Open Day 2 - a good day too

WW1 Germans advance!

 
Our second open day was a lot of fun! We had a good number of visitors, including a bucket load of families with young children eager to take part in our Make and Take a Tank offer. Ok, they were not going to become members of course but they had a great deal of fun and it was a great piece of PR for us. Next year we will expand this part of the event and provide some paints and, given the number of girls taking part, we will also provide various tubs of sparkly things and glitter....something several of the young girls took great pains to tell me we needed! When a four year old girl looks you squarely in the eye and tells you that she wanted to colour her tank with pink pots and golden glitter but there wasn't any to use what else are you to do? Nothing like some feedback is there? Our thanks once again go to Tracy at Armourfast for providing the kits, very generous indeed.

Mark has painted up a couple of very cool Belgian armoured cars....this one got a little shot up!

We had plenty of more wargamey visitors too, Ian Barber of the Shepway wargames club, Clint Burnett from the Twydal wargames club and fellow blogger (Anything but a one) and Bob Cordery of the popular wargames bog 'A wargames Miscellany' who has already posted a very positive review of the event. It was great to see everyone and we did indeed have a chance to chat and put the wargame world to rights! Of course our good friends at the Maidstone wargames Society were already at the show running a couple of great Sci-Fi games. Annoyingly, I really wanted to see the Star Wars fighter game they were running but by the time I had found time they had started something else! Still, it will give me an excuse to chat with them all again :) We really appreciated the Maidstone boys coming along and supporting our event, they are a lot of fun and always put on interesting games.

The Maidstone boys play Starmarda!

Bottom line, did we gain any new members? I think we did. One visitor had never gamed before but had an interest in naval games, mainly from reading Alexander Kent books. He was impressed by the various games on show and that we were able to run a Napoleonic naval game at our next meeting. He was also an Iwade resident and so it looks good so far. We meet on Tuesday so we shall see. A young couple, also new to Iwade, came along looking to find a new club. They play Warhammer and Flames of War, a few card games for good measure, and also look to become active members. They are to bring along a fantasy game to the next meeting so more positive news here.

The Rapid Fire game was as popular as ever, Simon runs a very cool game!

Another view of the Rapid Fire game...note the burning vehicles!

 On the subject of Warhammer - it seems that we as a club may be missing a trick by not being as all embracing of non historical game types as we could have been, this is something we are looking to actively change. If we are to grow as a club we need to look at ourselves from the ground up and make some grass-roots changes to accommodate alternatives. This does not mean that everyone needs to rush out and buy a bucket load of Orcs of course, we have the space and resources to open ourselves up to a wider audience. The Open Day is something that has really brought this to our attention, having the time to actually talk to visitors rather than just say hi as you rush past from one issue to another at Broadside makes a difference; we can learn a lot more and make some great connections.

The Open Day has become a firm part of the club's diary, hard work but very much worth the effort.

Greek Phalanx shoving Persians off the table edge!

Darius ( in the chariot ) encourages his troops...good man that.

A closer view of Darius.

The game had some awesome cavalry clashes too