find friends to play board games with

And just to give you an idea of how fast we’ve been, inexplicably growing, I’ve gone from 50 members last week to 57 this one.

So it’s been a little while, and I think I should probably update this goal a little bit. The pizza place, though the space was amazing, was so poorly managed that there is no way I could see us remaining there. So we have not, instead we have switched completely to the Deli as the place we go.

Administration
I elected 2 members into the position of assistant administrators. One I’ve dubbed my replacement for the meetings I can not run, and the other is the groups photographer. Pictures are a powerful tool, particularly for the website, to entice people to want to come and game. This has eased some of the stress I’ve dealt with in the past.

Another thing is that I’ve decided to experiment with having no more ‘themed’ meetings, just ones where people can declare that they intend to run a particular game. I like to line it up the week before, or multiple weeks before if it’s an expo of an RPG. I then write up the next meeting and include it in the description. Afterward I send a reminder to the person who is running the game about their obligation. This seems to work.

Growth
The group is in a strange state of flux. We’re losing regular attendees due to the start of classes, and yet we’ve been gaining members at a rather brisk rate. From the start of summer to now we’ve gone from approximately 35 to 50 members. We’ve also dipped from 13 regular attendees to 10, and it seems that one is always brand new to the group these days.

This is somewhat scary since, were the stars to align correctly, and on a particular week everyone in the group didn’t have lives, we’d probably end up with 17 or so people attending. I’m actually very surprised by all of this because it comes about from me talking about the group and it getting passed via word of mouth, or from people who are casually patrolling the website for a gamer group.

I have some intentions to do more advertising but so far I haven’t found places to put them up. That’s something I should get into though- how I’ve advertised and what not so far.

One of the best things I’ve done, I think, is seeding gaming books by making business cards by printing and cutting them out of card stock. I then go to the local gaming section of the bookstores in the area and place them sporatically inside of some of the books. I’ve also made some simple flyers and an Ad that features tear-away tabs which list the name of the group, our website, and my contact email.

On the horizon Flat-con, a local gaming convention, is coming back up. I want to run an introductory one-shot Exalted RPG and pass out info about the group there. I’d also like other people from the group to host events but I don’t feel confident I could convince them to do much. We’ll see.

We’ve gotten even bigger- todays meeting was 13 people, 4 were new. Additionally we’ve got one big thing set in front of us; I’ll summarize.

We have an offer to use a party room at a kind of “Out of the way” pizza place, on the second floor. It’s private and we have access to drinks, food, and we can go until 11pm or later. Which is all great, but it presents us with some problems.

Primarily what do we do about the places we have lined up now? Do we sacrafice the visibility of Barnes and Noble? or do we sacrafice the kindness and good graces of the Deli?

Recently I got an email from the “Rent’s” group list. Gaming nights with them are officially canceled. It’s odd, because on one hand I liked having them as a group- it gave me the opportunity to try new games with others. Yet on the other hand I had so little in common with most of the people there, and work prevents me from being able to go like I used to, that it’s hard to be too choked up.

My boardgame/RPG club has had an interesting couple of weeks here recently. I’ve seen 3 new faces come through as well as 2 new people have signed up. However neither has come yet. lol.

At this rate we are soon to hit the 3 table mark. Fortunately, after last meeting, the store director asked if we would be needing an additional one- so it wont come as a shock if we do.

This Sunday a group of us are going to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. We’ll have to see how that goes.

So, due to life events and what not, one of the friends I’ve made has had to leave. He’ll return to visit, but I doubt, highly, that I will be a feature on any return trips. I’ll get the invite to visit him where he’s at but he’s not going to go out of his way to hang out with me.

That’s the failing to being a kind of facilitator for a game club. It takes a good long while to move from ‘faceless persona’ to ‘friend I like to hang out with’. Hopefully this wont happen with anyone else, that the effort I’m putting in will be cut short.

I will miss Josh X. He’s a good guy, and an awesome comic book buff.

Well, Since the Mecha Mania meeting we’ve had quite a few more meetings and events. I feel very bad that it’s taken me so long to write again on this particular entry because I’m afraid it means I will, regretably, leave out some detail.

Just to clear the air about how much time has actually passed- We now have 66 ratings for 20 meetings, with an average of 4.83 out of 5.

That being said I’m going to take a moment here to reiterate something I mentioned from the very beginning. Consistancy is the key to going about making friendships this way. It takes a long time, but it works very well, and insures that you can filter through people you might not want in your life as friends. I realize that is callous to say, but it’s a truth.

Consistancy is all important.

Phase 2 of the plan, now that I have very established acquiantances, is to develope them. That’s where having small Mystery Science Theater nights (like the one I’m going to have tonight) come in. It is also important to maintain other activities, individual to each person- Calling them up to ask if you can hang out at a bookstore, play pool, take a road trip for the day… etc.

Improving the relationships with the individuals you’ve made acquaintanceships to can be rough- It’s a trick of timing, diplomacy, and a bit of luck. To give you an example; if you consistantly call someone to ask about hanging out, and everytime something bad has or is about to happen, they probably aren’t going to associate you with good things. Consequently you aren’t going to improve things for yourself.

Expansion is the final stage of Phase 2. Expanding requires additional maneuvers which build on the efforts at the beginning of Phase 1. This involves searching for additional resources to tap to find other people. I have had success at making friends with the use of OkCupid, so I’d like to find other ‘meet people’ sites to see what else is out there.

Expansion will also involve asking others to help out with things- Owing favors strengthens relationships. It will also entail asking everyone if they know other people who will be interested in doing any of the other plans we’re making.

Tonight I had another BARE Group meeting at Barnes and Noble. The theme was Mecha Mania and we were playing RoboRally and Risk 2210. For the first time in 15 meetings I decided that it was neccessary to clear the air about a number of subjects. I made a brief 2 page newsletter and it took me roughly a day or so of editing to summarize everything I wanted to cover.

First off I covered the damn schedule for our “themed” meetings, I’m absolutely sick of attempting to coerce people every other week in to running something. As much as I’d like to, just to make sure things go well, I CAN NOT be in two places at once. So I wrote up a tenative one that effectively covers the next 3.5 months. Of course everyone bitches, god forbid that they be asked to teach games they already like to play. lol.

Secondly I’ve put a whole lot of effort into the creation of the group. It’s been a labor of love, but as it grows it becomes more and more stressful. While I don’t ask anyone to help pay for the web space, do any of the scheduling, network with other groups, explore alternative venues, or play PR person to the businesses which help us out- I’d really appreciate help with advertising and finding potential players. Again, everyone loves the group, but no one is willing to do any of the work to help it.

Finally the last topic I covered was that we’ve had 47 ratings over the course of 14 meetings. Our average is 4.79 out of 5. I want the group to be a straight 5, so I want realistic suggestions about what can be implemented to improve it. No one seemed to have any ideas, but someone is being arbitrary and rating the group a 4 every time (and I suspect I know who). Doing that because you can’t rate it a 5 until playboy bunnies are passing you the dice while you’re sipping on a $500 cocktail and winning at your game is really dickish. That no one could say they had a problem was also annoying since it lends itself heavily to believing that someone is just being an ass.

Crap. I thought I had written this entry but apparently it slipped by me. This past Wednesday I had a meeting at Barnes and Noble again. 12 people had RSVP’d for it by Sunday, but I was so busy I didn’t get the chance to check the site before the meeting was suppose to start.

A half an hour away I had to call the manager of the store to say I would need two tables since I had 12 people. A table can, at best, set 8. After 2 days of working steadily on the event I was suppose to run, and after feeling forced to demand a second table for the meeting- only 7 people even showed up. 2 canceled their RSVP’s, one on Monday and the other earlier that day, and 3 others… just didn’t show up.

While we did our meeting, I had 2 people with me at my table, and Jovan had 3 at his. Management and staff both walked by us and half scowled.

Even though it’s been 4 days since then it still really makes me mad. I want to say something. I looked like a gigantic idiot to those in charge at the bookstore. Perhaps I even NEED to say something to those who simply didn’t show, but I can’t figure out what.

In other news X, and Josh have gone home for Spring Break. Jovan is around, and we played 2 games of Bloodbowl, which was enjoyable at points. I just really hate getting screwed by the dice.

We got an hour and a half late start, but otherwise went great. 3 of the people my wife invited came, and then later Jovan, Josh and X dropped in. Beginning at 7:30 We all sat through 2 shows (Space Mutany, and Overdrawn at the Memory Bank) and had a blast. The 3 others left, and the rest of us talked over the TV as it played “Godzilla vs. Hedora”. Godzilla ended, and the conversation was so engrossing that we continued to chat… until 5am.

It was alsome.

Tuesday was ‘Rent’s group. Fine by me. We started at 8pm and went until 12am. I didn’t get to bed until 3am.

Meeting 11 took place at the Deli. It was our 3rd Pickup meeting and I enjoyed it quite a bit in spite of a lack of games to cover all (10 of) the people. I ran Bang! twice and passed out Family Business to Jovan, Josh, and X. (mentioned in the meeting 10 post).

We were given free cookies, and at the end of the night some free, and very excellent, ravioli soup! Everything went great, so far as I was concerned, and when it was over Jovan wanted to play Arkham Horror again over at X’s place. Fine by me. We started at 10pm and went till 2am, then talked until about 3.

Thursday I called Michelle, we played Samurai, Fluxx, and Citadels at Borders. Additionally 2 players from the Rents group were passing by and joined us for a 4 player game of Samurai, which was very cool. However, just as we were finishing up playing Jovan called to let me know Josh wanted to play RoboRally, a new game he’d managed to get. Fine by me. We started playing at 9pm and finished at about 2am, whereupon we made plans for Friday.

Friday we met at the Coffeehouse for A Game of Thrones because I am hellbent on getting people to play it with. Michelle was able to come out, and she brought with her ‘Taa-Daa!’ RoboRally! So when we finished up AGoT we jumped into playing that. X came by just as I was crushing house Tyrell at Highgarden and Oldtown to end the game as house Lannister. He was able to hop in on RoboRally even though he hadn’t played before. (and neither had I until the night before!)

Today is the MST3k night at our pad. The guest list includes 8 other people beyond my wife and I. It should be fun, but HOLY HELL AM I EXHAUSTED!!!! I’ve spent the last 4 days gaming until late at night. So I plan on sleeping right… NOW!