A WOKINGHAM resident has launched a new board games group, bringing together fellow enthusiasts.
Jacob Woodfield established the club, which meets at Spencers Wood Village Hall between 7pm-10pm on Tuesday evenings.
The inaugural session took place on Tuesday, June 7.
Mr Woodfield’s passion for games and a desire to meet the community he had moved into for work, encouraged him to put feelers out on Facebook.
“The village hall has kind of been this untouched gem in Spencers Wood, so I thought about just renting out a room and meeting new people,” he said.
“My wife started doing Needles & Natter, and so I thought a board game club might work. It was in my head for about six, seven months.”
“The problem is, it’s really hard to meet people as an adult. I moved down to the area for work, which a lot of people here have done.”
“I don’t really know anyone down here, so I thought ‘let’s just make friends whilst playing games. Everything’s really grim in the news, so it’s nice to just disappear from it for a few hours a week.”
As a board game enthusiast, Mr Woodfield is part of the Kickstarter community, a company that allows individuals to fund fledgling creative projects, in this case, board games.
Investors watch as games develop from ideas into reality, and are able to purchase them before they are available on retail at prices cheaper than the RRP.
Mr Woodfield has backed 21 games, with each set to be available to try at the club.
The second session took place on Tuesday, June 14, and kicked off with a fiercely contested playing of Catan, a game based on trading, building and settling.
A second group immersed themselves in games of Monopoly Deal and Snap-It. The evening was somewhat fittingly rounded off with a round of Pandemic.
Attendees had the opportunity to get to know one another in a warm and friendly environment, leaving with a buzz of excitement for the next meeting.
The three-hour session costs £3 to attend, with various refreshment deals keeping costs to a minimum.
Funds raised go towards the village hall, which serves the Spencers Wood community through its catalogue of weekly activities.
Whilst also being a video game aficionado, Mr Woodfield believes that board games offer something unique.
“Playing online, you have to plan when you’re going to play with other people,” he explained. “If you want to have a group of friends go online, it’s actually kind of hectic.”
“A lot of my friends have kids, so they come on every single night and you kind of get that FOMO when you’re not playing.”
“When I play board games here, I get the chance to be away from the house for a bit. I work from home and I don’t really go to parties.”
“That’s actually something that a lot of people who come here say, especially when they’re not really drinkers.”
“So in one sense, the group is for kind of nerdy people who are typically more socially awkward.”
The meet-ups’ tranquil nature allows members to have fun in their own way, amongst like-minded people.
“Board games are just a nice, slow activity which don’t even require you to socialise,” Mr Woodfield said.
“If you want to come along to play some games, you can be social, but in an antisocial way. So it’s kind of like the best of both worlds. You can open up as much or as little as you want.”
Moving forward, Mr Woodfield hopes to see the group achieve weekly attendances of 15-20 people, with 10 visitors required to cover the room hire costs.
Attendees would ideally split into sub-groups, with multiple games running concurrently.
“A lot of the games out there are for four players,” Mr Woodfield explained.
“It’s rare to find games which are for more than four people, and when you do, you’ve got to teach people how to play.”
“When more people come, the more games we’ll play, we’ll start to repeat games and the more we’ll get used to them.”
For more information about the club, search: Spencers Wood Village Hall Board Games on www.facebook.com
