One of the ways Swiss HEMA tries to highlight and spread its message of ‘Openness’ is by assisting member clubs’ openness efforts through their events and tournaments:
Openness Awareness: O&S offers a ‘Tournaments/Events Kit’ that comprises various Openness branded banners for member clubs to borrow and return after their events. Furthermore, depending on member clubs’ needs, the O&S Commission may be able to supply other openness items (e.g. badges, T-shirts, bags, or posters) or promotional materials on openness issues/campaigns.
If any Swiss HEMA member club wishes to make use of the Tournaments/Events Kit and/or investigate other promotional ideas then contact the O&S Commission’s members to explore and discuss your needs. Please ensure you contact us well ahead of any event. Furthermore, if you wish to express your support, ‘One for All, All for One’ campaign branded items can be found through the Swiss HEMA Shop page.
Openness Resources: Running a tournament or event is a big task. Ensuring that it is open and inclusive is a part of that task. Here we are bringing together a number of resources that can serve as inspiration for clubs organising a tournament or events. We hope to develop this further in co-operation with the Tournament and Safety Commissions (guidelines on photography/video, data protection, tournament facilities and safeguarding checklists). Please contact us to discuss further or to share your own materials and approaches.
- Openness Posters: You can download our Openness ‘One For All’ branded poster and print it to any size. They can be displayed at events or in your club premises.
- Events/Tournament Code of Conduct: An example code of conduct/behaviour was developed with Freifechter in Basel for their Basilisk Challenge 2022. It was inspired by a variety of HEMA and other sports’ codes of conduct (e.g. CombatCon) and was commented on by Safeguarding experts. It is freely available for anyone to use or amend for their own events or tournaments.
- Guide on Trans and Non-binary Inclusiveness: An open source guide for organisers of HEMA events is available.
- Swiss Charter for Ethics in Sport: Swiss Olympic has developed the nine-point Charter for Ethics in Sport [EN / DE / FR / IT]. It is the basis for Swiss HEMA’s Openness and Safeguarding activities, and serves as useful check-list.
- Inclusive Language Guidelines: There is a growing expectation that organisations ensure that the language they use does not exclude people. In many languages this can be tricky to apply. The Society for Women* in Philosophy Switzerland (SW*IP CH) has collected all of the inclusive language guidelines published, created, or shared by universities in Switzerland. Guides can be found in German, French, and English.
If you have questions, suggestions or wish to help, please contact the O&S Commission members on: safeguarding@swisshema.ch
Please use the tabs or these links to view other Openness initiatives: Women’s Participation, LGBTQ+, Promoting Diversity.