Transcript

I started the lunchtime board-game club almost by accident. A few of us were eating together in a room near reception, and someone brought in an old card game. Other people kept stopping to watch, so I put a note on the staff website asking whether anyone wanted a regular session. I expected perhaps six replies; by the end of the week, twenty people had answered. Our first problem was finding a room. The meeting room looked ideal, but it was booked most days and people felt they had to keep their voices down. The canteen was too busy. In the end, the library offered us a small room at the back, which sounds odd for a game club, but the door closes and nobody outside can hear us. At first we met on Fridays because that was when my own diary was quietest. Attendance was poor, though, because many people finish early then. We tried Tuesday instead, and the numbers immediately became more stable. We have kept that day ever since. I also learned not to bring too many games. On the first week I filled two bags, and half the lunch break disappeared while people argued about what to choose. Now I put out four games before anyone arrives. That is enough variety without turning the table into a shop window. One game had tiny pieces that were forever falling on the floor. We replaced the original box with a shallow tray, so everything stays visible and is quicker to put away. It is such a simple thing, but it means we no longer spend five minutes searching under chairs. We also keep one empty chair at each table. That sounds unimportant, but it makes it much easier for somebody arriving alone to join a group without asking people to move bags and coats first. New members sometimes worried that they would need to know lots of rules. To make things easier, we place a green card on the games that can be explained in under two minutes. People can start with one of those and try something more complicated another week. We used to keep scores because we thought it would make the sessions more exciting. In fact, several people stopped coming once a few regular players became very competitive. We dropped the scores completely, and the mood changed almost at once. People still like winning, of course, but nobody feels they are joining a league. The club does not charge a fee. When a game wears out, we use a small donations jar near the door. Most weeks it collects nothing, then someone puts in enough to replace a missing pack of cards. That informal system has worked better than asking everyone for the same amount. Finally, we had to solve the problem of time. People often arrived late and then wanted to start a game that lasted forty minutes. We now ring a little bell ten minutes before the room has to close. It gives everyone a clear signal to finish the round they are playing rather than beginning another one.