"UK Wargaming Clubs questions from a USA gamer" Topic

Hi everyone,

I've been intrigued by the UK wargaming club scene for some time. As a gamer in the USA, it seems most of us will either drive 10 to 45 minutes and congregate at a game store, or try to set up a gaming table in a friend's house and have weekly gaming sessions with our friends. However, it seems as if the UK is a bit different – with space more at a premium, and transportation more expensive, it _seems_ to me that there are a lot of wargames clubs in the UK. I mean, the kind that have a permanent space, where members pay a monthly fee, and often the club has product for sale.

Does anyone on TMP, that is in the UK, operate or manage one of these clubs? Or are you a member of one?

I'd love to know how it operates, what kind of expenses are involved, etc. I've been considering trying something similar in my city here in the USA and would love to hear any experiences or anecdotes with running or being a part of such a club in the UK.

Thanks!

Berkeley Vale Club is located at the Tudor Arms pub in Slimbridge Glos. link

In return for letting us use the skittle alley on Monday evenings and occasionally whole weekends and storing a dozen 6x4 foot boards we drink the beer, eat the food and sometimes stay over in the accommodation at weekends

There are no club fees

And I am the only club official – The Health & Efficiency Officer

What is a "skittle alley?"

A room for playing skittles

YouTube link

link

Note the Gloucestershire variants – weird bunch in Cirencester – 9 men, 6 hands and 3 balls

Skittles is like bowling only on a smaller scale without all the technology.

The club I go to rents a room once a week from 7pm to 11pm. It is a social club, some technically you have to be a member to buy drinks, which many club members are. We pay an annual membership fee to control membership and also pay £2.00 GBP per night (£1 unsaved) when we turn up. The club also runs the FIASCO show each year which helps to pay for the running costs.

We have a shed in the grounds of the venue where we store some terrain owned by the club, or members bring their own,

Skittles is sort of pre-historic bowling!

we use the function room once a week. £10.00 GBP a year membership and cheap beer too

No, bowling is a way of making money out of Skittles from people who don't drink !!!

There are many variants throughout the UK, some similar to bowling, some not. They don't all use balls, some use cheeses or sticks.

That's probably enough about skittles.

Back on topic, for people who are in wargmaing clubs what do you pay in dues and what do you get (or at least expect)?

yeah, thanks for the Skittles guys. now I want a snack.

But in all seriousness, yeah, I'd like more experiences – what dues you pay, what you get out of the dues… and any clubs that have enough members that they get trade terms through some companies?

Not sure where you are in the USA, but where would you hold you club meetings? I have seen library conference rooms being used as well as some college buildings used for weekend gaming.

I'm in the northern Virginia area and any place around here would be very costly.

Matthew

I think that very few UK clubs have their own premises.

Like Vigilant my club hires a function room once a week and is allowed to keep terrain and tables in a store off the room.

I attend the Deeside Defenders club, i'm not sure how many questions I can answer but I'll have a go!

We meet every thurs in a a Function room in a Social Club in an old WW2 bomber factory. Its a big room with a stage and plenty of seating that they use for parties and shows etc. We have a permenant storage area in a room behind it. The Social club is on the Airbus site, Im not sure though if its owned by airbus, or operated for them or what, but our club IIRC is subsidised in some way by airbus- not sure what that actually entails but it seems to mean we get cheap (or maybe free!) use of the function room.

Members like me pay just £1.00 GBP per night that we visit. There are apparently 200-300 regulars. I think some of the subs go back to the social club, but mostly goes on our christmas party.
Theres a bar in the next room. We also got monthly use of a big sports hall (as in "aircraft hanger" big) where we can play games too. We have an annual show, Gauntlet, held there, and the same traders are there each year it seems. I'm not sure what deals are done if any, between them and the club.

hope that helps.

We use the RNAS Yeovilton community centre, has a bar etc, plenty of tables and a kebab shop on the way from my house!

When my dear wife is away and sometimes when she is not my 12 x 6 table goes up in the sitting room, we have a snug for knitting activities!

Tally Ho!

We hire a hall from a church in Newcastle upon Tyne, and get the use of chairs, tables and some storage space, as well as the kitchen. We pay a weekly fee of a few quid, and that pays for the hall for Saturday 09.30 – 17:00.
As long as we get about 12 people, that covers the hire of the hall. Any more and we save the excess money for weeks when we are a little short of players!

I was a member of the Grimsby Horse and Musket society, back in the '70s. They are now called Grimsby Wargaming Society. They have owned their premises since I was a member, so nearly 40 years. The members did a lot of renovation work and even then it was a good place to game; I think it has got even better. We paid an annual fee, but I cannot remember how much it was- probably something like £5.00 GBP a year-and then a small attendance fee. We had permanent tables, a small kitchen and plenty of space to store scenery etc.
Given property prices now in the UK, I don't think many clubs could afford to buy even the dilapidated old workshop that we started with. My present group use a church hall once a month on a Sunday, we pay £4.00 GBP each for a 5 hour session, that covers the hall rental and also a range of snacks, tea, coffee etc. The hall is well equipped with tables and chairs, so we push tables together and then use these as a base for our own gaming mats or scenic boards. Average attendance is between 15 to 20. Some of us travel a fair distance (I have an 80 mile round trip). Over the year we make a small surplus, which gets used for scenery, mats etc. We don't currently pay an annual membership fee, although we are thinking about it, as there may be issues re public liability when we do display games etc.
Big problem with this set up is we have no on- site storage, so all scenery etc is in members' homes and has to be brought in for each session.

I suppose we are fortunate in the uk in that our ancestors really liked building function rooms of one sort or another- whether its a church hall, or a room above a pub they built them in their tens of thousands . Whether its a haunted Tudor house or the post office social club (both of these house or have housed wargames clubs in Chester!) they are usually available with a largish open room or two, a variety of tables and chairs, kitchen or sometimes a bar, and thanks to being so plentiful they are pretty cheap to rent for a night a week.

The aforementioned tudor house was one I regularly played at for many years, 30-40 gamers one a night a week were easily accommodated, though I did feel a bit sorry for the Silent Healing class that had to share a building with us once a month; gamers don't really do silent…Pity I only just found out about the secret passage to the castle…I might have to go back.

I dont know if you have rooms to hire for the same way in the americas, but there must be somewhere that knitting circles and book clubs and tarot card readers meet…

I am the secretary of our local club. Our biggest expense is the rental of a local church hall where we meet 2-3 times a month. The members pay a modest annual subscription. Currently our membership numbers are insufficient to fully cover the hall rental. To meet this deficit we run our annual convention with the intention to make a small profit.

I believe that the stoke on trent club has it's own premises. They can leave games up.There was a chap in Poole who put the table over his bed and slept under the table if the game was not finished by bedtime. Another Poole group met in the catholic church cryot…whoooooo.

martin

martin

The Border Reivers game in the clock room at Blagdon Hall in Northumberland, pay 2.50 per session once per week and 10.00 per annum. We pay a small sum for the rent of the room, it's all very civilised and jolly British don't you know!
link
link
Dave.

The Falkirk Club, like I suspect many Wargames Clubs in the UK, pays for the rental of a local community hall. In our case this is for one evening per week from 7-11 and one Sunday per month from 10-6. That gives us the use of the tables and chairs in the hall and.access to storage space under the stage where we can store boards and terrain.
For that we pay an annual membership fee of £10.00 GBP and a weekly fee of £2.00 GBP if actually gaming. There is no product for sale.

I have never heard of a UK Wargames Club which meets the description in the OP. There are some local games stores which would.

Liverpool Wargames Association:
link
is probably as close as any to the OP's description.

From their website:
"….one of the few in the country to have its own premises (comprising 2500 square foot and twelve gaming tables)."

Doug

As John said, we rent space in a function room in a local venue which also let us store our tables, terrain etc there. We pay subs to be members, but the club doesn't 'sell' anything.

Being club members we do get some discounts at local gaming shops (10%).

The club has a formal constitution with elected officers (Chair, secretary, treasurer etc) and is, I believe, constituted as a charity for tax purposes. (The treasurer knows more about that stuff, he is an accountant).

Really, it is just a convenient way to find space go and play with a moderate sized group of similar minded people on a regular basis. On a busy night we'll have 20+ people and half a dozen games going.

The Devon Wargames Club meets at the Whipton Social club building , any Club,society or single person can join and then have the use of the building and its facilities .
Our membership fee for the wargames club varies from £20.00 GBP-£10 a year depending on level of funds,and is used to cover the annual joining fees for the Social Club with a tiny amount carried over for those times when our membership is low.
(A club or society is usually required to have a minimum number of people).
The social club provides space and tables along with kitchen facilities etc. There is also a bar in the evenings
Storage space is also available upon request.

The UK is fortunate in that we still have these community buildings available however this is now the third one we have used due to closures.
Other clubs are not so fortunate and will have to rent a room on each occasion and this will obviously reflect in the membership costs.

Like many above, Staines Wargamers use a room at a local community premises. We meet about 50 Fridays per year and charge £5.00 GBP if you play, but no annual fee. We also have some on site storage space.

I'm chairman of Lincombe Barn Wargames Society in Bristol. We meet every Sunday at Lincombe Barn (and that generally includes Bank Holidays), a community centre. We pay an annual fee (£17) to the Barn to be members and charge a £3.00 GBP gaming fee if you turn up and play, although we run a scheme that puts part of that game fee towards your annual membership fee. Play often enough and all or part of your membership fee will be paid by the club. The Barn provides tables & chairs for our use.
We have our own storage area, kitchen & toilet facilities, and we can rent the whole building at a reduced rate for our annual show (Reveille) and TTS, plus reduced room rental for our annual HoTT Tournament.

Thanks to Moonraker Miniatures for the plug,

I am the Secretary of the LWA,
We have always prided ourselves that we have kept the club in the center of Liverpool(we have moved 4 times)
We are a members club and each of us pays £300.00 GBP a year there are condescension and other how pay a table fee to play £6.00 GBP a visit.
We meet 3 times a week Saturdays, Sundays and Thursday evening and any time a group of members wishes to meet.
We need about 30+ members and about 15 to 20 table fee players to brake even.
The club has been going since the early 70s and rented it's first full time premises in the early 80s.
The advantages of have your own premises are over whelming to leave a game up for 2 or 3 weeks, run large board games like World in Flames and Empire in Arms left up for months, we have member how work shifts and come down on week days.
We have recently bought new table tops and carpeted them in green we are hopping to back them with sand and white coloured carpet.
We have recently redecorated the club and put in carpeting.
This only take place with a willing group how put in their time as well as their money.

I used to belong to a small club in Skegness which met in the public bar of a hotel when it had a tenant landlord was open. As far as I knoow it still does, but the membership has shrunk from 8 in it's heyday down to 2 or 3. The cover for the pool table was used as the only gaming table. Fees were £1.00 GBP a night.
I also visited clubs in Kings Lynn and Boston which had, in my view, better set ups.They were both housed in local Conservative Clubs. You had to join the Cons as a member in order to get in,no matter what your political persuasion, unless attending as someones guest in which case they would sign you in I think. The advantages of membership were the food and drink served on the premises, and storage space on the premises,and certainly in the case of Kings Lynn your own dedicated room upstairs which you could rent annually at a very reasonable rate IIRC.
These days my friends and I all live within a 4 mile radius so we have all erected large sheds in our back gardens instead and we take it in turns to host games nights on a weekly basis, no charge the host supplies drinks and cakes!

The Central London club meets in the function room of a pub in Camden. No membership fees, no officers, no gaming fees – the rule of thumb is that if you're there gaming you buy two drinks during the course of the evening. Or a meal on Thursday nights.

For a club that rents function room with storage feature, is the club responsible for insurance or is that the facility's responsibility?

Or is it store items at your own risk?

Just to let you know that there are clubs in the US that have their own space ,etc..
19 & One in Indianapolis . We rent the basement of a bank building. 2500 sq foot , 2 gaming rooms (1 mostly miniatures ,1 mostly boardgames ) 2 bathrooms (male and female ) kitchen , lots of storage ,
we each pay $40 USD a month for membership , guests pay %5 a visit .
Scheduled games Tuesdays, Saturdays and Thursday -any time they want for members

Having just posted about Hereford War-games Club, I'll my 2p.

The Hereford club is using a pub's entertainment room, so no permanent facility.

My local mates and I have only just found them, principally because some of them found us.

We've been running "Big Games" as we call them with themed events mostly AVBCW and BoB for about 5 years, two to three times a year. We hire our village hall to do so and have an all day event. The police is very competitive, and as Deputy Chair of the Hall Management Committee its going to stay that way ! We have people from all over the Uk attend, but that is principally done by inviting people via specific forums, and then they bring their mates etc…There's about 20 regulars and we charge for buffet lunch and hire of hall.

Other than that, I have a loose circle of mates who have being gaming for about 30+ years in Worcester and H'ford. We meet around each others houses, but its usually only 3-6 of us at any one time.