Saturday, 26th April 2003

7.00pm

Minutes

In attendance:
Committee Members - Phil Benson, Peter Murray and Gerald Udowiczenko.
Members - Steve Beer, Andrew Bourne, Matthew De La Mare, Gabriel Figueira, Julius Foxton, Fiona Gibbonzo, Wayne Gibson, Pam Lindsay and Carl Phillips.

1. Chairman thanks all those attending and passes on apologies from Ben Counter, Tim Eccles and Rainier Madruga for their absence.

2. Chairman's Report.

• Good to see that there are five or six new members who are regular attendees.
• Website has had plenty of hits, with the games currently running experiencing some good traffic, especially Warhammer WFRP and Exalted.
• The clubs activities at Gencon UK 2003 were deemed a success, with only a couple of tickets unsold. The main downside was Peter Murray's second SLA slot being advertised as Cthulhu.
• The trophies and prizes were well received by those participating and interest has already arisen from people organising smaller conventions.
• Since the experiment with evening slots, concern was raised about room costs being covered when only one game is run. This is mainly due to various games days around the country and those who attend, include two of the clubs current GMs.

3. Treasure's Report.

• Attendance has stayed pretty constant even though Renewals are not as high as expected, but not all renewals have been completed.
• Since last year, the club has recorded a loss of £256.92
• Due to the excess gained from the previous year, the club is still in the black by approximately £100, but concern was raised that action must be taken to make sure this figure does not decrease further.
• It was mentioned that at least 72 hours notice is required to change, or cancel a session and this must be followed up in writing.

4. Conventions.

• The Community Centre is holding an open day on Saturday 26th July. 
• If the club was to make a presence, a more visible game such as Heroclix or Crimson Skies would encourage interest.
• If the club were to hold a convention at the centre, a possibility of support was mentioned from Mark Smith of Horseman Events.
• However, it was decided that no further action would be taken until after future conventions were Shadow Warriors had contributed to running games, in order to see how well received and hopefully increase contacts.
• It was agreed that a Convention Sub-Committee should be established and offers were made from Julius, Steve and Peter to head this committee. 
• Individual roles would be determined in due course.
• Gencon 2004 Amsterdam. There was interest to have a similar presence as at Gencon UK 2003, but it was agreed that the Convention Sub-Committee should discuss this nearer the time.

5. Recruiting New Members.

• Since Gencon UK, there has not been a noticeable increase on visits to the clubs website. There were visits from two new people, one of whom not only joined the SLA game, but also stayed for the AGM.
• And So It Begins, the games store located in Ealing Broadway, are planning to move to a larger location and plans are being considered to provide a gaming area.
• The club have been approached to provide help in organising games if this plan goes ahead. The game store will also provide a valuable location to advertise the club.
• Currently our website has links to and from a variety of games related sites, such as Orcs Nest, Leisure Games, Games Lore and Crimson Empires.
• Contact has also been made with Mallarkey, an auction site that posts details of products people wish to find and buy.

6. Writing Skills.

• Two of our members, Tim Eccles and Ben Counter have had material published and members were invited to approach them if they were interested in following suite.

7. Review on current RPG's and future games.

• Warhammer is currently the longest running game and Tim, has expressed an interest to carry on.
• SLA has been running since mid 2002 and Peter, at some stage soon, would like to change in order to give his Unbound system another trial at the club.
• The two D&D 3e games will continue until at least the Autumn.
• Exalted is struggling due to no game running opposite and this may be brought to a close pending a decision to introduce some board games.
• A strong case to switch the day the club meets from Saturday to Sunday was brought. In light of this, it was felt that those members who could not attend, should be invited to vote as well. A poll has been started on the clubs Yahoo group list to see if there are any objections to this switch.
• Pending the outcome of this poll, a further discussion will take place concerning the introduction of board games into the rota.

8. Contributions and suggestions to the website.

• A request was made to change the background colour as it has been the same for a long period. 
• A suggestion was made to make certain files, such as character sheets, accessible from the website.
• The overall layout could do with a re-fresh and a new version is apparently almost ready to be released.
• As to a daily pin-up, some people enjoyed the Muppet profiles posted at the beginning of April and something similar maybe introduced, for a fun element.

9. Election of Officers and Conventions Sub-Committee.

• The current committee members retained their positions
• As previously mentioned, Julius, Steve and Peter offered to take the three posts in this committee and their individual roles will be determined by themselves at a future date.

10. SWWD.

• Plans are already on the way and agent Rainier has infiltrated Miami in order to recruit new members in the United States. He has also been assigned to spread the word in South America and possibly Scandinavia.
• Current members from Australasia are being briefed into their roles, but there has been a major set back in our plans to access South Africa. Agent Tiny, whilst on recon in Thailand, was set upon by a rabid bus and even though he's now back on his feet, he has been assigned light duties.

11. AOB.

• Adjourn to the pub.