"Rewarding Game Hosts" Topic

Gamers are getting older, games with elaborate terrain take more work to stage, and the same club members host games at regular meetings and conventions.
At our club, we're finding the result is "host fatigue", making it more challenging to get game hosts.
Question: what do your clubs do to thank, reward, encourage game hosts and other volunteers; to give them payback that makes their efforts appreciated?
Also, is this an issue where you game?

The Colorado Military Historians (50 years old this year) have asked local hobby shops to donate gift certificates to the "best" painted unit and the "best" game. There is a drawing for each of these categories to decide who wins. This encourages all ages to keep painting and hosting games.
At our local conventions, Tacticon over Labor Day and Genghis Con over President's Day weekend, the game hosts get in free. The more games you put on, the more tickets to play other games you get.
John in Denver

Occasional unque gaming gifts and food always work well

Thanks for the early input. I think this may be a valuable discussion for many clubs. Is "host fatigue" something other clubs are facing, especially at Cons or events where game hosts must bring games to other venues?

I regularly take games to a small annual wargaming convention in the UK. I get nothing for doing so. In fact it costs me quite a bit of money to attend the event at all!

What, the usual reward of complaints and abuse isn't enough for some people?

We get it sometimes – I find the secret is to have a good rotation of people so some of the suspects can step back for a while.

We also do a lot of nights where everyone brings their own toys (tournament of some kind, sometimes over several sessions) and that is a good way to create breaks too.

I put a lot of time and energy into hosting and often get a welcome "thank you" but no other tangible reward, although hosting has it's own reward (well, usually). I have lobbied our club to waive dues for hosts as an enticement but that doesn't seem to get any traction. I host because I want to see the games I like played and it also focusses my painting, so an incentive doesn't matter to me. But we are often short of hosts and the same guys do the bulk of the hosting. My guess is that is a common situation.

Have any clubs been proactive enough to recognize this concern and come up with strategies to make hosts more valued – and how so?

If a club has the funds I think that it is reasonable for it to pay the expenses – petrol – hotel bills if appropriate – of the people putting on a game at a show in the club's name. It is not really a reward but rather a way of such individuals not being out of pocket.

Hosting at the club consists of people who want to put games on doing so. It should be a pleasure and not an obligation. If it's a chore don't do it.

I would say at Falkirk the majority of games don't have hosts but are simply wargamers getting together to play wargames.

For the HMGS Midwest Little Wars convention we provide a goodie bag for each event they run. This bag includes one homemade brownie and various pieces of candy and gum. In addition at each convention if the judge has run 12 hours or more of events we present them with a medal for valor. Of course we interrupt a game to do it in front of the players so everyone knows. One last thing is that we ask all of our dealers if they want to participate in a raffle to give away some product and all judges and volunteers names are added and we pull names based on how much product we get.

What Mserafin said, especially at the larger cons.

GM fatigue is a problem sometimes. My informal group has a core of guys who are always appreciative of those who run a game. We also have that occasional person or 2 who go out of their way to find something to complain about. I run games for my own pleasure and most of the time, it is enough that others enjoy them too. But I must admit that after preparing a large game and hardly anyone shows up makes me reluctant to do it again any time soon.

Many smaller cons offer GMs at least a token of appreciation. Siege of Augusta, for example, gives a medal to GMs. Such efforts are greatly appreciated.

I do not have a formal club, but I put on a game nearly every other Saturday unless I am gone.

Even the smaller games are very time consuming to set up.

I get help cleaning up afterwards and verbal thanks. Two players regularly email a thank you after the game. The benefit to me is that I get to play the games I want to. However, I realize others may not be as interested in my currently favorite periods as I am, so I rarely do the same one more than twice in a row.

I also get compliments from some of the guys on my table. I do put a lot of work into how everything looks.

Apparently what I get is enough as I keep doing it.

Tom

In our local group only a few have the space to take more than a few of the group at a time but we all do try and contribute in some way. Part of that contribution is playing what the host likes to play, as mentioned above.

We're all old salts so adding new stuff is getting less and less common (or necessary) but joint projects do ease the load even if they are only played with at one location.