At the moment, our Thursday club runs (officially) from 7-10pm.

On Fridays when we run Friday Night Magicc (FNM) we have players turning up from around 5.30-6 and a tournament may run as late as 11pm.

Could people please vote in the above poll to indicate if extended hours on a Thursday night would be appreciated. As it currently stands we often don't close until around 11pm anyway, which is fine when I'm around as I'm usually able to lock up, but this may be an issue for other temporary keyholders who get called upon to close up if I'm out of town.

As always, this thread is for indication of opinion only and any result will not be binding until such time as Steve says it is.

Extending the hours to start earlier and finish later is the only option for extending the opening.

Couldn't we have an option for just a later closing time, opening at the same time? Some of us who work outside of Daventry find it difficult to get home, eat and get to the club on time for 7pm, let alone 6.

But the fact that the doors are open earlier doesn't mean you have to turn up then, surely? People can arrange games to start whenever they like, so that not being able to arrive before 7 or before 8 doesn't ruin games... but the early opening also helps people who have to go early.

I think 6-11 may be a nice option, especially given that some weeks we have a LOT of bloodbowl going on alongside roleplaying & boardgaming - it allows for more people to make use of the space.

It would require more frequent use of the Arrange Games thread, though - eg if a RP group isn't starting til 7, then they'd need to reserve their room so that it wasn't already in use when they arrived.

Both points that I was about to make! Regular games (especially ones including the esteemed shop owner) would be able to have space reserved for them, and we've never insisted that people only turn up at the start of the club.

Using FNM as an example again, the players who turn up at the beginning are ususally deck building, trading or testing some new deck or other. We have players who can't arrive until 7.30, which is our scheduled tournament start time.

As long as people vacate the booked room when they're supposed to, I can't see why longer opening times couldn't work. However, as we all know, games over run - what happens then? Can a tabletop game involving many minis in the middle of its strategic climax feasibly be moved elsewhere, or picked up another time? Even if they could, would this kind of interruption begin to erode the enjoyment of the game?

I'm just concerned that if one or two people aren't keeping an eye on the time, or get to a point where they can't stop and finish up on another night, people end up having to start their games late, other peeps then have problems staying late, things don't get done, frustrations begin to grow, and at worst, people start to fall out a bit.

I'm sorry to raise problems with a perfectly good idea, but I think this all needs considering, and possible solutions worked out, if things are going to run smoothly.

I was working on the assumption that people just wouldn't set up in a reserved room, given that it was reserved

If the Arrange Games system/board is used properly and people pay attention to who is planning to be where, I don't think it will cause problems. And given that there are plenty of people with web-capable phones at the shop on a Thursday, it'd be easy enough to prove that the room was reserved... If the rule was "we booked it first, and you're in our space, so do one"

Can't we just rely on the calendar for regular ongoing games?

Besides, I doubt that people will reliably check the forum, which will lead to conflict when people disagree about who should be where. Yes, it can be proven that someone booked it first, but it's not helpful to a friendly atmosphere.

Some people dont regularly check the Calendar, me for one. I do however check the forums.

So this argument can work both ways.

I don't think I've ever used the calendar, and I'm here every day... I imagine it gets checked less than the forums

Pretty much all the games I play take longer than three hours - ie bloodbowl and big boardgames. If we were actually strict with the 7 start and 10 finish times, very few bloodbowl matches would be able to occur, and even fewer games of stuff like StarCraft, RuneWars. And those people who couldn't make it til 8 due to the distance they travel would probably not be able to do anything at all.

No-one uses the little room at the minute because it's widely known that there's usually a roleplaying game in there - extending the hours shouldn't change that. Besides - someone like Pete or Lee is practically always there to say "that room's taken" to anyone who didn't know.

We do 6 til past-11 unofficially every week, and I don't think making it official will change anything for the worse.

My point isn't so much about the calendar or forum, it's more that if we have to book rooms to ensure that someone doesn't get in there first, then there will be bad feelings at some stage down the line.

Maybe if we got a few "RESERVED" signs for rooms or tables..?

EDIT: My other, original point is that the options in the poll are only for no change, or extension in both directions. Surely there ought to be the option to vote for later or earlier opening, as well as both?

The following post was written moments before Alastair posted above...

My plan was simply to put a "Reserved for...." notice up on any room that had been reserved. With regard to RP a room would be reserved for the full night anyway, even if the GM wasn't coming in until 7pm. This will really ony be an issue with new players as the regulars are aware of the usual RP games.

As as has been said, I don't think this change will make any real difference to the way things work at the moment. By making the longer hours "official" we may become more alluring to new players, or existing players wanting to bring along new things. All of which are good for the hobby and good for the club.

Should these changes go ahead, I will personally ensure that existing commitments are not negatively affected. So if the D&D guys want to carry on playing from 7-10 then that's fine and dandy and they will have a room available for the full evening.

for the other stuff, we've got space across the two big rooms for frankly quite a lot of Blood Bowl/board games/other war games/card games so reservation of tables is less of an issue. Should we reach a stage when space is becoming a rpoblem we have flexibility to offer additional evenings, or we can codify a booking system further down the line.

Oh just ignore me - I wasn't quite getting that on a first reading, sorry.

In that case, I'm much less worried, and given that Pete has now agreed that a codified booking system could be introduced later if problems do arise, that's all fine and dandy.

It was a valid point that you made about sharing and timescales though - which hopefully the fairly strict "booked for the whole night" system and priority for existing games would handle if all this went ahead.

As a perpetual late arriver, and thus late finisher I'd approve of a late finish time as I'd feel marginally less guilty about keeping people late. Although I only generally head over once a fortnight so should I get half a vote?!