel that you can help in some fashion, don’t hesitate to contact us via our forum or the How You Can Help page.
Instructor Certification Program
This program is planned as a community-building effort. If you have a curriculum that you teach that is martially sound and built on some combination of historical sources, the Alliance wants to help you get your name out there. The goal of this future program is twofold:
(1) Help people figure out how to be better instructors
(2) Provide a means for instructors to test their ability to teach and be recognized for their ability
The Instructor Certification program is being developed by HEMA practitioners with a variety of approaches to the art. It will not be a way to fit teachers into one style, and it will not define the “final interpretation” on the zornhau or Fiore’s dagger plays. It will be a way for teachers who have developed their own excellence to demonstrate objectively valuable skills and present themselves to the public as peer-reviewed leaders in their field.
“FaceBuch”
We plan to offer a social networking site for HEMA practitioners, whether they belong to the HEMA Alliance or not.
Monthly Webinars
One or two-hour seminars, but on the web. Thanks to Mr. Brian Stokes for his suggestion and input on webinars. Attendence will be first-come, first-serve, with the priority going to Training Members, Charter Clubs, and Affiliate Club leaders. The Curriculum Council’s first Webinar is planned for February 2010.
Training Video Reviews
As the quantity of HEMA Alliance personnel with the technical know-how to provide quality critiques of HEMA video footage increases, the Curriculum Council will begin accepting submissions of Training member and Charter Club videos. Members will be able to request at least one person from a list of reviewers and receive written commentary from that person and two others. Eventually the reviewers will be able to send you back a short video lesson focused on either a question you submit, or an area in which that reviewer is well experienced. This will be an extension of the mentoring program, and it will be implemented as soon as possible in 2010.
Youth Programs
Because teaching youth requires a bit more attention to legal issues, teaching methodology and youth-specific leadership skills. The HEMA Alliance plans on helping clubs reach out to the next generation of HEMA practitioners. The Curriculum Council will be forming a committee of HEMA practitioners who have experience working with children and teens.
