Recently I was involved in a discussion with a few SGS Members on the subject of promoting the hobby of gaming. I've not been involved in the hobby too long, but the past couple of years I've seen some things that have worked for me and so I wanted to share my thoughts on the topic.

First, I think it's a noble idea to promote gaming. It had been suggested that promotion could take place through various media -- newspapers, local access cable TV and growing website support. Possibly... but I'm not convinced the growth of the hobby lies in such grand schemes. Even well-maintained websites are not always the best way to promote. There is no shortage of good websites on gaming, but the vast majority of people we want to attract are not actively looking for them. I can't believe there would be more than a handful of internet-savvy gamers; who did not know of the W3stbank Gamers website. But not a single Internet-savvy person in my place of work knows of its existence. But they know me and they know I like games and I have been able to get them to play that enough that they might become interested.

My feeling is to think local, not global. I think it's most important for anyone trying to promote the hobby to concentrate on the local area. Gaming is a hands-on hobby best demonstrated by participation, and enough people help at the local level, the global picture will shape up jst fine on its own.

Here are some specific things you can do Iin your area to promote the hobby. I've done these activities in the past year or two and they work well to promote gaming.

1. Attract gamers at every opportunity. Introduce games to your friends, family, and co-workers. Start nieces and nephews early on quality board games. Have a family game night, even if it's just a few times a year (we started on New Year's Eve). Build strong foundations at the local level and I think the future of board gaming will be strong. Schedule a game night for your co-workers -- a few might come to play and may get more interested and ask for seconds. Their they might attend a regular game session. Not everyone will take to it but given enough attempts, you will land one or two good gamers who can in turn promote the hobby by further participation.

2. Form a regular game group (or help someone else create a group) and generally host regular game sessions so there is an abundance of gaining in the area. Promote this locally (town newspaper, library, schools, book stores, game stores). If you don't want to form your own group, find an existing one and support it -- show up most every week and make the session better by giving it your solid participation.

3. Try hosting some game sessions at a local bookstore. We now game on Mondays (in addition to regular South Shore Gamers sessions on Saturdays) at the local Barnes & Noble (they have a game night now -- if yours doesn't, approach them and let them know there is likely to be some business in the cafe from the gamers should they have such a night). We've had store patrons come by and ask about the great looking games. We've seen growing ranks of other people come down on Monday's to play games - even if it's just chess or Scrabble. I suspect more than a few of the people saw us playing and went home to play some games later that week . It's just a matter of getting the idea back in their heads. It's not that they don't like boardgames... it's just that they have forgotten.

4. Use Internet tools such as e-mail lists to help manage local groups. I recently helped start an online group called "Unity Games" which is a collection of people from the area who share a common interest - playing boardgames. This e-mail list started with just four or five gamers and in the past months has grown to about 35 gamers. Our Unity Games group is composed specifically of gamers from the local Massachusetts and Rhode Island area who have banded together to form a loose coalition. These "Unity Gamer's" are alll members of smaller game groups or interested individual gamers who have come together mainly for the purposes of keeping in touch with each and to coordinate open game events and other special events in the area.

The smaller groups have not lost their identities, but the larger group a1lows us a wider base of like-minded gamers in the region. The UG list has spawned at least three different new game groups in the area after some people discovered that they were living very close to each other and could easily meet one night each week for some additional gaming. It's important that this list focus on a small area - so that all these people have the opportunity to meet mid game together (unlike a larger place such as rec.games.board where it's largely impersonal).

I expect this coalition will continue to grow as friends of existing gamers in the group come on board -- and from contacts we make in the area while gaming at the local bookstores and game shops.

5. Use Internet forums. Most people who are in forums are already gamers to some extent, but not all are dedicated hobby gamers and a bit of "lead-by-example" can help. Give advice, ask questions, interact and generally be a solid presence on the various public forums such as rec.games.board and spielfrieks. People might see the effort and take up the mantle themselves to help others or get more involved. Without open discussion and active participation, the hobby suffers. It's important to try and game occasionally in the public forums. Just as it's important to try and game occasionally in public place (such as B&N) you are infinitely more likely to attract gamers in public venues as opposed to private clubs or lists.

I hope these suggestions are of use to the community. Keep participating and try one or more of the ideas listed above and see if you can't grow the hobby a bit in your area.