In order to increase one's gaming circle one needs to recruit! !!! For us in CABS (Columbus Area Boardgaming Society) we do this in different ways. We had a business card made up with our meeting times and locations and directions! Anyone walking into the game room gets one thrust into their hands. Any newbie that at nights end seems to have enjoyed themselves gets 3 or 4 thrust into their hand to pass on to their gaming friends. We are now getting second and third level gamers showing up. It's like a pyramid scheme. The local game stores have signs and the cards in them. We are beginning to reach critical mass where the club will sustain itself. At local conventions we run games and anyone that lives close to our area gets hit. We run our own convention and we went from 50 to 125 in two years with this approach. Most of these are within a couple of hours drive. ORIGINS was big for us ... Since this is in Columbus - we run many games, Our members spread our convention flyers and business cards like water ... We put the cards in the dealer areas ...We had stickers made up and had all of our members wearing them at Origins ... Search the web!!! Go to the geek ... Check their opponents wanted section and email the ones that are close. Go to Access Denied email them ... Go to Wargamer Opponent Finder ... Search the web for other local clubs - email them ... Keep an eye out here and spielfreaks ... Post After Action reports ... Can't tell you how many people will email you and say hey - I live in your area and I did not know there were other gamers in the area ... We now have an email list of 225 gamers with about 175 of them in our area. Keep in Touch ... I probably do too much keeping in touch but a bi-weekly email reminding people of the next meeting is helpful ... get a web site!!! Anyone can do it and they are cheap .... Put pictures up after the meetings ... People love this !!! Check ours out ... buckeye-boardgamers. org ... I would love to have more content but if pictures are all you got ... go with it !!! Get an article in the local newspaper ... We had one come out just before our convention and we have had a ton of calls and interest in our club and con since then. Our web site took tons of hits in the couple of days after the article. You cannot expect gamers to find you - just like any business you have to advertise !!! Get your word out and if they like your product they will continue to come. We had to move gaming locations from a free game store to a rental location at the beginning of the year and this year we are now averaging 40 gamers per meeting. This is up from about an average of a dozen a year and a half or so ago when I took over the advertising . We also have to charge dues ... A dollar a month covers our expenses and we have over 60 dues paying members. Our last two meetings saw us have 55 and 61 gamers attend. Our first meeting after our con and the article in the newspaper is next Friday, October 17th. Don't know what to ex-pect .... Our game room can seat about 75 comfortably. We are all excited about the results and do not know what to expect. It Takes Work! But now on our gaming nights you can usually find someone willing to play any game you want to play ... and as soon as your game is done there are others to join in. With 50-60 people at a meeting it's like having a min-con every two weeks. The Columbus Area Boardgaming Society covers all tabletop gaming. Our meetings focus on boardgames, Euros and wargames alike. You will find 4 guys playing Advanced Squad leader next to 4 others playing Krokinole. Good Luck in your quest ... Back to Table of Contents -- Game! #1 To Game! List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by George Phillies. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com