What's in a name?

Following the recent announcement of making changes to the constitution, it seems a good time to answer some questions raised about the Club naming competition.  

A silver lining to a mistake is that hopefully you will learn from it. With having to rerun the name competition, we‘ve taken on a lot of feedback. One question raised was Why are we changing the name? And thinking about it, it’s never been the centre of attention in any discussion over the last few years.

While I have a vague memory of the issue being raised at the first AGM at the Daniel Owen Centre, the discussion has always been on the sidelines; talked among Officers or within our gaming groups, always in the background of a more pressing matter. Again, it was mentioned when we voted to change the club to a limited company, with Alan, Ben and Mat stating their intention of holding a vote with the members in the future, once the legal changes to the club had taken place. 

So, why are we changing the name? 

The most obvious reason is that the Deeside part of the name no longer makes sense with our new home. 

Another reason is that while our origin story is and always will be Deeside Defenders at the British Aerospace's Wings Social Club, the club we are today is a very different beast compared to our time at Wings. We have grown and transformed, bearing more differences than similarities to our old form at Wings. If our days at Broughton were our caterpillar stage, then what was to come was our chrysalis stage.

BAE announced that the old Wings building was to be demolished and replaced with a new building that was never going to fulfil our needs. This news was devastating; our long-established club found itself standing on the edge of a precipice... and then COVID hit. The plans we made quickly unravelled, and by the time the pandemic subsided, the club actually split, with friends setting up a new club to the east in Elton.

Thinking about now, the fact that the club survived the move in such turbulent times is a testament to that committee’s willpower. We found a new place, and after a few months of trying to hold on to our roots and still running a weekly session at the newly built Wings Club, we knew it wasn't our future; the Daniel Owen Centre was our new home, and we let go from Wings and settled at the DOC, and we have thrived! We aren’t the club we once were; we have entered our butterfly stage, and a new name seems right.

So, if the first reason for the change is being logical, the second reason is being romantic, the third reason is harder to swallow, our current name and logo are problematic. 

While this reasoning has been raised before in conversations at the club, when you hear someone mention it, you naturally downplay it, not really thinking it’s that bad. But this was driven home at the WrexQuest event a few weekends ago. These are direct quotes from members of the public (mainly parents with children)

“I thought you guys were the Welsh version of the EDL”

“Makes me think of people who are putting the Flags on lamp posts”

“Sounds like the people who go around chasing Muslims”

“It definitely looks like a white power symbol” (the Gaunlet icon)

Having a name that doesn’t make the general public think tabletop games isn’t a major problem, but having a name that makes the general public think the above is a major problem. Clearly, as a non-political tabletop games club, we don’t want these connotations, and we should aim for a name that won’t inspire those connotations.

With the third reason in mind, for the new name competition, we are going to insist that the new name doesn’t have a combat-related theme; hopefully, this stops the unwanted connotations.

Really?!

Yep, really. We want to grow the club and be a welcoming Club to potential new members.. This isn’t the first time we’ve had to make changes. Originally, our Club was named Deeside Defenders Gaming Club; it was changed to Games Club to avoid the connotations of gambling that the term Gaming inspires. Why have a name that could potentially stop a new member from even engaging with us?

We aren’t saying everything needs to be sanitised from all combat-related iconography, but our club’s name does, and our main logo does. 

This is where the idea of alternative logos comes in; it hopefully provides the membership with options of advertising materials and merchandise which suit their specific tastes. We are a large club that plays many different genres of games. Many are combat-oriented, but many are not. We need one name and one overarching simple logo, but that doesn’t mean we only represent it one way. The beauty of a really good logo is that we can embellish it to meet different needs: playing in a 40k tournament? Then a stylised logo across a chain sword or aquila. Playing Old World? Then stylise the logo as a tribal tattoo? Playing board games? The logo is made from many different meeples. The possibilities are endless

What other questions were raised from the feedback?

Another question was why some of the suggested names had tabletop games club, while others had games club?

It was how they were submitted, but going forward, with the rerun, we are going to have the default suffix of Tabletop Games Club on all submissions.

When is the Name Competition being rerun?

Once the consultation stage for changing the constitution is complete, we shall open the competition.