Next Semester

Right, so in theory anyone can post here just by typing a confirmation code after you post. Just make sure you save your typings in a notepad or something in case you mess that part up.

I figured if we were sending a bunch of emails back and forth that might clog up our inboxes. This way we can all catch up without that nightmare. And, worst case scenario, read my rant and email me like normal.

Since we're all busy but getting a jump on this is important, check out the topics by section.

1. General questions and comments.
Biggest thing is we need more people running games. Here's the current lineup.

• Week 1
  Brandon's Hunter the Vigil (Innocents)
  Evan's Spell Jammer
  (Available Slot)
  
  (Available Slot)
  Andrew's Changeling (NWoD)
  (Available Slot)
  
  Week 2
  Johnathan Kastner's Alkarin
  Evan's Oriental adventure campaign
  (Available Slot)
  
  Johnathan Kastner's Vampire: Chronicle of Ages
  Brandon's X-COM: TWILIGHT WATCH
  (Available Slot)
  

A lot of empty spots. Granted, the third game does have a tendency to dissolve, but the main slots being empty is something hopefully folks will think is fun to fill.

If anyone has notions here, please let me know. I know there was some discontent from a few of the games that ended last semester, but I never heard why, so it's not being fixed.

A possible GM practice was suggested, in the past they have been run by Andrew but never were long lasting. I'd be happy to try something like that, maybe during an empty game slot, but am open to other ideas. Initial polls indicate a few "Sounds possibly neat" and a pile of "meh".

Here's those results:

http://www.screencast.com/users/Mellagon/folders/Jing/media/0d7b8c31-216b-4020-9b6c-5e72f126cc73

http://www.screencast.com/users/Mellagon/folders/Jing/media/0091aa09-3ae3-45eb-9ccf-1e3d1d737f79

I suspect this problem is solved only by volunteerism, as ultimately people will only play games if people want to run games.

2. Spring Centertainment.
I've heard we don't get many signatures at this event - do we want to attend? I'd lean towards focusing on other publicity venues.

3. Upcoming events (picnic, new publicity, etc).
If we do a big push, I'd need someone to assist (I've got a part-time job nowadays) and we'd need some notions as to what kind of event. A one-shot day is natural, but we may not want to sacrifice two gaming days per year to this. Perhaps a non-Saturday night.
My current simple notion is -
1. Find two people willing to run one-shots.
2. Put up fliers.
3. See if people show.

4. Potential new officers
We need a new book club officer, and Josiah suggested I contact 'Matthew', as he's already a member/ Anyone know how to get a hold of him or who he is? Josiah did not know.

And as a replacement for Elaina, our old Alien Envoy, I'd like to nominate Katherine, who has been excellent and aggressive at promoting game night. It's mostly an honorary thing, but it would mean including her in our discussions. I don't know much about her personally, but she's been persistent in the face of fluctuating interest.

5. Quick bank talk.
Our account seems best open at First Bank, so I'm re-opening that and can provide transportation for whoever next collects the funds.



6. Voting question
Someone refresh me, as it's been done different in different years - we do game voting at the Spring semester, right? I think we should this year to draw out new GMs. I would propose Saturday the 15th as a start and Saturday the 22nd as a finish.

okay so here are some basics, one what happened to Josiah, and I have no idea of a Matt, second Kathrine would be a good person for the position, secondary option cutting down the officer ships, Book club can be run by someone like a GM, PR can be one position, and we can try to get that person to actually push things, otherwise my vote is for Katherine, she has been a stable member in my games, and seems generally interested in the club.

This isn't a bad way to have an online meeting, to be honest. Good job, John!

Spring games: I know Zach is interested in running something, Deadlands or something of that like.

Spring Centertainment usually seems to be more effort than it's worth, but we have been getting a LOT more signatures and/or interest ever since the newest squad of officers. Maybe giving it one more shot wouldn't be so bad?

New officers: I don't know either of those two or how to contact them. I would offer for book club but I can barely find time to sleep as it is...

As long as the bank account works, that's fine.

And yes, John, we usually do spring voting for games (and officers if we have positions to fill, but only for the empty positions). The 15th sounds fine, but I won't be there due to work (Stupid people quitting and making me work a 9-5 shift on Sat...).

Thing 1: I think with results of 1/3 saying they'd most likely go, there's no reason not to at least try to set something up (and I like the idea of the open time slot for a game; that way it could potentially become a game if we run out of questions and someone wants to try running a session or two for the rest of the learners). As Evan said, the support that new GMs will have is important and I think a practice-game would be a good investment for next year.

Think 2: I do still have the one gift card thing somewhere and i'm not sure what people wanted to use that for? I like the idea of using it as a recruiting thing, it worked previously; just enough to get the person back for a second look. If this centertainment isn't too expensive, I think it'd be good to be there (based on previous attendance/member number correlations) even or especially if it's just one or two people all day. There's less likely to be rushes of people at this event and so I don't think we'll need the pile-o-helpers we had in the fall (not that there's room for it anyway). But if we don't have a booth there, I don't think it's a giant loss, just one i'd rather not chance.

Thing 3: Kinda meh until further info on this, i think we need to talk about a picnic at some point, mostly what weekend we wanted to do it. i like the idea of sometime the week before finals, stress relief/break. if we wait until after/during finals then people go home.

Thing 4: No idea who our mystery book-clubber is but setting up a surprise meeting, posing as a member of book-club until we have an established ID, may work. As for Katherine, I like the nomination. Even if it's only honorary at this point I think she'd be a great asset to us in the future as an officer, letting her see how we work might help her understand a little more where she can help and defocus her a little so she can help with more than just Game night. She's new and not-yet-jaded in the way that most if not all of us are, and she's driven. I think she'd help us get things done.

Thing 5: Yay!

Thing 6: I say yay also to voting this semester, was unaware that we ever didn't do voting. The 15th - 22nd sound good for me, votes start at noon on the 15th and end at 6 the 22nd? Games run as now-scheduled both of those days and officers can step out of whatever games they're in (or running if they want) to hash out the schedule. Pull in GMs from running their games for a few min at a time so we can have their input but it's not the crush we usually have of everyone in club waiting to see where games fall and trying to be in the room as they do.

Josiah is out of town job hunting as of now and for the foreseeable future. I asked him.

I second maybe paring down the positions we have available.

Something I forgot in my first post, how do we want to handle absentee votes? I know it's never really been an issue but a workable standard might be a good gift from us to club.

1. General questions and comments.
Support staff - good notion. So I'll identify you people before voting and say, "Ask them or me for anything you need." Also if I have time I'll run a GM seminar this saturday in the morning game slot. Basically sit around until 12:30 and if no one shows up I'll be on my merry way and try again later.
Josiah also suggested a movie night, but we'd need volunteers to run that. He suggested we could charge a 'modest donation' for snacks, since we can't charge for tickets.

2. Spring Centertainment.
If Centertainment is convenient, I can be there. We might as well staff it if we can find time.
The fair this year is
Wed, Jan 26th. 10:00 AM - 03:00 PM
I'm at work all through that time, so we'd need other bold volunteers. I've sent an email trying to get us a spot, just in case.

3. Upcoming events (picnic, new publicity, etc).
Picnic before finals sounds like a fine notion, maybe the week before the week before. People will be cramming that weekend and people will have left the week after.

4. Potential new officers
I think I'm ambivalent on the number of officers. I like having good consultants and lieutenants and all that, but the positions are pretty lightweight as it is. Although I did just double-check the constitution, we'd have to alter it via vote to actually remove it. Is there enough interest to do that? My vote is currently for no.
Fresh news - just got an email from Luke Webb inquiring about Book Club President. He wanted to know if there's an application. I think the fact that he volunteered, managed not to swear, and had good spelling makes him perfect :-P . Mainly the volunteering thing. If we don't get any other people chomping at the bit, he's got it.


5. Quick bank talk.
Yay. I'll drive the money over there once we collect the new semester pile. Same deal as before, and I'll make a note to future presidents why it's this way.

6. Voting question
Alright, I'll start it this Saturday (with informal pitching as most people will not have more than last minute notice) hold a real sit-down vote next Saturday, and close up that evening.

Did I miss anything? I may have missed something. Again, feel free to discuss as needed.

About absentee votes - I think it's done from their email to the overlord account. Easiest way to have some measure of certainty of non-forgery. That and we've taken handwritten notes if they are signed. Any other thoughts?

2 - Wednesdays are mu busy days but it's early enough in the semester that i'm ok with missing a day of classes to be there all day.

3 - That's a fair thing to decide now, is the picnic on a week day (thursday/friday) or does it take up a time that people might usually use for a game (sat/sun)?

4 - Yes! I pick this "Luke" character based solely on your description of apparent int and cha scores!. it is now his first task to find the legendary "Matthew"

6 - most of the games will either be "see last semester's description" or "so here's a seed for a game, the more people who are interested in that tiny bit of an idea i've had, the more it'll grow". plus that way we can know that games we're running before we have to tell people at centertainment "well this is running right now but that's changing this weekend. i have no idea what to"

Updates -
Luke is looking like a good, ambitious option. I'll likely promote him if there's no objection. He may want to take the book club more separate, it sounds like as a long term goal, but if it gets big enough, we can cross promote and it should be fine.

I've signed us up for Spring involvement expo - if you can make it next Wednesday, Amanda would likely appreciate not being left alone. I'll promote this in the email, but let's face it, it's word of mouth that moves people.

We'll start game voting this weekend. I'm leaning towards not renewing with the classroom off campus unless requested, as they were utterly inept at getting us our room. First not signing us up, despite saying they had, then not informing facilities to let us in, then not cleaning so Brandon was facing creepy abandoned nightmare room.

Anything else we need to discuss? Are we keeping on top of stuff?

My back burner projects;
Figure out phoneraiser (I had a few phones donated, now to figure out wth to do with them).
Promote club (somehow. No real cheap thoughts here. We'd need an event to tie into the promotions).

If anyone wants to spearhead anything, I would do a tiny happy snoopy dance.

~John

So Joe is normally just a font of evil, but he had a decent idea.
Instead of expensive Halloween party, a zombie hunt, as per HVZ. The initial cost of guns would be less than a food party, and if we checked them out with money (or signatures if we're suckers) and just assume lost darts are lost, or charge a bit, we'd save some cash and still have a fun event.
Only thing I can see is fancy costumes are not suited to gaming outside, nor are high heels. But still, it's not inside a box.