Real Oldies discuss the plight of CLAWs at parties?
September 18 2004
Being the first recorded meeting of oldies, with enough incentive to take minutes, and even action.
Present: Adam F, Adrianna, Andrew H-S, d@vid (Scrivener), Jo (well, it was her party, she must have been there somewhere), Simon C, Yancke, possibly others, but I wasn't being that much of a note-taker
Apologies: "I will never apologize for the United States, ever. I don't care what the facts are." - George HW Bush, Aug 2 1988
Somewhat summary
It was recognised that some serious proactivity is needed if CLAWs is to keep on truckin'. Ideas are one thing, actually doing something is another. With issues such as the CLAWroom, we rely on committee problem-solving and action (ra the committee, ra the proposed CLAWroom subcommittee), but in other areas, including general promotion, we should be able to rely on regular CLAWmembers. Oldies are happy to help out, but CLAWmembers-who-are-actually-at-UCT need to get involved.
(And let it be noted that CLAWs has always had a proactive element. We just need to find it again.)
General
- adam f: being prepared to wear a sandwich board, ie all CLAWmembers should be prepared to take part in promoting CLAWs
- Bob friendly: social (no table shunning), plus involving in games
- redefine the image of CLAWs... successfully - d@vid notes that this is an old meme
- incentive for proactivity? the order of actually doing stuff
- advertising theme: "unreal education"
- paul kidby picture of a discworld wizard (attract pratchett fans)
- other recognisable fantasy/sf pictures
- "KAOS theory"
- "lose sanity now, ask me how"
- KAOS? demo - highly visible: water pistols, costumes, soaking people and handing out flyers
- see also: KAOS
- Carnival theme: stick head through carnie board and get water balloons thrown at you
- (continue carnival theme through year, including Dragonfire?)
Continuing promotion (thru the year)
- wargames/demos in Molly Blackburn
- daytime demos in Richard Luyt Room
- movie evenings ON CAMPUS
- interaction with other societies:
- games, eg KAOS
- inter-society room (see CLAWroom below)
- promotion in Orientation & first week of semester
- run in second week of lectures: Thursday, Friday, Friday evening CLAWparty?
- focus on meridian period
CLAWroom
- report from the CLAWroom subcommittee: (via AGM) we will possibly be looking for on campus locations again (rather than a shack)
- mobile CLAWroom - tent, pagoda, three walls and a roof
- what is the purpose of a CLAWroom?
- a visible presence for CLAWs
- a safe location for ranting CLAWmembers
- crazy idea: the Richard Luyt Room (which was supposed to be used for something else anyway)
- re. the references to having a separate Dragonfire subcommittee (see AGM), members of the SchpatCON? committee reported they would be happy to help out
- re. the wiki upgrade: Simon C reports plans are full steam ahead for an upgrade over SchpatCON?; wikigroups will be implemented
- subdomains still not working in certain labs - d@vid to follow up
Comments on Sep 18 meeting
- theatre/literature/tv/cinema/music appreciation - not excluding mind's eye theatre and larping(drama?)
- fancy dress
- CLAWs Psychology: Proudly shaming Freud since our inception... take a demo purity test now!! Free shots for the lowest score of the day! - GeekDotNeo sep 19 2004
- We're the Cape Legion of Adventurers and Wargamers. We want to recruit roleplayers and wargamers. I'm against anything designed to appeal to the general populace. In order to attract the roleplayers and wargamers we need to provide things they'll want to have: a library of rule and source books, place to paint miniatures, a space to work on / discuss / play campaigns, modules, LARPs, etc without having to explain what's happening to random outsiders. - ElfBoy 20 September 2004
- *extra additives:* is there an active chess club on campus? if so, we should challenge them to a game of draughts (levels the playing field). the CLAWs team will dress in black, their team in white, kings are noted by the wearing of any form of hat. one member of each society/club will be the actual player. squares can be marked using black duct-tape crosses. it shouldn't be a problem to have people walking through the board, and the idea is presence as well as good fun. - GeekDotNeo
- Make it a speed game: 5 seconds/move. Otherwise when it slows down you end up staring at that guy in front of you for 10 solid minutes and it gets kinda weird... -- GnomeThing
- right, separate Orientation2005 and InterSocieties page, forthwith; simon, you make a good point in terms of focus, but a) I wasn't a roleplayer until I joined CLAWs (and some don't start for a while), b) general interest events (eg, movie evenings) can be open to non-members without diluting that-which-is-CLAWs
- I agree, of course, that our primary aim should be to provide facilities for gamers, perhaps we should be clear in distinguishing: recruitment, encouragement (getting non-gamers gaming - I think we're always going to have a non-gaming element in CLAWs), facilities (for gamers) and events (which may or may not be open to the general populace, eg movie evenings) - what do you think of the possibility of sharing a venue with other societies to provide facilities? (as mentioned above) - d@vid 16h45
- Yes, we are the Cape Legion of Adventurers and Wargamers...but that doesn't mean we sit back and wait for ppl to come to us, and assume that if they're serious enough they'll wade through the piles of disinformation to find out that we're actually not all satanists. I know at least one gamer who didn't join claws cos he thought it was a goth society, so didn't even bother to find out if we had a library. the essence of a uct society is to promote itself and its interests, and with claws that generally means getting people over the barrier of first impressions so we can actually get them roleplaying and wargaming. we need to get over this attitude of elitism...so what if that-which-is-claws changes because of it...don't sacrifice getting new (and possibly non-alternative) people interested in the hobby because of some misplaced yearning for days gone by when you had to be hardcore to get past the antechamber. - MoonFlake 21/09/04
- "Promoting the society" is a nebulous concept, and everyone seems to interpret it in their own special way. So just to be clear: I do think CLAWs should advertise itself throughout the year in order to let everyone know that there is a roleplaying society on campus, and that CLAWs is it. I do think CLAWs should advertise fun activities to everyone, to attract the interest of new people. I do think that CLAWs should be friendly to shy people, so that they do not run away. I don't think that CLAWs should bother to aim its recruitment efforts at jocks / kugels / religious nutters and try to persuade them that it is hip / cool / tolerant of their idiocy. I don't think that these opinions are mutually exclusive. Not every suggestion for more self-promotion is a call for giving away free beer and condoms to the most obnoxious people we can find, and not every suggestion for more selectiveness and focus is a call for elitism and rudeness to people who aren't "hardcore". - MyrdemInggala
- That's fair enough, but it's most subjective. The current generation doesn't really have anything to compare to, for them it's possible that most people we would consider ideal are outside of their idea of what claws is about. who decides? i say rather get all types of people, including jocks/kugels/religious nutters, and they can either deselect themselves, or be deselected (could've should've would've to people like me and dermott) at a later stage. the idea is to get as many people who should be in claws involved. better that than the other way around. - GeekDotNeo
- the whole point of this discussion is that claws should not be aiming itself at any group in particular, be they geek, goth, or jock. rather, we should be making ourselves visible and interesting to a wider range of students. the idea is for claws to be open to all and sundry, and for them to make up their own minds about whether they want to stay or not. We don't promote roleplaying by saying 'you are not good enough to roleplay because you also hold some beliefs which i don't agree with/i think you're an idiot'. card gamers used to form a large contingent of claws and and then became interested and active in roleplaying...and are now actively shunned because many of the current claws contingent think magic players are idiots. where do we draw the line? who gets to decide who's good enough to join, or good enough for us to try and interest? rather not decide at all, but give everyone a fair opportunity to find out about roleplaying in general, but also related interests like wargaming, larping, and yes, cardgaming. otherwise, in a couple of years time, the only people at dragonfire will be the committee. - MoonFlake 22/09/04
- ...who would have written or playtested all the modules and the articles in CLAWmarks - I think we actually have consensus here, tainted only by personal biases in expression against, say, ex-DJs? and sports presenters - d@vid 12h27
- i thought claws was meant to be more than just role-playing and wargaming. it used to be about a bunch of people who were easy-going and friendly. occasionally those people played all manner of games, including roleplaying, wargaming, card gaming, video gaming, paintball, and so on. we've had many members who never have and never will roleplay or wargame, but were definitely claw members because they were fun and interesting. admittedly most members will roleplay and/or wargame as they are introduced to it but the society is more than just about the library and the room. i never saw the library getting drunk at lara's house while people were discussing whether a banana was a fruit or a herb. basically everybody should be encouraged to join. they'll click with us or not and will seperate themselves if they find us too weird (and we'll already have their money by then). we've had many members from groups that you'd never think would spawn a clawmember and yet it did. overspecialization leads to extinction. the only constant is change. old claws is history. nu-claws is what we have to work with. whether it lives or dies is based on the crucial decisions you need to make now. -ZenStar 13h25
- "nu-claws is what we have to work with"... this should in NO WAY be confused with nude-claws, which is just... well... wrong (on soooo many levels). I must admit to being a CLAW member due to various ON CAMPUS movie nights that initially ~made me the CLAWthings' willing sex slave?. I agree with the proposals above. I do not mind helping out where I can... one of the CLAW methuselas has spoken... you can all ignore him if you wish - ShadowsLight 14:03:32^H^H33^H^H34^H^H35
- It's possible that CLAWs has reached middle age - when the youthful, revolutionary beginnings give way to 15 years of dusty tradition. You can feel it when doing CLAWmarks ("But we must have an Archbigot and it has to include bananas, goats and freckles") and organising Dragonfire ("no, it's always been on the womyynn's day weekend"). When last was there a CLAWs event that was novel, exciting, and/or irreSPONsibly debaucherous? KAOS?, the Porno parties, the Easter Egg Hunt (not to blow my or Kait's trumpet or anything), the H2G2? mini-larp at Lara's party... Time to do something different. On a side note: I disliked how the character of the Archbigot had changed in recent CLAWmarkses?, until it became clear that it was only because it was different - and that's a good thing. -- GnomeThing 22/09/04 14:44
- roo, are you suggesting that we denude claws? it seems that apart from contributions from the usual gang of paranoiacs there is more advocacy against declawing than for, even from a NPOV - trimming seems to be the humane alternative
- you know people make references to time-travelling nazis, without knowing, you know, where it's from? (and how can you discuss LARP writing without talking about a CotMC??)
- but yeah, fuck tradition & vivat diverse membership - d@vid "tangent, moi?" 15h32