‘£20 a year to be in the GCN, what is that all about then’?

Some of us in the GCN are quietly waiting for the inevitable question, which is, ‘why should my club have to pay £20 every year to be a member of the GCN’.  At the very least it will make a change from hearing the other more usual questions we are more normally presented with, which is one of the following forms, ‘if our club joins the GCN what’s in it for us’ or ‘what can we expect to get out of membership to the GCN’.  I am sure most of the council has been faced with that question on more than one occasion; I certainly know that I have. However, one thing that both sets of questions have in common is the answer, as the answer pretty much covers it all, you and your club will get out of the GCN exactly what you put into it.  So the question you may well need to ask is this, ‘why is our club in the GCN’.  Let’s expand on this a bit further. What benefits did your club get before the annual subscription charge was introduced, well your club committee had all their CRB checks done for free (if required), your club had access to very cheap PLI, (Public Liability Insurance), your club was advertised in Games Workshop’s stores, on the Games Workshop web site and in White Dwarf magazine, in addition being in the ‘club finder’ section on the GCN web site too. I have to ask the question here, is that not enough already? So what benefits are we going to get with the annual subscription charge, all of the above, none of that has changed one iota!  However you now need to be aware that your club will be advertised to a much wider audience from April/May 2011, the GCN has negotiated with Wargames Illustrated magazine to have two pages for GCN community and club listings published four times a year, much like White Dwarf.  Your club will now be pro-actively advertised to a much wider and diverse audience than ever before. The GCN/COGS Hammerhead show, at the 2011 show for the very first time we decided to have a show brochure, as well as a few adverts for traders, the room layout and table plan etc, we had all the current GCN clubs listed over a four page spread, with full contact details for every single club in the UK Network.  This was done so that people could have a ‘hard copy’ to take away with them and look at later.  We had enough copies printed so that the brochure’s can be taken out to other show’s where the GCN has is stand and given to attendees who might like to know if there is a gaming club nearby to them.  The 2012 Hammerhead show will see the show brochure expanded to not only include the current club listings, but also to include a GCN club events calendar to further promote your club and any events it has planned. Your club’s annual financial contribution is enabling the GCN to look at being able to do more to promote all of the club’s in the network, more so than has ever been done previously.  Also because we will have additional finance available to us, this is allowing us to look at having a much larger selection of new merchandise produced.  Having had so little available funds in the bank over the last ten years has pretty much stopped the GCN from doing this previously, or it has meant that council members have had to pay for things out of their own pockets when we have had to purchase item’s, which you have to admit cannot be right or fair. So apart from the cheap PLI, the free CRB checks, adverts in GW stores & the GW/GCN web site, club listings in White Dwarf , Wargames Illustrated magazines, and the Hammerhead show brochure, a growing range of quality GCN merchandise, what do we get for our £20 a year.As I mentioned right at the start of this article, you and your club will get out of the GCN exactly what you put into it, the more you put in the more you and your members will get out. To paraphrase history, ‘ask not what the GCN can do for you, and ask what you can do for the GCN’……..

Anthony Barnes, GCN President.