Youth Armoured Combat Draft:Change Log
Changes from Society Youth Combat Marshal's Handbook July 2024
The Society Youth Combat Marshal's Handbook can be found here - https://www.sca.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Youth-Combat-Handbook-July-2024.pdf
Throughout, we have looked to move to simpler English, more suitable for children as they are one of the primary audiences for these rules. As part of this, we have shifted to referring to "you" as the person who needs to follow the rule.
We have removed gendered language and use the singular they/their/themself instead of he or she, his or her, himself or herself.
Overview
Mission and Goals
Our version of this section is virtually identical, but refers to youth armoured combat only. Youth rapier combat is dealt with in another handbook. As at November 2024, the Youth Rapier Handbook has not been approved by the Board of SCA Ltd or Committee of SCANZ.
General Conventions
Society rules allow kingdoms to establish procedures for youth combatant authorisations and warranting of marshals, and separate youth armoured combat and youth rapier combat into separate disciplines.
Our version includes the authorisations for participants and marshals that we have established.
We have included definitions in this section that are I.A and I.B in Society rules, and added some terms, such as Nominated caregiver that are specific to Lochac.
Parent Section
We've called this section "Information for parents"
I. Definitions
Moved to Overview as the terms aren't specific to things that parents need to know.
II. Participation
We have linked to the relevant policies relating to the participation of minors at SCA events in Lochac.
We have some differences in how minors are given permission to participate, and how minors who aren't attending with their parents are managed.
We remind parents that in NZ there are no background checks done for anyone running youth activities and it's the parent's responsibility to supervise their children.
III. Membership
We note that membership is not required for participation, though it is required for marshals.
IV. Parental responsibilities
We have reordered these and reworded them for simplicity.
Participants' section
We've separated this into multiple chapters.
V. General information
We have reworded this section to make it easier to understand, and included information about sparring partners.
The Society requirement for kingdoms to establish authorisation procedures is met by Chapter 4 on authorisation requirements, which sets out the process for the youth who is about to authorise, and in Chapter 12 as the process that the marshal will go through.
VI. Rules of the Lists and Conventions of Combat
The Rules of the Lists are not particularly child-friendly in their language, so their intent has been incorporated into the rules and the rules put into simpler language for children.
Similarly, Conventions of combat are referred to as game rules, and melee combat is referred to as group combat to make it more understandable for children.
We've separated it into two chapters: Rules for all combat, and Rules for group combat, which includes our group engagement rules, as Society requires us to.
Use of weapons and shields
Language has been simplified throughout.
VIII.Acknowledgement of Blows
Referred to as Taking hits.
Language has been simplified throughout.
The section on calibration talked about blows not hard enough to leave a bruise. Bruising can take some time to develop, so youth need some term of reference that is more immediate that they can use in combat. We've referred to blows not hard enough to sting.