The Hospital for Sick Children has programs designed to elevate their patients' well being and emotional health through almost daily presentations donated by individuals or organizations such as Mickey Mouse and Mini Mouse from Disney Land, local magicians, clowns, comedy troupes, etc.. David M. Cvet, of the
Academy of European Medieval Martial Arts or AEMMA, and 1st Vice President of the
Royal Heraldry Society of Canada, delivered a presentation on the arms and armour of a 14th century "knight", followed by a talk and presentation on the origins and history of heraldry on Thursday morning, June 12th.
The kids were very engaged, and listened with great anticipation to every word uttered, never before seeing a "real live knight in person". The hospital also setup some new equipment for the first time, to televise the presentation to the rooms of many kids who couldn't leave their beds. Other kids, numbering about 15 arrived at the theatre room to witness the presentation directly, in their wheel-chairs, and pulling banks of bags of fluids and monitoring equipment. One little boy, Tony, played the role of a reporter during the televised presentation, and asked pertinent questions about the armour, its weight, where it might've been made, and what the coat of arms meant. Another little girl, Emily, perhaps 8 years old, was very charming and who appeared to be recovering from major surgery, and asked questions, and was very intent on drawing her own coat of arms. Other kids, in similar situations, of various stages of recovery were present and focused on creating their own arms.
At the end of the little dissertation on arms and armour and what it was like being a knight in the 14th century, the staff had prepared many photocopies of blank shields, and supplied markers and pages of stickies (horses, balls, geometric shapes, etc.) that the kids used to create their own arms. The kids who were restricted to their rooms, watched the activity via the TV network they have setup in the hospital, and also received their own copies of shields, markers and stickies.
The hospital staff were very pleased and excited about the presentation, and discussion pursued about repeating this presentation sometime in the fall. The children were fantastic and all were very satisfied and grateful with the presentation, and left with big smiles on their faces.
and "Rauch d.d." (provider of juices) presented "Delavnica srednjeveških Evropshik borilnih veščin " or Medieval European Martial Arts Workshop, the second of its kind in Slovenia on October 11-12, 2008. This follows the first workshop by David M. Cvet of AEMMA in 2005. This year's workshop featured five instructors including David M. Cvet from AEMMA Toronto. The first half of Saturday covered 
Fiore dei Liberi's "abrazare " (grappling) and "spada " (sword) by David. The lessons were oriented towards the application of distance and timing concepts. This was followed with the second half of Saturday with a Slovenian instructor from the Celje area, Igor Sancin, who has been working with 
Sigmund Ringeck's treatise for more than a decade. He is also in the process of publishing Slovenia's first Slovenian translation of a historical fencing treatise within a year. His technical understanding of Ringeck was clearly demonstrated during his class, conveying the necessary technical skills to incorporate Ringeck's concepts into German longsword fencing.
The second day of the workshop featured two instructors in the first half, Petr Matoušek from the Czech Republic and Martin Fabian from Slovakia representing "Spoločnosť pre výskum a praktické prevádzanie vznešeného umenia šermiarskeho " (The Free Brotherhood of the Honourable Art of Fencing) instructing initially on "ringen" or wrestling techniques of Ringeck, von Danzig and from the Codex Wallerstein. This was followed by longsword techniques led by Martin sourcing Joachim Meyer. The last instructor for the second half of Sunday was instructor Roman Vučajnk, from Ljubljana covering grappling and dagger techniques derived from Filipo Vadi.
The workshop's venue was a large gymnasium in central Ljubljana offering extremely high ceiling and tall windows creating an excellent workshop environment. Twenty students registered for the workshop and all felt very satisfied with the level and quality of training received. The weekend workshop included visiting the "Narodni muzej Slovenije " at 8:00pm for the opportunity to physically examine numerous medieval arms and armour artifacts from the museum's collection. A rare opportunity for the students of the workshop, and the second time the museum has offered students of such a workshop the chance to examine the artifacts, the first being on the Sunday evening after the weekend workshop in 2005.
