Suggestions for wargames clubs on where to congregate online?

[6mmfan]

Hi all

We have a local wargames club which uses groups.io at the moment with a little bit of Facebook, although some members don't want to use FB. The groups.io list is a bit 90s in its functionality and we want to be able share posts, messages, arrange games etc. Also a good option would be to have some kind of Members database/list of what wargames periods interest them and their collections.

I'm curious to see what other wargames clubs use? My first thought as I was typing this was Discord but I haven't really looked into any options yet?

[sonicReducer]

My club uses Discord and it seems to work pretty well

[infelix]

My club also uses Discord, I’m not terribly happy about it but it seems to work pretty well.

[Daeothar]

Depending on whether or not all your members are using smartphones (but I'm assuming they do), you might have a look into the Band-app.

A club I'm part of uses it for chats, it has a calendar for events, a trading section, info on the members (if they are so inclined) and more. It requires an admin to regulate things, but in my experience, there's always someone who will pick up that glove

[Mindenbrush]

Discord.
Email and FB Messenger became too cluttered plus not everyone was on Messenger.
Discord allows one to have various channels to separate periods and anything else.
Works well for us including some who are not always computer savvy.

[6mmfan]

Thanks for the suggestions. Our clubs website is on Wordpress and it looks like it has some useful features as well.

[Easy E]

You can always get a free Proboards set-up for a forum as well. 

I know.... messageboards..... gross!

[Deedles]

My mob use Discord

We have channels for various genres , club meets, show games , etc . It’s taken over from the haphazard FB page .  It works via browser on PC or tablet/smartphone app . It does the job for us .

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

How easy is it to find a local club on Discord, if you don’t already know about the channel?

[sonicReducer]

How easy is it to find a local club on Discord, if you don’t already know about the channel?

You'd generally need someone in the channel to send you an invite

[FifteensAway]

Not sure if it is limited to USA but several local groups us the IO groups option.  Works pretty good.  Switched over after the 'death' of Yahoo.  Okay, yahoo groups but that makes it dead for me.

[boneio]

WhatsApp now has channels and works with just your phone number so it's very easy to set up even for people who don't already have it.

I don't really like the Discord plague... I'm already on Facebook, WhatsApp, and this forum for instance, why do I want yet another app to communicate with?? I said the same about WhatsApp to start with, Facebook messenger is perfectly adequate.

It comes down to the same thing - what do most members already have access to? Use that. If there's no consensus, pick the easiest thing which is likely to have longevity - which is almost certainly going to be the most popular (in terms of global users) thing... so WhatsApp, Facebook, or, sadly, Discord...

I wouldn't bother with your own forum or any obscure apps, it'll take time to manage and might simply stop working or cease to exist.

[Sweign]

We use groups.io and it works for us.

Previously we used yahoo groups which allowed us to attach photos easily. With groups.io we have to open an album and put them in there.