10,000 members. 40 clubs. The national body for sword fighting in America.

The HEMA Alliance is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that serves as the national body for Historical European Martial Arts in the United States. HEMA practitioners study original fight manuscripts from the 14th to 17th centuries and reconstruct the martial arts they describe — longsword, rapier, military sabre, sword and buckler, dagger, and more.

The Alliance coordinates over 40 affiliated clubs with more than 10,000 members across the country. It provides the infrastructure that a growing martial art needs: liability insurance for practitioners and events, instructor certification, event funding, a club finder directory, and published research through the Wiktenauer manuscript library.

Three democratic bodies govern the organisation: a Board of Directors overseeing the mission, a Governing Council elected by the membership to manage operations, and a Curriculum Council responsible for research and training standards. The entire leadership is volunteer. The Alliance's core commitment is its Freedom of Study policy — guaranteeing that members can train with any instructor and attend any event without restriction.

Before TidyHQ, the HEMA Alliance managed its membership with what they candidly described as duct tape. Memberships expired without anyone tracking them. Payment processing was difficult. Clubs couldn't easily purchase bulk memberships for their members. For a national body providing insurance coverage — where knowing who is and isn't a current member is a legal requirement — this was unsustainable.

The federated structure made it harder. The Alliance doesn't just manage individual members — it manages a network of 40+ affiliate clubs, each with their own members who need individual HEMAA memberships for insurance coverage. Every affiliate club needs to verify which of their members hold current Alliance memberships. Every event organiser needs to check membership status at the door. Every insurance claim depends on accurate records.

And the leadership is entirely volunteer. The Governing Council members who manage operations are elected by the membership and rotate on two-year terms. The system needed to be simple enough that incoming council members could administer it without training, and reliable enough that 10,000 membership records didn't depend on one volunteer's spreadsheet.

The HEMA Alliance isn't just a membership organisation — it's the infrastructure layer for an entire martial art. When someone walks into a HEMA club for the first time, they find it through the Alliance's club finder. When they sign up, their club requires a HEMAA membership for insurance. When they attend their first tournament, the Alliance may have helped fund it. When their instructor earned certification, the Alliance administered the programme.

Several affiliate clubs — including St. Paul Freifechter in Minnesota — also use TidyHQ for their local operations. Members interact with TidyHQ when they sign up at their local club and again when they register with the national body. The same platform at both levels of a federated community.

HEMA has grown from a niche historical interest into a recognised martial art with thousands of practitioners, international tournaments, and clubs in every major US city. The Alliance has grown with it — and TidyHQ has been the membership backbone for over a decade of that growth.