So the Ngee Ann Polytechnic Board Games Club (NPBGC) will be dissolved on 1 April 2014 (no, this is not an April Fool's joke). The club committee received an email from Student Development and Alumni Relations (SDAR) about a month ago notifying them of this decision. In case you are unaware (and it's apparent that most people
are unaware), the NPBGC is a student CCA and special interest group that deals with board games.
There were two main reasons cited for this termination. Firstly, the club has not met the minimum membership of 30. Secondly, the Ngee Ann Library has a board games room (BGR), so the club could be disbanded and board game players can just use the room instead. Obviously, this is absolutely preposter... completely ludicrou... somewhat unjustif... pretty reasonable, actually.
The club currently has only 20 registered members, which is amazing for a school CCA where the main activity is to play games. Most of the school population plays games on their mobile phone or laptops in their spare time, and yet the club could not get more than 20 people to sign up? As for the second reason, there is a case for keeping the NPBGC separate from the BGR. Although the room is well-utilized, students only visit it for maybe an hour at a time in-between lessons. Therefore, only the relatively shorter games are played in the room. A separate board games club would allow its members to try out the longer, more involved games, so the NPBGC and the BGR have different objectives.
One problem faced by the BGR is that the students there only play games they already know because they don't want to spend their precious time learning a new game that they might not enjoy. Consequently, they end up playing games such as *gasp* Monopoly (well, they start a game, anyway), Game of Life or Jenga. In fact, Jenga is their most popular game, and the library has 3 copies of it to keep up with demand (!). This is despite the fact that the library has stellar games such as Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride available. What the BGR really needs is someone who is willing and able to introduce and teach games to the students. Sounds like a service the NPBGC members can provide, doesn't it? Except they don't.
The fact is that the NPBGC has dropped the ball big-time. Their mandate really should be to promote board gaming as a hobby, and they haven't been doing that. Unlike other clubs and CCAs, the NPBGC is suffering from a bad rep due to mistaken identity:
everybody thinks board games = Monopoly (or Chess, or Scrabble, or Snakes & Ladders). A student who is thinking of joining Badminton or the Computer Club has a pretty good idea of what they would be getting into. Unfortunately, students who would really enjoy board games don't even consider joining NPBGC because they think they'd end up playing Monopoly every week, and nobody's
that masochistic.
It doesn't help that NPBGC members tend to be introverts, in that they are happy playing with the same small group of a dozen or so people every week. They form close friendships, but do not look to expand their circle of friends. As introverts, they don't feel inclined to evangelize. Well, facing the imminent closure of the club, they'll have to.
So the NPBGC has 3 months to save itself. As a very interested third party, I've talked to the club committee at length and came up with a few suggestions:
1. Recruit Members using the BGR
Let's start by providing a service to the BGR and increase membership in the process. Schedule each NPBGC member a couple of hours a week to go to the BGR; they should wear a badge or something to make it all official. While there, he should see what kind of games the students are borrowing and suggest a different (possibly better) game that may interest them. He should teach them the rules, and facilitate so that they get the game right.
If this works well, he can then explain that there are dozens of other games available, and maybe give an overview of the different options. If there is time, he can suggest another game. Once the students' interest is piqued, ask them to put their information (name, school and email address) on the sign-up sheet. This should be a no-commitment expression of interest so that they don't run away like scared rabbits. Later on, emails should be sent to inform them of the club Facebook page and meetings. With luck, some of these students will turn up to meetings, see the cool variety of board games available and sign up as members. Voila!
This really should work, because the visitors to the BGR are students who are already willing to play board games in their spare time. Better still, they were willing to play bad board games, so theoretically they should jump at the chance to play good ones. Last Halloween, the NPBGC held a board gaming event at the BGR and it was pretty well-attended. There was even a group of students who enjoyed King of Tokyo so much that they came back to play it some more after their lessons. Unfortunately, the NPBGC did not get their information. That's a golden opportunity lost right there.
2. Hold an Awareness Event at a High-Traffic Venue
Some of the events held by the NPBGC had no hope of succeeding because of the selected venue, such as a room hidden somewhere deep in the library or a classroom in some random building. Publicity for such events is almost non-existent, and even when I was aware of an event I sometimes had trouble finding it. What the club needs to do is to make a big, colourful, eye-catching banner, and then just play some games somewhere with lots of traffic (such as the tables between the Convention Centre and Munch). Try to pick games with cool components and themes to attract on-lookers.
The key is to have a couple of members whose job is to explain the gist of the game to curious students, and also to suggest other games to them. Have some simple little games like Toc Toc Woodman or Rattlesnake and some easy-to-explain games like Las Vegas and No Thanks on hand just in case, along with the usual meatier games. While the passing traffic is unlikely to have half an hour free to learn and play a game right at that moment, inform them that the NPBGC will be there to introduce and teach games all day, and to come back when they have the time. As usual, try to get as many people to use the sign-up sheet as possible.
The idea behind this event is volume. I suspect there are students who could take one look at a game of Ticket to Ride or Settlers of Catan and immediately see the strategic possibilities. These are the students who might be intrigued enough to find out more about the hobby.
3. Produce Something Useful
It's not obvious how the NPBGC aids student development. One could argue that club members learn skills like strategy, tactics, negotiation and social skills simply by playing games, but it's a weak argument since there is no proof.
One way to prove that playing board games helps student development is to have members write articles. It could be a game review, a strategy article, a session report, a top ten list, whatever, but it has to show that the members aren't just rolling two dice and moving a pawn without passing Go. I would also vote to revive the
NPBGC blog because the Facebook page requires a request for membership (did I mention that board gamers tend to be introverts?). Post the articles to the blog or even to
www.boardgamegeek.com. I know the library would be happy to host articles on their website. For the more media-inclined, creating a video review and posting it on Youtube might be an interesting project (preferably something a bit more polished than
this admirable effort).
4. Learn Games, and Learn How to Teach Games
Saving the most important to last, all NPBGC members should learn more games. Read more rulebooks and get used to figuring out how a game works by reading the rulebooks alone. Watching online instructional videos would help too. Most of the NPBGC members rely on the senior members to explain the rules to them; some of them have never picked up a rulebook. Very few have ever tried to explain a somewhat complex game to someone else, and even fewer have the ability to do it successfully. An unfortunate side-effect is that some good games that the seniors have not learnt are left to collect dust because nobody is willing to crack them open and learn them using the rulebooks.
I personally feel that the ability to learn and teach games is one of the most important skills that a student can pick up from the NPBGC. This is not an easy task; the best game teachers will be able to reorganize the rulebook and use examples of game situations to illustrate concepts. It's like schoolwork, except that it's games, and after you explain a game to someone you get to play it and have fun! How cool is that?
Incidentally, I have a bit of a reputation as the go-to guy for board games in Ngee Ann Polytechnic, and a few colleagues from various schools and departments have asked me if it was possible for the NPBGC to help facilitate a staff bonding session for them. Unfortunately, I had to be honest and tell them that in my opinion, the NPBGC members are not ready to facilitate such an event, mainly because there are not enough members who are able to teach games properly. On the other hand, if enough members practice and become adept at teaching games, I would be delighted to recommend them for such staff bonding events. CCA points ripe for the taking!
Hopefully, if the above suggestions are taken up, the club will be able to increase their membership sufficiently and prove their worth in order to reverse SDAR's decision to dissolve the club. I really hope this works, because I'd miss being able to chill out and play games with like-minded students as equals, and to heckle and taunt them mercilessly while saving (or destroying) the world.
If you are an NP student reading this, why not pop by and take a look? Mondays from 6 to 9pm at Room #73-02-05. Save the NPBGC!
