Last week we welcomed 96 attendees to the club over the week. It's wonderful to see the club so vibrant. It does pose a problem in how we communicate. We can no longer just ask everyone to give us ten minutes on a Thursday night to give a quarterly update. So, we are going to try giving a written brief like this each quarter instead. As always, talk to officers or committee members if you have questions.
Club Health
The measures that we use to run the club are on the statistics page of the website. The club is very healthy, with over 1,500 attendances so far this year. RPG attendance has more than doubled and now represents almost a third of our club.
While attendance has gone up, there is a definite more relaxed feel about the club. The building is busy on Thursday nights, but the efforts to improve the layout have had a positive effect. Thank you to everyone for the way this has been handled.
Financially, we are meeting or exceeding our budget in almost all areas. The committee and officers agreed to invest another £ 650 in a variety of terrain, board games, and RPG materials. This takes our investment this year to over £1700. We expect to be able to do this again sometime in Q3.
Wednesday Gaming
In February, we booked additional rooms to alleviate Thursday’s overcrowding and invited war gamers on Wednesday nights. In the last 13 weeks, we have had an average of just 3.6 extra people attend on Wednesdays. We often have rooms empty. From the end of May, we are no longer renting additional space, and Wednesdays return to their RPGs-only status.
Membership Cards
I have been enrolling people and issuing membership cards for the last six weeks. We now have 83 full members. I believe we still have around twenty regular attendees who have not come forward. If you don't have yours, come and find the chairman.
Cards are free and can help identify you as a member of our partners Battle Games and us! But more importantly, for the first time, we shall have a clear list of members. This will allow us the flexibility to do many things in the future, such as offering discounts to members, changing the way we take fees, such as subscriptions, or charging for membership. We will also offer member-only pages on the website.
Rent and Fees
The Daniel Owen Centre (DOC) offers us highly preferable rent rates. It's one of the reasons we have survived the move from Airbus and the pandemic and grown as we have. Energy prices and general inflation are such that the DOC need to increase our rent very soon.
The committee will look at how much of that rent increase we can absorb and how much of it, if any, needs to be covered by an increase in fees. Once we know the numbers, we shall put a couple of options to the officer's group and agree on a way forward. From the recent survey, most people believe our fees are very low and an increase would not be unreasonable.
Safeguarding
Safeguarding is a set of principles that apply to anyone attending our club, especially to any vulnerable person, and children. It is necessary for us to have documented policies on things like complaints, whistleblowing, working with minors, disability access, and the like.
This is why we tested the fire drill the other week and have been asking for next of kin details in the membership process so we are better prepared should something awful happen. In addition to being morally right, written safeguarding procedures are required to get certain insurances and apply for some grants and other funding, should we wish to in the future.
We shall be introducing safeguarding procedures soon, with a simple briefing for all members. Much of this is common sense and should not affect how you attend the club.
Storage
On Sunday 23rd June we shall be stock-taking the club assets to make best use of the cupboard and lockers, move a ll the lockers into room 4, photograph all our terrain, and to get rid of old unused materials. Volunteers to help, please inform a club officer.
Upcoming Dates
DOC Open day 29th June - volunteers to promote our club to the public.
GAUNTLET 6th-7th July - tickets on sale now, discounts for card holders.
27th July - North Wales 40k Team Challenge - get The Dragon Back!
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