Sunday games...how about using Kickstarter

Hi All,

I've seen a few people kick around the idea of hiring the hall for a game on Sunday's which could be for longer games than can be done in the 3 hours we have at our Wednesday night sessions on this forum.

But so as far as I'm aware the only time the hall has been hired on a Sunday is when Phil has organised War & Conquest days. And these have only happened because Phil has stuck his hand in his pocket and paid for the hall, and recouped the money by charging people who come along.

I'm guessing the people proposing Sunday games haven't followed up because hall hire for a day is not cheap and getting together all the cash is not easy to organise. So here's an idea to throw out there.

Basically this year I got involved in organising a Kickstarter campaign for my daughter. It stuck me that Kickstarter might be a good way of getting the funds together.

Basically as I understand it hiring the hall costs around £20 an hour, so hiring it for 6 to 8 hours will cost £120 to £160. If everyone pays a tenner each you need 12 to 16 club members to agree to contribute and actually cough up (not the same thing!) to get it off the ground. Which is a really bugger to organise, which is probably why it has never happened without someone like Phil who is willing to take it on the nose pay for it up front and then try and recoup. Which is where Kickstarter could come in.

Basically with Kickstarter:

1. Anyone can start a Kickstarter campaign for free. People 'pledge' money. If it fails to raise enough money no one pays anything. If it reaches its target the money is collected and paid out to the person organising the campaign so the project can go ahead.
2. Everyone pledging money enters their credit card details. If the project fails to hit target, no charge is deducted from anyone's credit card, but if it does all the cards are automatically charged and money can be paid out.
3. Kickstarter charges 5% for successful campaigns, plus a handling fee which is under 5%. Shame to pay a third party, but 10% of £120 to £160 is only £12 to £16 which is not a huge amount compared to the hassle collecting the money, especially compared to the headache if anyone says they are interested initially then changes their mind.

So how I'd see it working is like this:

1. We ask Paul as club chairman to confirm (eg. on this thread) how much it costs to hire the hall, and which dates are available/unavailable.

2. Any people interested in putting on or participating in a Sunday session get together, pick a date and one of them starts a Kickstarter campaign for the money.

3. Set up a basic 'pledge value' of £11 (tenner or hall hire plus £1 for Kickstarter fees).

4. If enough money is raised get the money from Kickstarter and book and pay for the hall. If not enough money is raised, too bad but no-one pays anything.

An extra refinement is that Kickstarter allows for different levels of pledges and 'stretch goals'

1. For guys who are really keen to see this happen there could be £22 pledges. Then it would get off the ground with just 6-8 guys prepared to commit this much.

2. For guys really, really keen to get a Sunday session going there could be £44 pledges. Then just 3-4 guys could get the readies together for a Sunday game.

3. The first 'stretch goal' over and above the amount needed to be raised would refund £20 to anyone who has pledged £40.

4. The next 'stretch goal' if hit would refund a tenner to anyone pledging £20 or over.

Giving people the option to people to make these higher pledges would make it easier to raise the necessary readies but spread the risk if other people don't come in, but mean if 12 to 16 people did sign up, everyone pays the same.

Any money raised over and above could be donated to the club, divided up as refunds or put into another Kickstarter for the next Sunday game depending on what was decided on setting up the campaign.

If a campaign for one Sunday game proved succesful, other Sunday sessions could be funded one at a time, or even funding for 3 or 4 dates over the year could be funded in a bigger campaign.

Given I've had discussions with people about this for getting on for three years but nothing has materialised unless Phil has organised it, I thought I'd throw the idea out there.

What do people think?

Would it not be better just to set up a paypal account and run a similar system through the forum instead?

can't claim to understand the technical details of either of theses systems i would like to see the club doing some all day events . if some one sends me a list of what buttons to press and what order to press them in i would be happy to join in

Ben,

Setting up a PayPal account would be easy enough, Ben, but still involve paying fees, if not as much, but the big advantages of Kickstarter over doing it with PayPal are:

1. Kickstarter works on pledges. So if not enough money was raised for the whole project no-one pays. If you paid money into a PayPal account and didn't raise enough  money people have got to be refunded. This can be messy, especially when some people say things like 'don't refund me keep the money for the next one' (and there ends up being no next one)

2. At least with Kickstarter, the person setting it up has to write a basic description. So they have to  clearly say what date, times, they are raising for etc.etc. The scope for misunderstanding and confusion when you try and organise up to 16 people through a forum and people through it all making alternative proposals for dates etc. can be bigger than you think.

I'd point out that I have seen people discussing Sunday games for the 4 years that this club has been operating, but it has only happened when one person has taken charge (and a reasonable sized financial risk). I ran a big eBay shop for nearly 2 years and occasionally got guys approaching me to get a better deal on a big order by buying off eBay. This was very rarely worth it because 9 people out of 10 are an organisational shambles. People change their mind all the time, they go back on things, they can be guaranteed not to write things down properly and guaranteed not to read things you write to them properly, they say one thing and do the other. Much as eBay took an arm and a leg off me in fees I started to appreciate how difficult it is to organise the average human being without a 'Buy It Now' button. And to be honest Izzy's Kickstarter showed me the same thing, with quite a few of my friends and family swearing blind they had given money when the Kickstarter account begged to differ!!!

Organising a Sunday game shouldn't be a big deal, but organising up to 16 people is. If a piece of software comes along like Kickstarter that is precisely designed and thought out and streamlined to help a bunch of averagely shambolic people organise themselves collectively, it seems better to try and use that, rather try another arrangement that isn't designed for the same thing to save a tiny bit of money and cause someone somewhere extra organisational aggro.


Steve,

You're one of the guys who keeps going on about Sunday games. I didn't know how a Kickstarter campaign worked either until I went on their website and read about it. I'm just chucking this out as a suggestion. But if you want this to happen you need to stop discussing it and start organising it.

The gauntlet is well and truly down!!!!

I shall stoop to pick it up and hope my back does not give way in the process.

There is a lot of interest in Lion Rampant at the moment.

It lends itself to" tournament" style of gaming day .We could each provide a gaily striped tent to don our armour on in (wrong sort of tournament Steve!) Each game played earns each combatent glory points for achieving objectives , making successful boasts etc we could even add in points for best army , best leaders name , nicest opponent etc

If we can get the hall for 8 hours we should be able to get 3 sets of 2 hour games in with time between for whatever people need time to do between games . Could then total up the glory points to see who wins . Perhaps we could have a small trophy or a certificate or Gravesend Wargames Club pencil........

Paul can let us know how much it would be for the day so we know what we are aiming at pennies wise.

I suggest this would take place in the new year now
I could suggest some dates when we know when the hall is available

We can then get the kickstarter thing fired up(over to my technical assistant)

Raise loads of money (or scrape together just enough)

And then get snowed in so we can't get there.

As you can probably tell I should probably have got out of the bed on a different side the morning I wrote the last post. Lol!

Basically I didn't start Izzy's Kickstarter myself but her producer did, a girl of the most staggering ineptitude in most other things I can only assume setting up a Kickstarter campaign is a walk in the park! I certainly got to know the software and it has a lot of useful things on it like ability to post updates, email some or all the participants and issue refunds, and it is all pretty easy to use. I don't think there is a minimum size of campaign, campaigns for around as little as two hundred quid are common, so I think we could do something of the scale needed.

Before getting the Kickstarter going we'll need Paul to confirm dates available and cost of the hall. It obviously makes sense to avoid obvious dates in the wargaming calendar (eg. Shows like Cavilier, Broadside, SELWG etc.) when people might be elsewhere and plans of other members (eg. any dates planned by Phil for War and Conquest days).

We then probably need to know we are at the least going to get enough bigger 'backers' to make it happen. If the hall is going to cost in the region of £120-£160 that'll probably mean 3-4 members willing to pledge £30-40 quid each if necessary. They won't necessarily have to do this straight away as it might be worth gauging interest before they commit, eg. if 6 to 8 members rush in and want to sign up it could be funded with £20 each etc., but my guess is 3-4 guys will need to commit to get it rolling.

There also needs to be a bit of thought on how we handle things with people committing or showing interest late in the day, eg. after the Kickstarter has closed or even turning up and wanting to pay on the day. We don't want to turn anyone away, especially anyone paying a contribution to hiring the hall, but we want to encourage people to pay up front into the Kickstarter by credit or debit card as this will make it all a lot easier to handle in terms of sharing out the cost ahead of time. Don't forget we might go a bit over the required amount or hit target but fall short of a 'clean' amount to split up in refunds (eg. Refunding £3.69 etc. each to pledgers might be messy especially if it has come in as cash paid by people on the door). To be honest I wouldn't expect to get more than 12-16 members turning up so I think a tenner each is probably a minimum we will get away will even for a successful day. Options for cash left over , especially if is an awkward or fiddly amount (say less than a fiver each to all pledgers) are donating it to the club, or sticking it in the next Kickstarter for another Sunday game, but this needs to be decided in advance and preferable spelled out clearly in the terms of the Kickstarter.

I'd suggest private messaging Paul to see if he could fill us in on costs/dates if he doesn't pick on this thread himself this weekend. Once we have some preliminary idea of dates we could PM all Forum members to start getting some gauge of how many backers we are likely to start off with so we have some idea of how high to pitch the size of the pledges. It would obviously be cleaner and nicer if everyone paid say a tenner from the get go, than asking for bigger pledges and then refund them, but I personally think getting fewer people to be prepared at least to back it with bigger amounts is much likely to get the thing off the ground.

To be perfectly honest even I am highly susceptible to saying yes, then changing my mind nearer the date and no-one wants to pay for something they can't come to. But if I've had to commit to paying, and then paid I'm more likely to keep it as a firm date in my diary and cancel other stuff. I guess most people work the same way.

On your suggestion of a Lion Rampant tournament, I'd suggest that you can have people run games or tournaments, but don't initially stop anyone who is prepared from putting on a game they might want to do, especially if they want to step up to be an early backer.

I can think of 8-10 people who have expressed interest in Lion Rampant, which leaves about 30 members who haven't! And the drop out rate for Sunday dates will be potentially higher than a club night.

You might remember when Phil organised his first War & Conquest Day, you wanted to come along to play a longer Fire & Fury game which we never seem to get finished on a club night. You got a bit disappointed when Phil said no, but he was funding the whole event up front and in fact filled the hall with War and Conquest players.

If you want to have a full 8 hour day that is the more expensive option and in the order of £160, which means you need 16 club members to come to keep the cost to a tenner each (I personally prefer the idea of keeping it to 6 hours and getting 24 people to come and keeping it to a fiver but that probably would never happen!).

I personally can see nothing wrong with having a Lion Rampant tournament, alongside someone else putting in a bigger longer game for 4-6 people, and maybe a board game tournament too. As long as there is enough space in the hall it is better to get 16 people in, than advertise it just as a Lion Rampant tournament day and only get 6-8 people turning up.

I'd certainly turn up to a Lion Rampant tournament day, but my personal interest would be staging a longer game of say Fire and Fury, Napoleonics or more elaborate WW2 game than can really be set up and played and packed away on a club night.

Look, all things are possible, if it is a success we might even have Sunday games being put on 3 or 4 times every year or who knows even once a month. Coming up with an idea to theme it and bring people in is useful, but secondary at the moment to the logistics of financing it.

Further to the point on who gets first pick on what games are played, and there being enough tables to go around, it is normal for higher pledges in Kickstarter to get 'rewards'.

A simple twist in this case is to give, say, people who pledge £20 the 'reward' of having the two tables guaranteed for the game of their choice...those pledging £40 four tables etc....of course there are other permutations like two people who want to play the same game pledging £20 each...if the 'stretch goals' are hit, of course, these higher pledges get refunds, so hopefully don't end up paying more. The number of higher pledges is normally limited in a Kickstarter campaign so you wouldn't be letting people take more tables than there are in the hall.

People just pledging a tenner will either have to participate in a game put on by someone else or take pot luck on their being tables left.

Kickstarter also has the advantage that anyone, any where could potentially buy a 'ticket' or even rent a table to stage a game through making a pledge. We'd obviously want to keep control of this, but Phil did a great job with his War and Conquest days by advertising it widely and getting some people to even come a long way for it. I've been a member (and I am a member) of other clubs and to boost numbers could we invite people individually or as clubs. Some might even be interested in putting on demo/participation games of their favourite games/set of rules. As well as my old club in Tonbridge, there are Postie's boys here in Gravesend and Tony of course could invite anyone interested from SELWG. Not that I want to make it bigger than necessary, but as I said I'd rather see 24 people turning up and paying a fiver each, than have a 'wash out' and get just 3-4 people who find themselves all on the hook for £40 each.

good point about other games . had been considering posting that while at asda this morning, but you beat me to it

the reason i suggested lion rampant is because i do not really have a big enough collection of anything to stage a 6 hour game and secondly it is relatively easy for anyone who is interested to buy and paint a retinue for this game. it also means one person does not have to provide shed loads of figures.

it is also easy for people to bring 2 or more retinues to lend to people

i would love to play a large battle over a day but as i don't know who has what combination of figures difficult to suggest what battle to do

but if this did kick start an interest in doing larger battles that would be good

I think Lion Rampant is a good idea, but it is all a question of cost vs number of people.

3-4 people can have the hall to themselves for a day for £30-40 each, 6-8 for £20 each....but unless you get 12-16 people you can't get it for £10 a head....just got to decide how much everyone wants to pay, how many are likely to come and take it from there.

Nothing wrong with pulling in 6-8 people for an all day Lion Rampant tournament, but if you can convince another 6-8 to come in on the same day to play other games so much the better.

Kickstarter is just a way of organising the advance collections for money, and with a bit of tweaking can build a first step (3-4 people who will to cough up £30-40) into a second step (6-8 at £20/head) hopefully into the third (12-16 @£10/head) or maybe even a fourth (24-32 @£5/head).

We could have a Sunday game every quarter, bi-monthly or even monthly if enough people sign up, but a bit of practical organisation is needed. There are clubs that meet just on Sunday's and only monthly or bimonthly. It can be done, but people have other commitments and given the size of the club you just have to be realistic on what you are trying to put together. Problem I see is I only see 6-8 people regularly even using the forum at the moment, so with a normal 'drop out' rate we'll need to either pay up or spread the net a bit wider.

Steve and pete , now days a sunday would be far better for me .I do work every other weekend but that could be sorted out .I am sure Mac and paul would be up for weekend games aswell ,so that's 3 to start with. On the games front , a good old game of rapid fire using the old rules would take a good few hours to play out (plenty of fag breaks and bullshit talking ).

That's good to know Martin. 

Next thing is pick (or exclude some dates). These are the dates for all the Sundays from now until the end of Feb. Some might obviously not be runners at all eg. I think the Legion uses the hall on Remeberance Sunday (November 8th) and some are obviously a bit too soon or mixed up with Xmas/New Year but I've included them anyway. Only wargames show I know of that might conflict is Cavalier down in Tonbridge which was on February 22nd last year but the club hasn't published dates for 2016 yet on their website.

November 1st (next week)
November 8th (Rememberance Sunday)
November 15th
November 22nd
November 29th
December 6th
December 13th
December 20th
December 27th
January 3rd
January 10th
January 17th
January 24th
February 7th
February 14th (Valentines Day-for the less romantically inclined could be a good day for a Chicago gangster       game. Lol!)
February 21st
February 28th

I wondered Martin if you and the other guys could stretch to £20 each, and if you could pay for all three and recover the money. If say me, Steve and Nigel came in for £20 each we'd probably have enough to get and hire the hall for 6 hours (say 10am to 4pm), and we could just get and book it once we agreed a date. That way might not need a Kickstarter.

If anyone else came in on it, we could either book for longer, or ask them to pay a tenner each and put it in a kitty to either divide up amongst the people backing it with £20 or use it to go towards booking another Sunday.

Might just make it easier to get this off the ground that way.

i would be happy to put in £20 help start things off

i can be available for most Sundays from January onwards and possibly some this side of Christmas

Pete has reminded me that there is quite a lot of lord of the rings stuff available in the club so that could be another option too

I am in ,but I have got to ask Mac and Paul .I am on nights from Monday, so will try and get hold of mac and paul when I have done them .

That's great Martin. I thought Paul was in Australia at the moment, but sounds like we have the ball rolling. I'll check with a few more people because if we can start to get closer to 12 people interested we'll be laughing.

Pete ,paul is back this week ,hope to get hold of him during this week

I am also a definite for a Rampant Sunday bash, I would also like to do some wargaming

Just to update people, talked to Paul and few other guys at the Club last night. Paul gave me the good news that the Hall can be hired for a flat rate £100 for the whole day on a Sunday, and 4 more people expressed strong interest in a Sunday game and several more depending on dates etc..

So if we can now pick a date that suits enough people we definitely should have enough interest to keep the cost down to a tenner a head.

And probably won't need Kickstarter.

Posted list of Sundays from now to end of Feb, so if people start just posting days that work for them, we can fix a date and then start collecting money.

currently i can do 10,17,24 of jan and/or 7,21,28 feb