Yesterday, along with the weekend, was a little crazy for the Taunton Longsword Association (TLA). From my last post on this blog expressing pleasant surprise on hitting 6,000 impressions and a load of likes; things only escalated from there….quickly!

Firstly, let me and the Committee of the TLA say a huge “thank you” to all the ladies (and gentlemen) whom shared our Facebook post launching the campaign “Give A Girl A Sword” (GAGAS). You really got the message out there and we although we paid Facebook a princely sum of £12 to advertise it; it quickly turned out that this was eclipsed and ended up being relatively insignificant compared to people tagging friends, relatives and acquaintances. By 19:00 on the 21st August 2017, when the first session began we had over 29,000 impressions, over 170 shares, and a over 100 comments/replies. Incredible!

With some trepidation, we put the signs up, checked the booking spreadsheet, got the sign-in sheets ready…and waited.

It wasn’t long before enthusiastic/nervous/inquisitive ladies began arriving and soon the training session was underway with a gentle warm-up.

Due to the numbers present of both GAGAS and regular members, we split into two groups who each spent time with the Longsword or Sword & Buckler, swapping at half-time.

A bit of target practice and a demonstration spar by Orrin and Sam finished the session off.

The ladies got see the source materials and books we derive the curriculum from and were able to handle both sharp and blunt versions of several different weapons.

We decided, for fun, that we should recreate the poster we used to advertise the event with the GAGAS attendees and so, with limited photographic skills and complete lack of artistic direction, a line-up was assembled!

The atmosphere was literally buzzing with the best type of feedback we could hope for: big grins on everyone’s faces. Several attendees joined us in the pub for a social debrief afterwards and share their thoughts on the session with us.

Our next GAGAS session is on the 23rd August, and is already fully booked (sorry); and at the time of writing, it looks like the extra session on the 6th September is also now full. Don’t let this put you off contacting us…let us know you are interested and we may have a fourth night scheduled. 🙂

For more information on the international “Give A Girl A Sword” campaign, search the internet and Facebook for “GAGAS” and “Give A Girl A Sword”, and visit esfinges.org.

Author: Kieran, Secretary