*
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 29, 2024, 02:04:13 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Donate

We Appreciate Your Support

Recent

Author Topic: Setting up a club in country villages  (Read 1361 times)

Offline tinfoilknight

  • Assistant
  • Posts: 25
Setting up a club in country villages
« on: May 25, 2017, 08:55:52 AM »
I was wondering if you guys might have some advice to offer on setting up a gaming club while living in the countryside. I'm surrounded by about 10 villages, some almost towns they're so large but there's no gaming club here, just 40+ minute drives away. I thought of taking the initiative and seeing if I can get one off the ground but have no idea how I would best get in contact with others interested in the hobby.

We have a local news letter and many village notice boards but I don't know how well read either is. Where would be my best chance of contacting others locally to get stuff off the ground?

Offline Mick_in_Switzerland

  • Supporting Adventurer
  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • *
  • Posts: 2477
Re: Setting up a club in country villages
« Reply #1 on: May 25, 2017, 09:15:29 AM »
Do the local supermarkets have notice boards. 
I can remember that when I lived in England, Asda had a noticeboard dedicated to the local community.
What about asking to have a notice hobby shops in a 20 mile radius? Maybe they have a mailing list too.

Offline tinfoilknight

  • Assistant
  • Posts: 25
Re: Setting up a club in country villages
« Reply #2 on: May 25, 2017, 09:35:09 AM »
The local shops and libraries have notice boards and I plan to put notices up on them.

Offline thistlebarrow

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 80
Re: Setting up a club in country villages
« Reply #3 on: May 25, 2017, 04:41:51 PM »
We contacted the local newspaper and asked if they would be interested in doing a "personal interest" article.  They were very keen and sent a reporter and photographer to interview my wife and I and took some photos of the wargames table.  The resulting article was along the lines of "local married couple settle domestic disagreements by fighting Waterloo as Wellington and Napoleon".  But it did get us a lot of interest and eight members to start our club.

We repeated the process some years later, but with less success.

Offline Andrew May

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1383
    • Meridian Miniatures
Re: Setting up a club in country villages
« Reply #4 on: May 26, 2017, 11:08:47 AM »
Surely Facebook?

...says a non Facebook user but everyone I know is on there apparently.

Offline manic _miner

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 3320
    • Four A miniatures
Re: Setting up a club in country villages
« Reply #5 on: May 26, 2017, 04:37:18 PM »
 Facebook would be a good one and also as many forums and such as you can get onto.Sometimes games shops let you put up flyers for games clubs too.Some even give your member discount.

Offline Leftblank

  • Librarian
  • Posts: 141
    • Amsterdam6shooters wargame club
Re: Setting up a club in country villages
« Reply #6 on: May 26, 2017, 05:43:43 PM »
We started a wargames club in Amsterdam, a couple of years ago.
We did all of the above. but also spent money on a good website, first a free one, now a domain that we bought.
Don't be too ambitious, start with a monthly frequency.
Be clear about your target group. 14y old teenage boys who play warhammer don't neccesarily mix with middle aged men who play Hail Caesar or Black Powder.
Think about combining club evenings with board gaming or mixed gaming like XWing or D&D.
Keep a friendly atmosphere, maybe not competition or points focused but more on good fun and trying different systems and periods.
Invest in good scenery. We started with paper scenery. After some months we charged a small entrance fee and bought battle mats. Since then we have slowly upgraded our scenery. A club will attract members because they offer the option to play regularly on goodlooking tables with a band of brothers.
Expect to invest a lot of time.


Offline armchairgeneral

  • Supporting Adventurer
  • Mastermind
  • *
  • Posts: 1731
Re: Setting up a club in country villages
« Reply #7 on: May 28, 2017, 08:14:59 AM »
In my experience there are two sorts of club. One where lots of groups of friends turn up and play their particular games which is fine but can end up rather cliquey and so not all that welcoming to newcomers.

The other is usually a smaller club where everyone takes part in the one game usually decided by one or two members. Again which is fine as this is a lot more welcoming but not so great if the game being played isn't your particular interest and you just want to game with your figures that you have painted.

Online joroas

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 7803
Re: Setting up a club in country villages
« Reply #8 on: May 28, 2017, 11:38:44 AM »
You could start advertising here, my experience is that there are more historical gamers not in a club, even when there are several nearby, than are in them.
'So do all who see such times. But that is not for us to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that we are given.'

 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
7 Replies
2975 Views
Last post February 07, 2010, 03:48:11 PM
by bulldogger2000
7 Replies
5081 Views
Last post December 07, 2014, 09:29:12 AM
by Malamute
1 Replies
2113 Views
Last post October 21, 2011, 09:13:41 AM
by gloriousbattle
30 Replies
58196 Views
Last post December 12, 2018, 03:13:21 AM
by orc
11 Replies
3579 Views
Last post January 20, 2016, 01:41:20 AM
by sepoy1857