Secretary's SoapboxChris Geggus I always
seem to be writing this column either just prior to a convention or just after a
convention. Not a bad thing if you look forward, as I do, to a twice-yearly dose
of heavy face to face gaming. Swan Con in Knutsford was another very good
weekend. Although down on numbers (only 15 stayed), I managed to play a goodly
number of the more sensible multi-player games and even won three of them
(Vinci, Ra and Citadels). It's been a good few years since I won that many games
over a weekend. Even though we had on and off running water at the hotel, thanks
to the local utility company, we fully intend to return next March. I have
previously extolled the virtues of our conventions to our membership and will
continue to do so. However, I have perhaps been remiss in never having
previously given a very basic nuts and bolts look at how our conventions
operate. Informality is the key word! Based on a lot of historicity, we have
always tried to arrange two conventions a year aiming to make one a northern
convention and one southern - simply to allow all our UK-based membership to be
able to get to at least one. However, this has rather diminished in importance
with our greying membership now owning bigger and better cars and thus able to
travel further afield to play. Our
choice of hotels is often limited, simply due to our requirements and the
balancing cost thereof. We need a large, well-lit gaming room with adequate
sized tables. You would be surprised how many hotels struggle to find enough
tables or the right-shaped ones, or even enough lighting to allow us oldies to
read small counters at more than 3 inches distance. Cost is obvious. The bedroom
prices we can generally negotiate , but the cost of the gaming room is often the
stumbling block. One or two hundred pounds for the whole weekend is fine, but
some hotels are asking several hundred pounds for the use of a gaming room for a
weekend. This is totally unacceptable for a voluntary society, so we immediately
lose many possibilities. Whilst we are safely ensconced in the Swan at Knutsford,
we continue to struggle to find appropriate locations in the southern half of
the country. We are paying a second visit to the Dukes Head at Wallington Green
in October (see advertisement elsewhere), which does meet the criteria of cost
and comfort (and location), but we do suffer from a small gaming room. We thus
need to find something better for 2005, so all suggestions welcome. If anyone
gives me a possibility, I will gladly call them up and try my negotiating
skills. If you don't ask, you don't get! One other point that is becoming more
relevant - all the cons are smoke-free. We aren't trying to keep out smokers, it
is simply that many of the rooms are small and sweaty, so anyone smoking can
create a very unpleasant atmosphere for the majority who are non-smokers. For
those who know Nick Barker, he is a pretty active smoker, but happily attends
most conventions and nips outside whenever he feels the urge. Not a problem for
him or anyone else. The actual mechanics of a
convention are very simple. We play games. We do not have trade stands (apart
from my never-changing box of games for sale), nor do we try to arrange
competitions or prizes. Dress is totally informal, even at Saturday dinner I now
have to admit. We try to all eat together on the Saturday evening simply so that
Murray can thank all and sundry and then we can get on
with our gaming once more; otherwise the time is yours. The games that we play
are many and varied, ranging from the usual monster in the corner, through an
occasional 18XX game, to some two player oldies and a number of, probably,
German multi-player games. There are no restrictions. If you want to play a
specific game, try to find and opponent and break out the game.We welcome
players of all ages, shapes and sizes to look in. At the end of the day it is
our hobby and we can only keep it alive by encouraging participation and
pleasure. You might be asked to contribute, say £5, to offset the room hire,
but you also might not. We do not look to make money from our conventions. W
have a totally open-door policy and I would be more than happy for a friend or a
stranger to walk in off the street, sit down and play a game with any of us. I
would never want people to consider that AHIKS is a closed shop. Following
on from my last point, there has been some discussion recently amongst your
officers as to where AHIKS is going. The services that we provide are becoming
less and less valuable to our members as computers and the Internet provide
almost everything quicker and easier than we can do it. Matching of opponents
hardly ever happens nowadays as most members know their limitations and stick to
their recognised opponents or wait for conventions or whatever. All we can
really offer nowadays for the subscription cost is two conventions and four
copies of Despatch. As I have been told, other informal gaming groups can get an
impromptu gathering of 20 to 30 gamers together without anything other than word
of mouth for a weekend at the same cost and with as good facilities as we do.
Good luck to them, but are we doing something wrong? I don't think we are, I
believe it is simply a sign of how entrenched we have become within AHIKS as a
whole. Some of our members game with these other groups and the lesson we can
see easily there, is that groups need to be relaxed and fluid. We have rules and
we call ourselves a Society, but at the end of the day we only want to play
games. That is best evidenced by the lack of offers from anyone to take up
officer positions. Kevin, myself and some of the others have all offered to step
down over the last few years, but not a single volunteer has come forward. I am
not criticising our membership for that, why should I? It simply reflects that
we are continuing in an archaic role within an organisation that has perhaps
outlived its usefulness. I enjoy being a member of AHIKS and will continue to
remain a member as long as I can draw breath, but I could just as easily be a
member of " Gamers Unlimited " or " Gamers'R Us " - the name
is not really relevant. I just enjoy playing games and, to a degree, I enjoy
reading about games and their players on an infrequent basis. I don't want to
sound morbid or negative, but we need to recognise that we as a group are not
growing and do we need to change to grow ourselves or to accept new friends and
colleagues from other groups and areas to enhance our gaming futures? Allowing
for the miniatures, Warhammer, role-playing etc., we are all members of one
hobby and we always need to be conscious of that. We run a risk of drifting into
obscurity if we put our heads in the sand and do nothing. We need to look around
occasionally and talk to others who may not know us or who may not play our
favourite games. They are still gamers - we need them as much as they need us.
If anyone has any suggestions please drop me a line. For those of you who may have noticed - my Soap Box last issue was a repeat of the previous issue. Purely an administrative error I can assure you. I have also started a new role in my company in the last few weeks, so please be patient if you don't get immediate replies from me. It's been a long time since I have had to work this hard! (Good says Murray!). Please see the ad for the Dukes Head elsewhere in this issue . I will take bookings now. Membership
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