Heroes and You; or, The Shape of Things to (maybe) Come

[Rob]

Orrighty chaps, I've met with Silver and we talked the talk of grown-
ups. I made it clear that we wanted to make sure that her desires and
ours dovetailed as closely as possible. This is sort of a preliminary
report that may yet convey facts more eloquently than my blitherings
at the club.

The Overall Objective
Silver wants games played in the shop, during shop hours, to create a
spectacle on an otherwise quiet days. She wants a Saturday afternoon,
from 2pm to about 5:30 but isn't averse to things going a bit longer.
She'd like us to engage a bit with anyone showing interest, but this
doesn't mean having to talk to any idiot willing to chew your ear.
Perhaps a contact person for each ruleset could be established (e.g.
me for Warmachine/Hordes).
She'd like to spice things up with proper demos (e.g. Press Ganging)
or special events that can involve any muppet (e.g. a FoW re-fight
where said muppet is given command of a platoon)

The Physical Set-Up.
Silver's been quietly opening up the front of the shop. It will now
take the movement of a small table, a rack and a carousel to create a
considerable space. I estimated that we could get six of our 6x4s into
that area, but we agreed that a dry run after-hours might be in order.
There is plenty of room out the back for the storage of tables,
trestles and scenery boxes. Currently this space is occupied by
quantities of unfolded boxes - in fact much of this area is still yet
to be "de-Boddyed" (I wanted to say "de-Ianed" but as you can see the
font makes it ambiguous). Silver is more than happy to have our tables
etc here, and in fact might use it as an opportunity to have a bit of
a wall demolition too. I volunteered us for helping with this
operation when it comes, if such help becomes necessary.

Schedule
Given the move gaming of a more casual nature that we seem to be
after, the available space would seem to work in our favour. We could
have, say, a WM/FoW followed by WHFB/40K, followed by Whacky Project X/
Whacky Project Y. This schedule would be available both on the website
and posted in the shop. People could essentially turn up as they
willed. Notice for special events can be given well in advance.
We discussed a bi-monthly project afternoon where we paint/make
scenery or whatever. Silver is opposed to actual painting workshops,
but that's fine because we wouldn't do one. She'd like such project
days to coincide with school holidays. She suggested having a
combination of projects and gaming during the holidays also - easy
enough to do.

Ground Rules
"Use your indoor voice", "Watch your language", "Respect non-gaming
customers", "Keep your fingers to yourself" ...all of these fell into
the "well, duh" category. Anything else we can think of, we can add.
She's in alignment with a lot of us about on-table standards. For
regular games there's no frowny-face standard beyond our own peer
pressure (e.g. OMG KELLY ARE THOSE UNFINISHED BASES GTFO), but for
events it's fully finished or nothing.

Finances
Silver does not want to charge a table fee; it is enough for her that
we get people in the door. Similarly we will have access to the venue
free of charge. Therefore, we must decide: whither memberships? What's
to be done with all that banked cash? Silver mentioned advertising,
and was open to a potential joint effort on this front.

Whacky Projects
Silver is able to get stuff in if people ask for it, but is hesitant
to stock it speculatively. She's heard of Malifaux and could get it if
we wanted it. This presumably applies to stuff from Warlord/Wargames
Factory/Perry as well.

Other Refugees.
I'm going to point the Yugioh guys in Silver's direction. She'd love
to work something out for them a la Friday Night Magic.

That pretty much covers it. There's still stuff to work out on our end
(e.g. the school) but it sounds fairly solid. Hit me up with questions/
comments/objections/suggestions this evening.

Yarr!
Rob

[forry]

kool very kool must say Rob, great write up. Most encouraging news.