Disability Discrimination by a voluntary society.

Disability Discrimination by a voluntary society.

Yesterday I experienced direct discrimination based on my disability. It was carried out by people tasked with running a hobby gaming club with a stated policy of "inclusivity" I raised some legitimate questions about how their mandatory requirement to wear a face covering along with other restrictions on attending future meetings was illegal because it broke The Equalities Act and was direct discrimination. I was told that it wasn't up for discussion, it was irrelevant what I thought even after I pointed out that the Statutory Instrument for Face Coverings made specific mention that people may be exempt from the requirement to wear a face covering in licenced premises for a number of reasons.

When I pointed out the following to other club officers "It upset me that an self proclaimed inclusive gaming club could so casually dismiss the concerns of a disabled person like this. I still don't like the decision as it reinforces the belief that disabled people are somehow 2nd class citizens who are already marginalised in society and suffer much higher barriers to participation in normal activities." they decided to remove me from their social media presence and refused to discuss how they could make reasonable adjustments to their policy.

When I approached another committee member he responded with this. "By relaxing the mask request [sic] we would be discriminating against several vulnerable or anxious attendees. We've lost 8 regulars of the venue already to Covid. As Spock said, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. I can sympathise with your situation, and wish it wasn't the case, but it is for now."

This is a clear example of how institutional discrimination operates against marginalised members of society. The fact I pointed out to them that I had been fully vaccinated for Covid-19 since 18th April 2021 made no difference. If it can happen to me it can happen to anyone else.

I have not named the club because I had hoped that they might see the error of their ways but today it was confirmed that none of the club "Council" were prepared to discuss it any further and I was not welcome to attend there in future. So inclusivity only applied if they think your are worthy of consideration.

Apparently I could sue them under the Disability Discrimination Act for compensation in the county court because they refused to even consider making adjustments for me, which is Direct Discrimination and introduced a blanket policy that affected a protected group disproportionately, which is Indirect Discrimination, but that won't change their attitude and certainly won't make me anymore welcome to attend there. Being a voluntary non-profit club it would only destroy them by forcing them into insolvency after the bailiffs took all their assets.

So HATE and bigotry has won out - again

15mm Chinese - Penultimate Entry

15mm Chinese - Part 23 Mounted Infantry [III]

Todays offering is the penultimate entry for my Chinese Army project. Its the last of the Mounted Infantry from Outpost Wargames Services Sui & T'ang Chinese Range. They are Code STC8 Mounted Crossbowmen. I had already painted up two elements as Reg Cv [O] but these are the balance of ten bases to act as Mounted Infantry Crossbowmen. Mounted Infantry appear in a few lists and these are done generically enough to work in the armies I have built. I can use the two other bases to make up a total of twelve bases if needed.

Outpost STC8 Mounted Crossbowmen

Last up because I hate having left over wasted figures I have a few Legio Heroica Mongol cavalry. The figures were incomplete so I had to add shields and lances from my spares box but they will slot in nicely with the Mongol units I already have to use in the Yuan Chinese army. They were a pain to assemble despite being very nice castings.

Legio Heroica MON08 Cavalry

Legio Heroica MON09 Horse Archers

This means I have now virtually completed my Chinese armies. I just have to do four Black Powder Artillery bases for the very end of the Yuan Chinese army date range and base up some leftover but already painted infantry. There are still some Khitan Liao and Mongol Cavalry to be done for allied contingents but it will be good to finally come to the end of this huge project.

I already have a new army project in mind but I might take a break before starting this one to concentrate on completing some other outstanding tasks.

Painting update

This now brings the painting tally for 1st January to 15th May 2021 to:

185 infantry & 4 war drums [63 elements]

154 cavalry [49 elements]

12 Bamboo & Paper Lions [8 elements]

3 elephants [3 elements]

Plus I have rebased

32 elements of Pikes

4 elements of Psiloi

50 mounted elements

15mm Chinese - Part 22 Mounted Infantry

15mm Chinese - Part 22 Mounted Infantry [II]

This weeks offering is more mounted infantry. The castings are part of the Grumpy's Range available from Eureka of Australia. They were part of a bulk purchase of unpainted figures from Ken Bell off EBay last year. It took me a while to ID the castings because Ken got them as a job lot from someone else from EBay! They were described as Mongol Chinese which wasn't much help. The casting code is CHIC01 Chinese Peasant Cavalry with Halberd. There are three poses and from looking at the website they originally had a tall thin plume on the top of the Coolie Hats as they are also sold as part of the Grumpy Ming Range using a casting code share. The figures are well posed and given their age still very nice castings with minimal flash or degradation of the moulds. Since I need lots of castings for mounted infantry in my Chinese armies they will be perfect to use as these or as low quality cavalry elements.

It took me a week to do them from start to finish which isnt bad considering my painting speed and level of detail I am currently applying.

Grumpy Code CHIC02 Chinese Peasant Cavalry with Spear

I now have 6 Mongol cavalry to do followed up by 30 mounted Crossbowmen. I still need to purchase some more artillery crew and some 10mm scale guns from Kallista to use as the Yuan Reg Art [I] elements at the end of the list. I am using 10mm scale guns because the design of the pieces is correct for the army and the scale more suited to the smaller artillery pieces that started to emerge in the beginning of the Black Powder era. I also have a Tribal Khitan allied contingent to paint for the Tang. I might also buy a Khitan-Liao contingent for the Northern Han option in this list.

15mm Chinese - Part 21 Mounted Infantry

15mm Chinese - Part 21 Mounted Infantry [I]

As the final stretch comes into view I am now working on the mounted infantry part of the Chinese collection. I thought that these figures are part of the Outpost Wargames Services range of Sui/Tang Chinese. I was sure the figure code was STC8 Mounted Infantry but Jeff at OWS has confirmed that they are NOT OWS castings so now I am not sure exactly what they are. I have two batches of 18 to do, one batch are holding the typical Chinese fringed spear of the time and the other batch are holding bladed polearms that look very much like halberds. Because each batch is complete different I have split them up and painted the first 18 before starting the next 18 which will appear in another blog entry. As infantry mounted on horses to improve their mobility they will double as poorer quality cavalry if need be too. The all wear the typical iron ring reinforced long coat of this period. Basing etc done in the usual style that I do for my ancient armies. After some intensive searching online it appears that they are Grumpy miniatures.

Grumpy Code CHIC02 Chinese Peasant Cavalry with Spear

15mm Chinese - Part 20 Elephants & Firelances

15mm Chinese Part 20 - Elephants & Fire Lances

As part of my purchase from Evil Gong of Australia I decided to obtain three of their Southern Dynasties War Elephants Code EGC5 War Elephant. The elephants came in multiple pieces consisting of, body, head, two different types of tusks, howdah, umbrella canopy & four crew, It took some careful cleaning to ensure that the tusks actually fitted onto the head and each standing crewman had to have their bases trimmed as small as possible to ensure that actually fitted inside the howdah. I painted the crewmen in identical uniforms whilst varying the colour of the elephants body cloth for variety. The Southern Dynasties get the option to use one elephant whilst the Southern Han within the Late T'ang & Five Dynasties list get the option to take up to three elephants.

Evil Gong EGC5 War Elephant

Part of my original purchase for my Late T'ang army was mounted crossbowmen they are primarily for use as mounted infantry elements but the list requires two elements of Mounted crossbowmen classed as Reg Cv [O] so I have painted up two elements in a special uniform to represent this option. They come from the Outpost Wargames Sui/Tang range Code STC8 Mounted Crossbows. These are two piece castings and were very clean. I shall paint the other figures in a variety of colours when I eventually do them as mounted infantry.

Outpost STC8 Mounted Crossbows

The Sung Dynasty seemed to love Black Powder Fire Lances They had mounted and foot troops equipped with fire lances. They seemed to fall out of favour with the collapse of the Sung Dynasty and the Yuan used limited numbers of infantry with fire lances. For some reason DBx grades these cavalry as Reg Kn F rather than the more usual cavalry despite the fact they were also equipped with bows. Khurasan Figures make both in their Sung range. The castings were very clean and required minimal cleaning up.

Khurasan SUNG-FIRE-CAV

Last up for this blog entry are the Sung Fire Lance Infantry rated as Irr Ps X in the Sung list. I painted them in matched pairs of elements which will enable me to swop around the bases depending on which command has them in. The castings were very clean and required minimal cleaning up.

Khurasan SUNG-FIRE-INF

This now brings the painting tally for 1st January to 7th April 2021 to:

185 infantry & 4 war drums [63 elements]

80 cavalry [24 elements]

12 Bamboo & Paper Lions [8 elements]

3 elephants [3 elements]

Plus I have rebased

32 elements of Pikes

4 elements of Psiloi

50 mounted elements