Finding the Right Venue

After deciding that we wanted to create a Wargaming club we had a few bits and pieces to sort out. Although arguably the most important of these was finding the right venue.

Space for Plenty of Tables

As it was primarily going to be a Wargaming club we knew that space would be important. As we want to make sure we had room to expand and the more 6×4 tables we could fit into the space the better! With this in mind we set out looking for venues with adequate space.

Location

Most of us live near Cumbernauld, in smaller satellite towns such as Dullatur, Kilsyth, Craigmarloch etc.

However we decided early on that ease of access to get to the location was important. As we may have people coming from further afield. This meant good proximity to the motorway and if possible, to a local bus stop. It also needed plenty free parking nearby.

Beginning the Search for a Venue

The first thing we did was to start collating a shared list of all potential venues. We done this by listening anything that seemed appropriate nearby, keeping a note of contact details, hire costs and any other important information.

Our list of potential venues included:

• Church halls
• Community centres
• Miner’s welfares
• Hotels/bars with function rooms
• British Legion & other ex service institutions
• Schools
• Local theatres
• Charity organisations with premises
• Bowling clubs
• Golf clubs
• Council run premises

Keeping a central list or spreadsheet is something we’d highly recommend doing if you are looking to start a club with a few people. As it allows you to keep track of which places have been contacted, what the response was, next steps etc. Perfect if you have a few people following up with different venues. We just used a Google Sheet but really anything would do.

Seeing a Place in Person

We can’t stress how important this is to get a feel for the location, see how easy it is to find and have a visual idea of how many people/tables you can fit in the space. You’ll need to go see a few venues before you can book something. It’s also worth pointing out that a lot of the kind of places listed above are notoriously bad at providing any information about the venue (such as pictures) online.

After narrowing our selection down to the venues that could accommodate us, had enough space and would be available over the time period that we required, myself and Curtis set off to view them.