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Arguments over club contributions etc
I'd like to put forward a suggestion, in addition to my tournament one...
Free club.
I get we need money to run things etc, but, how about scrapping the nightly fee and charging for events. So, free attendance, possibly with the £10 yearly membership, and then charge for tournaments accordingly... If we set up a regular event rota (as previously suggested) they should easily pay for themselves and most likely have extra left over.
That way, people are paying for what they 'get out of' the club - cos people feel they're putting a lot into the club and getting nothing back. e.g Vanguard players attend 95% of club sessions, and the ones they miss are usually because they can't cover the nightly fee. There are other members who attend only Mondays, and some even less regularly, and so it can be seen as the majority of money going into the club as coming from the Vanguard players, yet we have had ONE Vanguard tournament since the club started. Again, this shouldn't be the case, it shouldn't matter so much, but sadly it is and does.
So, I suggest free club attendance, frequent events, with charges, and better organization of, and more smiles.
Yaaaaaay! ^_^
Free club.
I get we need money to run things etc, but, how about scrapping the nightly fee and charging for events. So, free attendance, possibly with the £10 yearly membership, and then charge for tournaments accordingly... If we set up a regular event rota (as previously suggested) they should easily pay for themselves and most likely have extra left over.
That way, people are paying for what they 'get out of' the club - cos people feel they're putting a lot into the club and getting nothing back. e.g Vanguard players attend 95% of club sessions, and the ones they miss are usually because they can't cover the nightly fee. There are other members who attend only Mondays, and some even less regularly, and so it can be seen as the majority of money going into the club as coming from the Vanguard players, yet we have had ONE Vanguard tournament since the club started. Again, this shouldn't be the case, it shouldn't matter so much, but sadly it is and does.
So, I suggest free club attendance, frequent events, with charges, and better organization of, and more smiles.
Yaaaaaay! ^_^
Comments
I'm all for scrapping the nightly fee's mind you but this argument is kinda lacking imo.
Scrapping fees and charging only for the tournaments, so that they are paid for by the people who use them is an end to that argument. If you play in all the tournaments, you pay for them all. If you only play vanguard, you only pay for vanguard.
If we dropped nightly fees several things would change, including those below.
- No more SGS funded trips. The club subsidized the Comiccon trip to the tune of close to £300. Without that funding, the cost per person would have gone from £5 to £25 (excluding entry costs). This would of significantly reduced the amount of members going, which would in turn of increased the costs per person (smaller minibuses tend to be worse value for money). Also our drivers are volunteers, and I imagine are less inclined to bus small groups to events. Driver hire is another serious expense.
- No free gift for membership. At the AGM in February George promised T-shirts for membership, with the aim of providing other gifts in the future (dice, card playing mats etc). After a few stalls and changes in provider, these finally arrived on Monday and will be handed out over the next week. Due to the low quality of the first prototypes, we moved to a better supplier and the final cost of each T-shirt is slightly higher than the annual membership fee of £10.
- Very limited reserve money for emergencies. When we voted on moving venue or paying £25/night rent, that option was there because we had enough banked to cover rent on quiet nights. Without that buffer, the club could go bust. If we were to enter that situation again, we would have no choice but to hunt for a free venue (difficult), or immediately bring in nightly fees at £3.00 or more. Every venue the committee checked out wanted between £30-£80 per night in rent.
- No more free club BBQs. Although it's called Battle on the Beach, it's really just an excuse to get us gamers outside in the sun socialising and enjoying our picturesque coastal town. I imagine this would be charged at £2+ per person, and would hamper interest.
- Limited funds for promotion/maintenance. The club has expenses such as insurance, paper, poster printing, domain name, membership cards, replacement of club equipment such as cloths, dice, tape measures etc.
- No more club board games. The club has a small collection of board games, which get used by members it least a few times every month. This is a growing valuable resource for the club, and we would no longer have the income to grow this aspect of SGS.
- No free tournaments. This seems obvious, but a consequence is that it discourages people entering who don't feel likely to win - lowering turn out and scope.
Some people might not see these changes as a loss. I would say though that many of our members are on low incomes, and 1 low baseline fee allows us to offer these club exclusive services to all for an equal cost. Part of being in a club (of any sort) is being able to provide for its members.
Out of all our members, it should be noted that card gamers benefit more than any other. Card tournaments are the only monthly opportunity to claim product from the clubs purse for your own. If I remember rightly, In the 19 months since SGS was founded, it has issued ~£25 in prizes for a 40K tournament over a year ago and ~£30 for a modelling competition held around the same time.
The nightly fees cover the services the club provides, and prize tournaments are currently a part of that. None card gamers currently expect nothing in return for their nightly fees.
As for TCG tournament organisation, I am happy to get involved but since we have 2 card co-ordinators for this purpose I believe a fair and equal calender can be created without my help? Club is already happy to provide prizes, with bigger prize support for bigger tournaments - funding is a flexible topic if an issue.
We can hold a meeting on Monday night to discuss this at club level.
As for people getting equal back to what they put into a club is sadly not how a club works. No club (be it a gaming society, a knitting club or golf club) in the world will you pay your fees and get that exact amount back. There are costs such as insurance for the club, repairs for the items that members use, games for people to play and then the events and in the near future some people are going to have to be CRB checked as we get more and more younger members. If we didn't have to pay for all of those other things then yes, we could have free nightly fees. But we do have to pay for those things, and without nightly fees who is going to pay for them? The money we get from yearly membership does not cover it enough.
People have been saying that from the outside it looks like tabletop war-gamers have been getting more than card gamers. But honestly I cannot understand why people think this. War gamers have had nothing paid for them since the Warhammer world trip at the end of January of which some card gamers came with us. All of the recent terrain that has been acquired has been built up from all the bits that were broken or unassembled from job lots bought last year by Ian. Card gamers are currently getting the better end of the stick at the moment having monthly tournaments with prizes.
When it comes down to it if card gamers are wanting additional tournaments, all you have to do is ask... If any one member comes to me and says I and some others would really appreciate having a Vanguard tournament next week then it will happen. But if people don't communicate their interests straight away and start whispering saying they want this and that without actually asking for it then this is what happens; stupid and pointless back and forth discussions with people hidden behind their computers happens. In future if anyone has any real problems with the club or how it is run then they can come and speak to me face to face and we can try and find a more mature method of finding a solution. Equally if anybody ever wants a tournament or for the club to purchase something, just come and find me and we can discuss it; it really is that simple.
Essentially I think if people are more vocal on a regular basis, we won't end up with this Chinese whispers situation which just ends up in disharmony between our community.
I shall be at club tonight so if anyone has any opinions on this matter come and find me and we can discuss them and write them down ready for Monday's meeting.
Hopefully see you all tonight.
As it is we now all have to suffer yet another meeting due to all this. As important as meetings can be, i have gaming to do :P
As for membership t shirts. Im sorry but that is just an excuse to cut some cash out of the large vault of money that has accumilated, nothing more.
Finally, malkom. All you did there was disregard someone elses opinion and try to make them look bad... What have you done recently? Lay off and let lee make his point.
Oh and this should be on a public forum as there are a lot of us (lets say) lesser members that have already suggested this to lee. So its a public opinion
For people like me who work and still don't have much money since I've either college transport or Uni to pay for, £1-50 is actually a heck of a lot when added up-I had to give up another club to be able to attend this one, which I don't regret, because I love playing games with everyone-it's what I always wanted to be able to do as a kid and never could-but it's still a shame. I can't buy things like boosters for card games often because of this. I'd be happy to pay for tournaments I want to enter, or event' I want to attend, but as it stands, I don't seem to get much out of it either since I only play Vanguard and WS occasionally.
John made a good point the other day in that we could just all go to a pub and play card games for free if we wanted to. It would just be a shame since it's nice to all be a society together. So I think, since it is possible, it would be great if nightly fees are dropped now the venue is free.
IF you bothered to read my other posts you would see I actually agreed with Lee regarding the removal of nightly fees. I've never seen the need whilst having a free venue as every other games club I've attended has never implemented it and there are other ways to raise funds, but it's not that uncommon a practice either and i can see the benefits.
I simply felt his argument for the scrapping of fees was somewhat lacking. Which is exactly what i said. My opinion is no less valid than anyone else's and as a paying member i have every right to voice it.
As for this being on a public area of the forum, where any random passerby can read it without the need to register, well if you can't see why that's bad I'm sure someone can explain it.
Being a committee member for the CCG side of the club Lee is in the perfect position to sort out events and bring such matters to the attention of to the rest of the committee before bringing it to the rest of the committee ( that is afterall one of the reasons clubs have committees)
As George points out, the club fee's are a pool for everyones interests and not just the majorities.
He also points out that the CCG side of things currently 'hog the pot' so to speak and at least as far as i've heard, no one in the wargame 'circle' has given two hoots, so why is it all the noise is from the CCG players who already benefit the most?
Also note that a few players dabble in both, I can name at least 3 or 4 regulars that play both wargames and CCGs, meaning they technically benefit more than any other members - is that something else people are going to complain about? Frankly it's a stupid notion but at this stage i don't think it would surprise me.
I'm not attacking Lee personally, i've had little to no interaction with him and as such i have no problem with him ( should he choose to take it that way, thats his choice) but this should have been handled a lot differently instead of the circus we now have.
And I agree with some of the things you're saying, and don't feel you're attacking me, so S'all good...
I think the thing with the 'CCG vs Tabletop' issue is not in relation to solely events/tourneys but a general thing... I.e. if 10 card gamers turn up both nights, that's £30 a week, or £120 a month, yet we get 1 tourney a month. Tabletop players, whilst tourneys etc may be rare, receive terrain and rule books etc. It's been previously stated that there is little other than prizes that CCGers need from the club, and so the rate of events should increase. Again, I'd like to state that this seems to be the general consensus, and not MY opinion...
I get that the organization of said events are down to us coordinators, and thus I suggested the 'rota' to avoid arguments over what/when/who... I also feel that Tabletopers should also be 'rota'd in, as I agree that, event-wise, they are severely lacking.
I'm not saying that, with the fees, the club doesn't work - I can see where everyone is coming from in points for and against this - i was simply suggesting it as a solution to these issues. People aren't paying to play a game they pay for anyway, in a place open to the public (albeit 'rented' space) but pay for the chance to gain something back, and onlyvthe things that interest themselves...
I think that, as soon as something is sorted in regards to tournaments etc, everything should work out fine... I hope...
At the minute an evening at club costs each member 30 pence per hour. I think that pretty good value for a safe, controlled environment that's well lit and warm, with plenty of tables (more coming) and seating.
On a serious note you say us war gamers get all this stuff when a good 80% of our scenery/rule books have been donated! I agree with Simon £ 1.50 a night is cheap for what you are getting! I mean look at the commicon trip for example £5 to get to Manchester and back. The card gamers get tournament a month with prizes, for a night's £1.50 . I seriously think that people are just ungrateful and are moaning for the sake of moaning.
Burn the heretics the flame wars are coming!
The flip side being that using those figures, 10 wargamers can show up for 4-6 months, paying £480-£720 into the club and have nothing spent on that side of the club within that time as the gear supplied by the club (almost exclusively boards and scenery) tends to last a while before it needs repaired or replaced. Even if you halved the figures, those gamers are still putting in up to £360 of funds and getting nothing in return.
That's enough to get another Realms of Battle board and enough scenery to cover it with change to spare.
Rulebooks are, to my knowledge, mostly donated or on loan from club members and the majority have to be supplied by the players themselves, just like army/codex books and the figures themselves. I couldn't begin to name the last rulebook the club bought, we don't even have a copy of the current 40k rulebook and that's a core game.
The last tabletop exclusive event was almost a year ago ( the kill team in August of last year to be specific) and whilst it takes more equipment to play tabletop games, which has the potential to be expensive, it is bought less often and can mostly be easily recycled, as recent kit-bashed additions to the scenery collection can attest, meaning its not as money hungry as it may appear.
All combined (and assuming I'm not wrong),it seems safe to say that CCG players are not getting the rough end of the deal by any measure.
Again I'd like to point out that paying £XYZ into a club (any club) does not equate to the same net return, thinking along the logic that it would insinuates that younger members of said club are entitled to less than others, because their fees are lower and thus they contribute less...
Would that then mean the committee , who also put in their own time and energy into running the club as well as paying the fees, are entitled to more because they put even more in ??....
All of the above is my opinion based on the knowledge of what i believe to be correct, feel free to correct me where I'm wrong though, i hate passing on erroneous information.
Also I'll point out that again I'm not attacking Lee, he just seems to be the only person with a voice willing to speak up.
If you do have any hard feelings about it Lee, I'll be happy to buy you a drink on Monday after the meeting's over with.
p.s Don't use that as an excuse for a free drink, I'll want proof your offended :P
I beleive the club runs pretty well as the sheer numbers of membership proves this. If you want more tournaments, speak to someone in charge so they can address it. They arnt there to say no and dismiss your opinion, they will look into it and try and find a solution.
It could be me ,but there always seems to be a bit of a divide among tabletop players and card gamers? Maybe this has spilled over into the curerent argument?
I play both card and tabletop and beleive that £1.50 a night is very reasonable as although there currently isnt a chgarge for the room, there are other expenses that folks may not be aware of.
Hopefully everyones problems and concerns can be sorted at the meeting. After all the whole point of the society is for everyone to get along and enjoy and promote the gaming community in all its forms be it CCG, wargames or board games.
It'll get sorted and blow over and be right again... Til next time ¬_¬
Also to put SGS into some perspective, the club I attend in Derby charges £2 for attendance however they hire a their own space. Considering SGS does not have rent/bills as overheads and last I heard had over £1000 in savings, you guys should have a vote.