Club introduction & information

This isn't a chance for me to have my annual moan but with a lot of new members to the club already this year, I thought it was worth just putting some information in one thread which may have been missed (although older members may also like to pay attention, yes, you at the back stop calling me Hitler).

Firstly, welcome! Hopefully people are finding we're a friendly bunch and you're enjoying being part of the club.

We try to keep things informal, as has been discussed elsewhere today, but if you want to know a bit more about how we operate then here here would be a good place to start and this thread a good place to ask questions. People will have found us from various places but as well as this forum we have Facebook and Twitter pages where you can follow what we're up to.

It can be useful to use your real name to help us identify each other at the club, it also helps with remembering names; feel free to introduce yourself on this thread.

There is a £2 annual fee for members to support the forum, pay for boards and to go towards prizes at our Christmas party. Your first visit to the club is free and your payment will last till the end of December that year. Aneurin and I collect the money, we often come 'tin-rattling' but please feel free to come say hi. The fees aren't much but they do pay for the forum URL and for it to be ad-free.

A few years ago, when we had less than a dozen regular members (6 was a good turn out and I joined during the good times!) there was a £1 weekly fee. This was used to buy games for the club, hence why we have a club library. Anyway, this is no longer necessary given how much the club has grown and the range of games that we own between us - Pauly G and Aneurin could provide enough games on their own to keep us all going for years!!

We took the decision to scrap weekly fees and instead ask for £2 a year. Subs are due for each calendar year, not 12 months from when you first paid.

We've also used the money to buy and cover the wooden boards that we play on. Finally, any money left over either goes in to the kitty towards the Christmas party food and prizes or is used to buy new games. We don't intend to buy lots of games, we've established a decent library with a good mix of games but we're always keen to see what's popular, or not, and replace or replenish as necessary.

The University Arms allows us to use the room for free and we do ask that everyone at the club does what they can to support the venue. People often meet from 6pm to have some food before the official start time and anyone is welcome to join in. This is a really good venue for us, it was hard work to find and arrange and we need to support it as much as possible.

We have no real rules, we just ask that that everyone treats each other with respect and tolerance. Oh and no drinks on the nice felt boards please. So we have one rule.

I've rattled on a lot longer than intended, I hope this is useful as an introduction to the club and gives members new and old some idea of what we do to keep things going (not a lot).