[metagaia]

Ok, we essentially had an EGM tonight to decide our next move on deciding on a venue.  I will post this one in the format of an FAQ:

What possible area's are we considering?
Chester, only Chester.  Shotton was briefly discussed but decided it would be too inconvenient for too many people.

What are we looking for in a venue?
We are looking for a number of things of varying degrees of priority:
Very High: Enough space for 25+ people.  Stability (we are guaranteed the room each week)
High (in descending order of importance): Decent lighting, enough tables, Good atmosphere, exclusive use of a room, close to the train station.
Medium: Good Parking, Easy location to find.
Low: Price/availibility of drinks

What Possible locations do we have?
Discussed in detail throughout the thread but the frontrunners are:
Hangman, flockersbrook, stanley palace, cross keys.  There may be some not mentioned, if that is the case, please let me know.

I know a great place!  Can I arrange it there?
If you have a place to suggest, Let Ian (dead) or Tess (Tess) know, we would prefer to have just one or two points of contact.  Don't worry if it has it's flaws, we will look into every possible option and if it's a good one, we'll take it.

Where will be be for the moment?
We will be in the Cross Keys on Bridge Street for the next two weeks (up to and including the August Bank Holiday.  We will then try what we believe to be the most promising venue after that.

Any other information?
Yes, club fees will be going up to £1 after this week.

Will post more tomorrow, but for now, sleepy time calls.

[dedindahed]

Alongside the venue debate, I have a proposal to fit into the discussion.

As treasurer is the job that is most impacts gaming time, how about the person collecting the cash each week doesn't have to pay.

Seems fair and simple, and resolves a minor issue that was raised yesterday.

[dead]

[dead]

Venue Name: Stanley Palace
Venue Address: Stanley Palace, Watergate Street, CH1 2LF
Estimated distance from transport: '1' mile '20' minutes walk, according to google maps
Cost: £35 or £40 per session - £1.50 each
Venue Type: Public Hall

Pros:
Stable for past 3 years for Tuesday night club
Exclusive use of room
Large room with plenty of space and lighting
Availabity of Kitchen facilities inc fridge, microwave, kettle, cooker
Plenty of tables
We have the key so opening/closing time dependant on who is keyholder that week
very atmospheric/nice room
Room for expansion


Cons:
No bar on site
Increase in club fees to £1.50 per night
Distance from train staion
Possibly a bit loud as its one big room made of wood so echoey
PLI and bank account required(not a big problem)

Additional Info:
Has additional tables in storage should we require them, which belong to the tuesday night club.  They are happy for us to use them if they can use ours

They are happy for us to bring alcohol as long as none is sold on site & Dont drink too much

Option for club to purchase and sell some cans of coke/lemonade etc to generate a little extra income

Pics on my facebook

[Tess]

Last night I went out to view a couple more possible venues, as did Ian who will be updating with his findings.

Guildhall:

Pros - Massive Size, Bar
Cons - will cost £57 an hour. Despite people voting price as not being a top priority I think this would be prohibitive and so am keping this description brief.


Living Room:

Cons - The pub was closed at half 9 yesterday evening, despite the manager arranging to meet with me.
Pros - Unknown


Forest House (Lloyds No.1): http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/home/pubs/the-forest-house

Pros-
Free Room
The whole of downstairs would be roped off for us wth reserved signs (we can put our logo on them if we wish)
Space for a minimum of 1 huge game (approx 10 players, could be broken into 2 medium games), 2 medium games (approx 6 players) and 8 smaller games (approx 5 players with a small map / board).
Areas seperated with 'plush' decor so there will be NO noise problems
Relatively close to Station
Our own bar + staff (this may change if we are not buying enough in which case we'd go upstairs for drinks)
This area is usually closed off on a Monday evening so would not be used for anything else.
Very clean, lovely atmosphere downstairs
We will not need our tables or lamps so in theory these could be sold *to be discussed if this is the choice*
Lime and Soda £0.20p
Chocolate Fudge cake £3.10
Burger and a drink £3.99

Cons-
The lighting is dim in some areas (still better than the Deva) and we would not be able to plug in our own lamps but they would be happy for us to bring candles (there is room to place them not on the tables being used)
The tables are seperated between 4 different 'sections' which are all linked but may lead to the club feeling less sociable as we wouldn't see as much of each other and could easily never see people from other games throughout the night.

*to note, I drink lime and soda so would tell them to charge me for 4/5 or them for each one I buy as I can afford it and it will keep the bar tab up*

[Tess]

Forset House extras (I forgot to mention before)

Bar open until midnight, he doesn't mind what time we want to start.
Distance from station: 0.5 miles / 11 mins walk (as the google walks, as opposed to as the crow flies)

[dedindahed]

Wow, every time we go through this I'm staggered at how well Ian and Tess manage this.

Stanley palace seems workable, but
Forest house is looking too-good-to-be-true awesome.

I imagine even if our drink tab isn't massive, there's a good chance some of us may start eating there as the prices seem reasonable.

Later opening, real ales, good prices, free room, food.
And I should even be able to play space alert without complaints.

[paz]

According to the web page, Wetherspoon's pubs have free wifi too, although not in every pub.

I'm interested to know how the candle thing would work; I'm sure I have dozens in my garage, although not many holders.

All in all, sounds good though!

[Jimmy]

Sounds good to me! More cthulhu games required in that light I feel

[HDimagination]

[Liebasket]

Stanley Place and the Forrest House sound like great places to host it!

There is limited onroad parking near either venue, but the Market Carpark is near Stanley Place, and is free during the times the games are on.

[dead]

Bull and Stirrup was the only place on Northgate with a function room, is no bigger then the Cross Keys.

I will call into Forest house friday (when downstairs is open) and see what the space is like for myself.

Ian

[Marla]

I love the Forest House. The Chester Nanowrimo group had our meetings there last year. They were occaisonally a bit unreliable about the room we had. However, I think with a much bigger group they should be better. The problem seemes to stem from the fact that not all staff were informed that our room had been reserved, so it led to a bit of confusion.

[Kamikazegerbil]

Forrest house sounds fantastic. The place sounds great! And yes, the idea of playing by candle light has had my GM brain ticking overtime.

[Liebasket]

The crypt like old cellar area downstairs at the forrest house is perfect ambiance for gaming in.  It has decent sized round tables down there too.

Also, I'd just like to echo what some people have already said.  I'm really impressed with how well the club is run and how great Ian and Tess are at going into crisis management mode whenever problems arrise like this, and resolving them as quickly as possible.  I recently moved to surrey, and I have yet to find a replacement gaming club that's 10% as fantastic as the Chester Games Club.

[Death Jester]

Foresthouse was something I mentioned a while ago, I can really picture it there. I have been downstairs on a friday night and even then its not been busy. Most of the time I go there for lunch by myself and it's empty except for the staff, who have always been super friendly.

Is in the very bottom of downstairs? Or the floor with the window onto the road too? If the 2nd then there is no contest about where gets my vote! If it's just downstairs it's still a very large space with a great gaming friendly layout. My biggest fear with Stanley Palace is that the rooms are very big but we may not get best use of the space while keeping noise to a tolerable level.

Either way I love the idea of the Foresthouse, was the first thing that I thought of, very atmospheric, got a fair few ghost stories out of the staff there too. We could keep the 50p or £1 entry and put it all into a club account to be used to host an annual charity con like conception!

[dedindahed]

A colleague tells me thay have a large downstairs room in the cellar
(opposite hangman and up a bit)

may be dark, not sure about the space, but proximity to station is good, and parking may be slightly better than forest.

May be worth a look, but I'm still liking forest.

[paz]

[Tess]

Re: Cellar Bar

I've been here before I think along with Ian, assuming this is the downstairs of the place that used to be called City Bar. If it is the one I'm thinking the reason we didn't raise it as an option previously was because of space. It has a number of pillars which break up the area an unfortunately limit the options of where we can put tables so even though the standing room is great it wouldn't work  

[Kamikazegerbil]

[Death Jester]

I know the cellar too, used to be City Bar, it's not the worst space in the world but not sure its seating and tables are suitable

[paz]

Re: Cellar/City Bar - fair enough, it was a second hand recommendation.

[dead]

City bar was rejected last time as the room was unsuitable.

I believe we rejected Forresters last time because the manager at the time was a little funny with us and wanted quite a lot of money for it.  

My main concern with Forresters having had a think on it is that we are going to a pub again, the maanger may be friendly but managers change.  Is it time for a change of direction for the clubs venue?  

The Stanley Palace has worked for the tuesday night club for the past 3 years, thats more then we have got out of a venue lately.

Discuss please

[HDimagination]

With regards to Ian's coments above, it may be a case of nothing ventured nothing gained, or in otherwords, I'm not sure we should abandon the idea of holding the club in a pub purely because of the instability that we've had in the past. It kinda seems i dunno... defeatist. For example, the club I used to be a part of in london has had the same venue (back room in a pub) for the last eight years.

As a collary to that, what do we know about the management of Stanley Palace? Is it a community project or a business concern? Who is it managed by? I'm just curious, but it would be good to know a bit more about who runs the place, if potential changes in the management of our future venue is a concern for members of the club.

I think that Stanley Palace and Forrest House Seem to have the most going for them at the moment.

[Death Jester]

The tuesday wargamers say it's been stable for 3 years, but I was going there 5 years ago. So it's possible there was a period of instability there too.

If we can get an agreement with a manager, then we should go for it. The weekly savings for the club would soon pile up and we can start doing some good with the money. Like hosting special charity gaming events. I doubt a new manager would turf out a club who does an amount for charity.

[Tess]

The war games club have been happy with Stanley Palace and say they've had no problems, but when I went in I saw two seperate posters on the notice board for different events being held on a Tuesday night, one Reiki one in November, and something else one Tuesday in September.
This leads me to be nervous as to whether the hall might go to the 'highest bidder' on occasion. Can this be queried with the managers / owners?

With regards to management of Forest House changing, both the current manager and the area manager are on board with us hiring downstairs, and very few pubs who have that amount of space empty most evenings could afford to turn us away. Managers changing is less of an issue than pub closures, and Foest House being part of the Wetherspoons being a chain is likely to mean its more stable than other pub options.

[Teflon Billy]

[Tess]

Likewise I have no agenda for pushing Forest House; I've been to both of these possible venues and like each for different reasons. I've been putting arguements forward for it because I have the most info on it, thats all.

I think having a trial evening in each makes perfect sense - have we now checked that Stanley Palace is definitely free on Mondays yet? I'm assuming so, but this has not been confirmed since the mention that the managers were hard to get hold of... I think having the second night at the Stanley Palace might be more tactful as we can have the vote at the end of the night / have a voting box during the night there where there will be no staff to listen in.

[Teflon Billy]

[dead]

Sorry I thought I made it clear, yes Stanley palace is free on a monday night and is an option.  The reason I was failing to get hold of them was because I was ringing them at 9am or after 5, once I phoned after 10am I got through. no problems.

THe 3 year comment was because I thought the wargames group only started 3 years go.  

I have no agenda to push with either however I do have a personal preference for Stanley palace at the moment as I believe it would be a good move for the club.  I dont see it as defeatist, just as trying to get us some stability.  I have not seen the Forresters yet, however from description either venue would work for the club and I would be happy with either.

A one nighter at Stanley Palace might be an issue as they have to get a key cut for us and sent out etc, there will be a deposit for the key, I dont know how much yet its mentioned on the booking form but not when I spoke to them.  We have the funds to cover this.  

I think we have covered all of the options in Chester, has anyone got any more suggestions or is it Stanley Palace or the Forresters?

[xorsyst]

The one thing I'm not seeing here is any discussion of parking, and I thought quite a few people drove.  The forest house in particular seems to be very bad for nearby parking.  I'm not sure exactly where Stanley place is, but I assume the market car park is ok.

[Chrysophylax]

There's Crane St. car park downhill from the Stanley Palace, just outside the Watergate.  It's open 24 hours and is £1.50 after 5pm.  There are two big privately-owned car parks near the Forrester's.  The NCP car park closes at 11 and costs £4.90 for 2 hours and £8.90 for four hours.

Jac

[paz]

[Tess]

For the forest house there is on-road parking on Union Street, Bath street, Forest street and in front of the wetherpoons just around the corner. There is also still parking at the top of city road around the Hangman (the car park at the front of it is not 'owned' by them), and there is a little car park next to St Werburghs Church, but I don't know what the prices / times are on that.

I used to park around that area occasionally when I couldn't get anything on City Road and there were always spaces.

[Mat]

The nearest free car park that I know to the Forest House is Albion Street which is free after 6pm (may be earlier but I don't know) and is a 0.3 mile walk past the Amphitheatre.  Other than that I only know street parking which in my experience is normaly very busy.



Near the Stanley Palace off St Martins Way (A5268), Under the Moat House is free after 3 but I have been informed that if you go in from the other side (Trinity Street) you have to pay even though it is directly above the other one.
The entrance is fairly obvious coming from the Fountain Round about.  For those of you coming from the other direction you turn down Nicholas Street (just past Crane Street)

[Ariadnae]

So...are we at Forest House this coming Monday (22nd) then Stanley Palace the Monday after (bank holiday)?

[Teflon Billy]

AFAIK it was agreed last Monday that we'd be at the Cross Keys for this Monday (22nd) & the Monday after (29th). To allow for a short period of stability while decisions are made.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong (which does happen, I'm getting old you know   ) .

[Death Jester]

Happy to be there this monday but why aren't we trying out the other venues from the week after?

We could do 2 weeks at the Forest house and if people really hate it for some reason then we go to stanley (due to key cutting and so on)

[dead]

[Shaphron]

Just thought i'd check - does the cross keys know we're going to be arriving early on the bank holiday to play the MtG booster draft?

[Teflon Billy]

[dead]

Im putting together a agenda for the egm on the 5th September and the quick meeting tomorrow.  Tomorrows meeting will be about the new venue and a vote for where we are going. The EGM will cover club finances and any new points raised, anything that has already been considered at an AGM and rejected can wait until then. I want to keep the EGM as short as possible, we are there to play games not argue on a forum.  Some of these points need to be raised face to face.

Points for tomorrows meeting

Forresters (Tessa)
Stanley Palace (Dead)
Vote on new location

Points I have for the EGM

Big Jamie hugs for Gileh

club cliquishness/We are entirely unwelcoming to newbies - I have not seen a problem and only two people have raised it, I want the new people(of which we have plenty) to talk to tell us how they feel

Club Finances - This will depend on the choice of venue

Use of club money - what is it for, currently its used to run the club as agreed at past agm's.  There have been suggestions it is used to subsidise another club or a convention.  

Running events(raffles etc) - not the convention, do we need them, why and who will do them

Convention - I have asked Death Jester to provide an agenda item for this I will add to it if required

Forum terms of use

Text message notifications


Anything else?

[dedindahed]

I thought we were going to vote on a venue after visiting each of them?

Is this no longer the case?

[Death Jester]

[Teflon Billy]

Forrester's House Photos:


Click to see full size image


Click to see full size image


Click to see full size image


Click to see full size image

I seem to have hit some sort of upload limit so I'll post the other two photos tomorrow.

[paz]

Thanks for the photos; is it my imagination or are those tables a bit small?

[Kamikazegerbil]

It does look that way to me too.

[Teflon Billy]

Click to see full size image

[Death Jester]

I thought there was more space. There is also another area next to the bar with bigger sqare tables.

[BigAl1981]

Hiya again guys

I'm glad things are looking up for you, I'm off work from the 5th of september for a few weeks and i can easily get hold of a key for stanley palace for when you need it.

A slight correction to an earlier comment, the tuesday night gaming club has been going since June 2006 at Stanley Palace. I didn't need to point this out but ho hum.

Good luck

Alan RGMB

[Teflon Billy]

[dead]

[Death Jester]

Alan just said that he can get us keys. (Thanks for that, and hello!) Does this not mean that we can talk to the management and arrange a 1 week test drive? Surely it's in everyones interests?

If not then I guess we will be trying out Foresters at least?

[xorsyst]

[xorsyst]

[dedindahed]

At this stage I think the hangman still deserves to be under consideration.

Closest to the station, cheap, enough space, like having us there.
Had we not moved to the railway inn, the reality is we would have lost one week of gaming, so stability seems pretty good.

It seems it would be easy to do a week or two at foresters before making a final decision, it seems like a promising venue, but it's difficult to gauge the space/table/lighting situation without visiting.  The noise limiting aspect of the venue does seem like a big plus.

Stanley palace seems like stability may be good, at a cost, but seems pretty bad for access to train station.

[paz]

[xorsyst]

[Death Jester]

Everyone can't be 100% pleased by any venue. I would say in reference to parking, I have to walk from the train station, other people walk from bus stops or home so it may just be that if the right venue is there then people have to be prepared to walk a little to get there.

ded is right, before a vote we should be able to try out as many of the options as possible. Could save some hassle in the future.

In reference to the hangman my concern is space for growth, it really depends if the tables in the downstairs bar will be open to us to use as well if we need them.

Table size in the forest house is an issue that was tackled before there wasn't enough tables in the hangman so we bought some. Do we know what that status is of us being able to use them there? Those booths can sit 5/6 people for meals so I think that it's a case of we should try it out before saying the tables are unfit for our purposes.

[xorsyst]

[dead]

Hangman can be considered tonight, who wants to speak for it? three minutes max, with five minutes for questions make sure you cover the pros and cons of the venue.  My main concerns there are the space, as we are around 20% bigger now then when we left and we struggled then.  When we were in the hangman there were lots of complaints, which all seemed to have been forgotten.

We can have the discussions about venues about 7.15, as most people seemed to arrive then last time.  If the vote is close then people coming later will be taken into account.  

I would like to do the vote at the EGM, but we have to make a decision asap.

Ian

[xorsyst]

But how will we give a sensible vote if we haven't heard the case for venues we've never seen?

[bikermatt]

I say hangman

[dead]

[Tess]

Re: Forest House (NOT FORRESTERS!!!)

I often parked closer to the Forest House that the Hangman on a monday and did not have problems when city road and hangman parking was full.

Regarding the tables; the smaller, round tables can comfortably fit 3 in the sofa seat plus 2 in chairs. They would not work for games that require a large map or a board plus seperate cards/sheets such as kingsburg but the space around the tables would allow for drinks / candles / pieces to be kept off the table. They would be ample for, for example, a normal monopoly board or settlers of catan map.
These are the smallest tables available and would easily fit 5, 6 could squish in if they wanted but 7 would not happen.

There is space for two further 8 player games (paz / teflon billy sized), two six player games, and 4 more small games on square tables.

I don't think there is room to fit our grey tables in to be honest, but they have said we can move furniture about so we may be able to move things about to get them in action. Even so, as long as the games fit on the tables we can fit in 60 players.


I think it is important that we try both possible venues, or at least that a number of our members to pop into Stanley Palace on a Tuesday if the wargamers are happy for us to do so. Forest House will be happy to host a trial evening for us to make a choice.


Re Stanley Palace:

My concerns with Stanley Palace which have not been mentioned by others are:

-Location; you don't know if you are in the right place when you get there, being so difficult to find will be off putting for new members (plus distance from station).
-Temperature; we popped in towards the end of the evening last Tuesday and the room was very humid despite it being cool outside. I am unsure if there are any temperature controls of if we would be sweltering in the summer and freezing in the winter.
-Noise; the room(s) seemed to be very echoey and it was loud with only 2 games being played
-Space; even though the pictures make the room(s) look big the options for table set up looked at the time as if they may be limiting. I would be very interested to see if we are able to use the space to our best advantage.


Re Hangman:

The mysterious issue is that the manager told us me place was closing with 1 week's notice so we arranged a new venue within that week. After the new venue was arranged the manager said that the pub was no longer closing and that I had misinformed members (those to requested to see were shown the online conversation I had had with Gary regarding the closure). The decision was made to continue with the move as we and Gary were still unsure as to whether the closure was prevented or simply postponed, and we did not want to risk losing the Railway Inn by messing them about.
I still feel that the Hangman is an option, but should we move back and decide there is no longer enough room and have move out again we may burn our bridge there and not have the option of returning at a later stage if needed.

[dead]

The club voted today to try Forest House for the next two months and then revisit this once we are settled there.  We will hold another vote in 6 weeks once we know the manager and venue.

Ian

[paz]

[dead]

[dead]

I should be at Forest House next Monday at 6pm, however I have a very busy day in work in Winsford that day so may be a little late.  Please dont set up tables for games until I have arrived with the trestle tables as we will need to consider the setup options.

I would like to keep the room immediately next to the front door as the main meeting/socialising area and always have at least one game there.  Other then that we will try and spread everyone out to minimise the noise.  Some areas are only suitable for certain types of games and we need to consider how to lay everything out

I will give someone KG a ring once I am outside with the tables, I think he would appreciate a hand carrying in the 4 tables and assorted bags I have for the club as I wont be able to park close by and the tables are heavy

Ian

[Death Jester]

Knowing the space the entrance hall may be better for boardgames. But that can be organised tonight, I'm sure people will just find a space and settle in there