Given that our annual General Assembly meeting is coming up, and as a part of that we have the election of 3 Board positions, I thought it might be a useful thing to write a little about my experience as one of the current Board members, elected at last year’s General Assembly.
When the call went out for prospective Board members to submit their candidacy, I wasn’t really sure. There was little detail on the role available, and I wondered what, if anything, I might bring to the Board to make it better. But after talking it through with some friends in the community, I decided to throw my hat into the ring.
In the hope that some of you might be encouraged to do likewise, here’s a few things I have noticed about being on the Witchards Society board.
- It’s not really about making games. We, the Board, don’t produce the games – that job is left to the Producers of CoW & Bothwell. Now, some of them happen to also be Board members, but the Board does not have a direct influence on the way games are run.
- It’s a lot about the money! The exception to leaving the producers to get on with it, is when it comes to the budgets. Whilst we don’t create them, or spend them, we do have oversight of them. These games have, in the past, been run with some fairly fast and loose financial approaches, and have found themselves in trouble for it. We aim to avoid that, by keeping an eye on the affordability of the games, and trying to keep the Society and its games on an even financial keel.
- There’s a lot of weird stuff you learn. The intricacies of the Danish tax system; international copyright and trademark law; WordPress plug-in management; online marketing; and community management are all things that I know much more about than I did a year ago. Some of them are fun. Some less so!
- It’s hard work and you’ll be unprepared for some of it. There are 5 of us, and stuff needs to get done. Often that stuff that needs doing is stuff that no one understands. Someone has to get stuck in and do it. It’s hard and sometimes disheartening, but also necessary.
- But the feeling of contributing is excellent. All the work we do is aimed to improve the games, the community and the Witchards universe. When decisions are made, they almost always have demonstrable effects, whether public or not. It is easy to be proud of things that you do in this role, even if most of them are unseen. It’s great when stuff is seen and receives approval. Of course, not everything is applauded – in fact most decisions that we take that people care about come with a degree of criticism, but that’s par for the course with this stuff.
- There’s a lot of talking. I mean, a lot. We have monthly meetings, and we aim for them to last 90-120 minutes. They usually over run. And sometimes we have to have extra meetings to address specific topics.
- We’re all still learning. There is no one currently on the Board who has ever run a Danish FMBA. Some of us have run large larps for years, some of us haven’t. Some are pretty techy, some are less so. But together we are learning, improving and trying to make the Society, the games and the community better as we go.
- We get to help others. Witchards Society is doing its best to support our community events, to find new ways to ensure that the legacy of a decade of College of Wizardry and related games is preserved and enhanced. Being on the Board gives you a chance to take a direct hand in that.
I have enjoyed my time on the Board this year and have another year left to serve. I am in equal parts frustrated that some of the things that I wanted to see fixed are still in the queue (for no one’s fault but circumstance); proud that we have successfully stabilised the financials of the Society, are on the way to fixing other issues still; and elated that we have overseen 3 large Witcharding events in 2024, all of which were a success. I am excited for the future with our community events, new membership costs, and future plans. And hopeful that the Society can continue to grow, strengthen and offer more and more help to the community.
If all of the above has not put you off, I heartily encourage you to do as I did and put forward your name for consideration as a Board member.
With all the love for the community,
John S.
