Questions about Gaming Clubs

[frogimus]

In the US, gaming venues are usually retail gaming stores. I live in an area that is a bit small and rural to support its own store. The nearest stores are about a 45 minute drive away.

I've been discussing a gaming club with a couple of coworkers and was looking for some input from people that have a bit more knowledge about such things.

Do you rent a community center or some such place for playing?

Do you meet up monthly, weekly, sporadically?

How many members does it take to make it work?

Is the club a mixture of RPGers, tabletop gamers, and CCG players? Would a mixture work?

Any input at all would be appreciated.

[fitterpete]

Hi
It all depends on how much you have to pay for the "clubhouse".
For instance our group started playing in a store,then it went out of business(don't they all?) and we rented a really beat up, but really large, room in a old building.At that time there were still about 20 paying members and the rent was only $200 a month.
As people started to drift off we had to move to a old basement and dues went up even though rent went down because membership went down.
Right now we have a sweet deal above the local food bank.The owner of the building is a old frat brother of one of the members so we get it free.But there are only about 5 of us left.A core group that have always been there going on 20 years.We have gone up and down from 25 to just us 5 many times over the years.

No offense to RPGers and CCGers but they have been the most unreliable groups,at least in our membership.They tend to drift off faster,probably because they are usually the youngest and have less income and soon discover girls and leave gaming behind.Plus their games can usually be played in somebodys house.

Where I live halfway between DC and Baltimore rents are high even for a closet.LOL.All our clubhouses have had to been in neighboring PA or parts of Maryland near the stateline.Then you get the problem of travel times.So people don't want to go every weekend.
I would imagine in western KY rent is not that bad.

Anyway taken from my experience you have to have a core group that can afford to rent the venue even if membership drops.That way you can always keep  it going even in the down times.
Go to stores and recruit.You may discover there are even more people out there than you think.
Start a yahoo group so you can communicate about game days easily.
That's all I've got for now.good luck!
Oh yeah, have a fridge full of sodas and water that you can make a little on for incedentals.
Pete

[eilif]

It kind of depends on how big and specialized you want the club to be.

I started a club with some folks about 4 years ago.  We formed around Song of Blades and Heroes and still play mostly indie skirmish games.  We play every other week, meet at member's homes and organize ourselves with a yahoo group.  We also have a blog.

The advantage of our setup is no fees to be collected, a tight group of very like minded players, a fairly constant attendance, cheap food and drinks, and the ability to fairly tightly control the group membership if needed. The club can also enforce it's own standards.  For example. we only play with painted minis.

The downside is that meeting in member's homes limits the attendance to 6-8 players, and you're dependent on folks having big enough places to host games. Also they either have to supply the terrain or have others bring it over.

We've got a pretty tight core of about 6 folks, with 2-3 often attenders and a couple others who come once in a while.

[zizi666]

I'm a (founding) member of Bylandt Wargame Club.
Nowadays we count about a dozen members. We got recognized as a socio-cultural organization here in Belgium and that meant we could apply for a place to do or thing.
So now we can use a room in the local JOC (youth meeting centre) despite the fact that most of us are old farts 
We can't leave stuff lying around, but we do have 2 closets where we cans tore some games and terrain. We put some extra shelves in one so we could store ongoing boardgames (we use overlays on the maps, so no writing down of units & hexes)
It used to be free( except for the annual €70 Insurance fee) but since the new term (schoolyear 2014-15) it costs us €5/clubnight, to be payed for the whole year.
We only have a small treasury so whenever that's emptied we just all throw in a couple of bucks to cover expenses.

The upside is the fact that most of us now each other for almost 20 yrs (some even longer), so we sometimes manage to gather for non gaming activities like War walks, museum visits, (there's recently been a WW1 bike tour near Ypres and last year we visited the Vauban fortress/village of Gravelines combined with a visit to the Blockhaus d'Eperleque) but also concerts and ofcourse our yearly meet at the Gentsche Fieste (Ghent Festivities) and next month we're having our 5th edition of our annual club diner (which is actualy just an excuse for a bacchanal) 

[frogimus]

@fitterpete, that's some good information. As you guessed the rent here isn't bad, but mostly whole buildings (with insurance needed). I can see where you come from on RPGers and CCGers being transient and possibly unreliable but some of the RPG players here are actually in their 30's and 40's and they would be prime candidates for tabletop gaming. My son and his friends would likely jump at a chance for a place to play casual CCG.

@eilif, I would be thrilled to have a large enough group of close friends that share an interest in miniature gaming to have an arrangement like yours. Unfortunately, the usual hobbies in this area involve going to the woods with firearms, 4-wheelers, beer, or any combination of the three.

@zizi666, thanks for the information. We don't really have the recognition of socio-cultural groups here.  You've piqued my curiosity about that difference in our cultures and I think I'll research that more.

A nearby town has purchased and are refurbishing the old elementary school into a community center and I just read in the paper that they willbe renting classrooms to groups. That sounds like it may be a good route for us. $10 per night usage fee.

If anyone else has any input, id love to get as many ideas as possible. There may even be others reading this that are looking for this info.

[fitterpete]

Man I'd get together with the people who run that community center ASAP.
Get in on the ground floor and start a dialogue.See if you can prepay for X many nights, whatever your core group can afford.
If there are people coming there for other things(,clubs ,classes,etc) you may find even more gamers or people who would like to try gaming.New people will feel "safer" coming to a community center than some "room" off in the boonies too.
Good luck, again!
Pete

[zizi666]

Another possibilty, although maybe less obvious is a tavern.
There are actualy several groups in Ghent, but only 2 more  that call themselves a wargame club :
The Red Barons (some 20 members I guess), who come together in a café in the center of the city every thursday night and The Thunderbolts, a large club that has meetings several days a week in The Outpost, a big LAN & games center. Both clubs are regulars at their site and can use a cupboard to store some items (mainly scenery)

[HerbyF]

I have been a member of several different clubs over the years. Some of them have been very focused, a certain period or even a rule set. Some have been quite open and try to cover a wide range of gaming. A few have had or tried to maintain a club house or rented room. Most will meet weekly/monthly at a public venue like a game store or community center. And more often at someones private home with the space to host games. A lot of guys that are into gaming have game rooms at home. There are a lot of clubs out here where I am and some people are members of more than one. there is also a few occassional cross overs. Some clubs stand the test of time, others form and desolve and regroup in another form. I used to game 3 or 4 times a week. Now I am lucky if I make it to a agme more than twice a month. My work schedule is out of cync with the guys I usually game with. I'm lucky to be associated with some very active clubs that are not dependent on my regular participation.

[warlord frod]

The club I have associated with for the past 25 years has rented a hall in a local church 4 times a year. We also rented the legion hall for a weekend convention but now have moved to a larger site once a year. The rest of the time we have meet in one of the local game stores or homes of members. We have an annual membership fee and a small fee each time we rent one of the halls.

[syrinx0]

 Our group has found new members off of meetup easier than at gaming stores. We have been meeting in the same house for 40+ years. Started off with board games and expanded to RPG's and  historical (mostly WWII) miniature gaming. Lots of history in that basement. Most of us live in different areasnow but we drive back on Saturdays to game. The core is pretty stable for the current two groups that meet (Historical only and other games).  We use meetup to schedule the games and let the far flung alumni kibitz.  Look around, try Meetup and see if there are any gaming groups in your area.

[eilif]

@eilif, I would be thrilled to have a large enough group of close friends that share an interest in miniature gaming to have an arrangement like yours. Unfortunately, the usual hobbies in this area involve going to the woods with firearms, 4-wheelers, beer, or any combination of the three.

Just to be clear, we didn't all start as friends.  One guy contacted myself and another guy from the SBH forums.  We gamed together for a while and started trying to find other folks.  I think only two of the members of our club knew each other before coming to the club and they were co-workers.

Now of course the core group has become pretty tight, but it didn't start out that way.  If you decide to do the home-club thing, I'd say that it is definitely worth it, but it takes a while to build the club.  We were probably just 4 of us for the first year or so.   Even now, most of our meetings are probably just 6 members.  Still, I'd much prefer a small group of regulars to a big group of whoever.

[Vanvlak]

Although I am no longer in touch, mainly due to work taking over all gaming time (modelling is a priority for my spare time), one of a couple of local clubs has Saturday morning gaming (with occasional other events) at the huge garage owned by one member. Prior to this, an earlier incarnation used to meet in a smaller hired garage which had space for medium and one large table, storage space etc. Funds for rent came from membership, and also from sales - at that time the club had secured distribution of GW models locally (this was in the '90s). Prior to that were gaming sessions (not strictly a club) which took place in local stores, but which are now I believe no longer on except in one place (one shop closed down, the other has diminished its gaming activities, and only the third - which was actually a spin-out of the garage club - is active).

The garage solution worked well here, as the place gave some identity to the club, and scope too. This of course depends on the generosity and interest of the owner, and places some constraints, if it is a place owned by a member. But the hired garage option worked very well, although it needed funding.

[Cosmotiger]

The public library in my town has community rooms that groups can use free of charge, as long as you book in advance.  You might want to check into something like that in your area.

[dhtandco]

I live in the holy of Holies for war gaming Great Grimsby in N E Lincolnshire England Why? Because we bought our own building for about £500 over 40 years ago and now have meetings each evening Monday historical Tuesday fantasy Wednesday CCG and historical Thursday general board games and figure games and Friday computer games with options to game at weekends and daytimes.our local council give us a reduction on the rates and I pay around £90 for a years gaming with all scenery provided.
We have had to work hard on the building over the years but it has made the various groups stronger as a result and it gives the club a sense of permanence in the local community and an appreciation of what we have got. I wish you well in your quest for a club If anyone is in our area do contact us for a visit

[PatrickWR]

I live in the holy of Holies for war gaming Great Grimsby in N E Lincolnshire England Why? Because we bought our own building for about £500 over 40 years ago and now have meetings each evening Monday historical Tuesday fantasy Wednesday CCG and historical Thursday general board games and figure games and Friday computer games with options to game at weekends and daytimes.our local council give us a reduction on the rates and I pay around £90 for a years gaming with all scenery provided.
We have had to work hard on the building over the years but it has made the various groups stronger as a result and it gives the club a sense of permanence in the local community and an appreciation of what we have got. I wish you well in your quest for a club If anyone is in our area do contact us for a visit

Jeez, that is the holy of holies! I can't think of a single US-based club that can boast its own building!

I've been discussing a gaming club with a couple of coworkers and was looking for some input from people that have a bit more knowledge about such things.

I've got to say, you've already achieved the most important goal for a gaming group: having a core group of dedicated members. All the rest can come later. Spend some time with these gents, figure out where your interests intersect, and go from there.