Farewel, Farewell

As indicated by my post on the club's Facebook page I am moving into the new post of Operations Manager here at Bournemouth Library in a fortnight. I have spent the last seven years as Senior Library Assistant, over which time my work has changed drastically. During this time I have seen the move to self service machines, two major staff restructures, new staff have come and old staff gone and most relevantly for this blog we have launched the gaming club.

Gaming in libraries has seen a major renaissance in recent years, especially in terms of tabletop gaming. Of the 12 Bournemouth Libraries only one has no gaming offer* and all libraries in Poole offer gaming for either adults or children (and most offer both). International Games Day @ Your Library has an ever increasing number of participants across the world.

My new post means a whole set of new responsibilities and challenges as I will be working heavily within our specialist Music library. There are a number of exciting projects that I will be getting involved with, but one of the by products of this is that I will not have time to spend on the gaming club. It is nearly two years since the club launched and is now running successfully with only minimal staff input. As a result I will be stepping down as the main GCN contact and as the staff member with responsibility of leading the direction of the club. Lyndsey will be taking sole responsibility for the overseeing Worlds Away, which is a sensible move as she was the driving force behind setting up the club in the first place.

I'm not going to be completely leaving the Library's gaming programme though. I am taking up a position on the International Games Day @ Your Library committee advising on how to increase involvement of UK libraries within the event. I'll also be coming along to play games with you lot whenever possible.

*Using the definition of Kevin Maloney that is utilised in Scott Nicholson's Gaming in Libraries video course

AGM Agenda - 29th March

(Disclaimer: we cannot guarantee any cake as fancy

as this one). Taken from Wikimedia.

As mentioned previously we will be holding an Annual General Meeting on 29th March. This will feature a couple of short presentations by me, the vote for our new committee, tea and cake and the opportunity to discuss the club with the volunteers and me. The agenda for this meeting can be found below. The Meeting will open at 12:00 prompt and should be finished in between 30 minutes and an hour depending on how many items are raised in the open floor session. There is only one candidate for each of the committee positions but there is the option of voting for RON (i.e. to re-open nominations).


AGENDA

1. Cake!
2. Apologies
3. An overview of the last year and looking forward to the coming year.
4. Why run a gaming club / What is the club for?
5. Election of the Committee
• Club Leader - David Currie
• Wargames Coordinator - Raphael Pimlett
• Roleplay Coordinator - Jonathan Dalton
• Board and Card Games Coordinator - Benjamin Currie
• Libraries Representative - Unelected Position (Darren Edwards + Lyndsey Collis)
6. Process for electing a new GCN President.
7. Open Floor.

GCN EGM

NOTICE OF A GCN EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING

DATE & TIME: SATURDAY 26TH APRIL 2014 at 11am

LOCATION: THE MOOT, GAMES WORKSHIP, LINTON ROAD, NOTTINGHAM

This EGM is being held due to the untimely death of Mr A.W. Barnes which has left the position of the GCN President vacant.



The Election Process:

Initial Nominations

Any Member of a currently active GCN Club may apply for this position.

To become a nominee, the member will require a nomination from each of a minimum of three GCN member clubs.

A Nominee must complete a basic manifesto, no more than one A4 page, which must be submitted via email or post to reach the Treasurer, Steve Nolan by Thursday, the 27th March.

 
The Voting Stage

Voting Forms and Copies of Nominee’s Manifest will be emailed to all GCN Member Club Reps over the weekend of the 29th and 30th March.

Clubs wishing to vote must return their voting form, either by email or post to reach the Treasurer by the 24th April 2014. Alternatively, club representatives may attend the EGM and cast their vote at the meeting. One vote is allowed per Club.

 
The Extraordinary General Meeting

The meeting will take place at the Moot, Games Workshop on the 26th April 2014.

Representatives from all Current GCN member clubs are invited to attend.

All of the current Council will be in attendance together with the Nominees.

The Nominees will be invited to give a short presentation after which the attending Clubs will cast their votes. These will be added to the postal and email votes and a winner declared.

 
The President’s duties

1] To act as a figurehead for the GCN

2] To promote the GCN and its member clubs

3] To chair all GCN Council meetings

4] To promote the gaming hobby to the general public

5] To liaise with member clubs & GCN officials

 
Notes: Prospective candidates should be aware that this position does require a large amount of personal time and private expense. Most importantly as the head of the Council and the GCN, a President needs to have tact, diplomacy and a vast reservoir of patience.

Tony Barnes 1956-2014

I have just found out that Tony, the President of the Gaming Club Network, died suddenly this morning after a period of illness. I never had the pleasure of meeting Tony but had communicated with him via email considerably whilst we were arranging for our club to join the GCN, and Lyndsey and I spoke with him over the phone immediately prior to us joining. Tony was a thoroughly nice chap who was very helpful in guiding us through our earliest steps as a club. The GCN's press statement can be found on their facebook page.

Merry Xmas Everybody

Yet another bumper turn out on Saturday and as it approaches the end of the year we can look back at the success of the club over 2013.

I think it was probably early this year or late last year that Lyndsey and a former colleague of ours first came up with the idea of running a gaming club at the library. They had already spoken to Medi (Library Service Manager) about the idea and had received positive feedback. I jumped on board as I had thought about running a club at the library before but hadn't got any further than that. I had a bit of experience of running gaming events from my time, about a decade ago, as Secretary of Bath Uni's LRP society.

Before anything got off the ground our colleague left for pastures new leaving Lyndsey and I to launch the club as part of the library's World Book Night celebrations. We'd spoken to a few people about the club before the launch and word had filtered through to Patrick at GW and on the day of the launch I ended up chatting to him about Mordheim and some of the other older games they made.. Making the link with GW was crucial as from this we ended up with our wonderful volunteers who have been the key in creating a successful club.

Shortly after starting we joined the GCN and as a result are advertised both on their and the GW website. In November we were one of a handful of UK libraries taking part in International Games Day.

Our first sessions had a mere 4 attendees but as word got around our numbers have increased and we now have a high of 20 people at any one session. Over the course of the year we have welcomed 51 different people to the club of which 19 have joined as members and another half a dozen or so have been attending regularly but haven't joined the club. Slightly over 30 different games have been played at the club and there is a list of around 30 other games that members have expressed an interest in playing. This blog has had over 1000 visits, despite the fact that it seems impossible to find via Google.

 

Have a great Xmas everyone (and New Year if I don't make it along next weekend). Next week I'll post up some of our plans for the club for the coming year, onwards and upwards!

Local Clubs and Conventions

We aren't the only gaming club in the area, in fact there are a whole host of clubs, some long running others newly springing up just like us.

If you are interested in wargaming there is a selection of clubs running locally.

Poole Gaming Society run every Tuesday evening at St James Church Centre in the Old Town of Poole. They run a wide range of different wargames from Bolt Action and Judge Dredd to Warhammer and Malifaux

Southbourne Tabletop and Boardgamers (or STAB) who meet first and third Sundays of the month at Tuckton Social Club. According to their website they run a wide variety of wargames, roleplaying games and strategy games.

In Wimborne one of the newest GCN clubs is running. Warborne gamers club runs on Monday nights at Wimborne Town FC. They run the current crop of Games Workshop games.

Even further affield in St Leonards there is Wessex Wyverns,who formed from the ashes of the sadly deceased Battlescar club that met in Branksome. They meet every Monday evening at St Leonard's Hotel and play a wide variety of wargames and roleplaying games.

There was also Dicepocalypse running in Kinson, their facebook page hasn't been updated since the Summer so I'm not sure whether they are still running.

If roleplaying is more your thing the why not try one of these clubs.

Bournemouth Berzerkers who meet in St. Catherine's Hill in Christchurch Dorset on Friday nights. Or if you are Poole based there is Have Dice who meet on Thursday nights at Poole Rugby Club.



There are also 3 local roleplaying conventions, Consequences, Conception, and Indiecon. All of which  run at Naish Farm Holiday Park.

If your a boardgames devotee then Flirt has been holding a boardgames evening in association with locally based company Bag of Holding, though no dates for next year have been announced. (NOTE These are now set to run on the second Saturday of the month - 20/2/14)

If you happen to be a student at Bournemouth Univesity they have a gaming club as well, which meets on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Club Documents

We, as a club, have a set of rules that define how the club is run and how you should behave whilst at the club. These are displayed at every session, but how can now also find these online.

Club Rules
Code of Conduct
Safety Rules

These are all living documents and they can be changed by Lyndsey or Me at any time to best meet the needs of the club and Bournemouth Libraries. We will organise an official AGM at some point in the new year to dicuss how the club is working and think about improvements that could be made.

As well as these there are also a set of documents produced by the Gaming Club Network, which we are a member of. These documents can be found on their blog and Scribd account. The minutes for the recent AGM are here.