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Lets be honest, wargame clubs are nothing like sports clubs in membership size. Even when fully open to the public; unless its a massive store in a big city of a major national convention - the number of people who turn up to a club is typically not that great. We are talking low double digits at best. Hitting a triple digit and it not being a major event would be exceptional.


So as a result even though clubs are open to the public, they are small enough that any people turning up will be vetted to some degree. Even if that's just seeing if they turn up and say hello etc.... Each group will have their own standards and remove people who don't fit them.





It's different to requiring pre-approval and a meet up before they are allowed to come to cult..er club evenings.


Of course neither approach is the correct one; however I think many find it hard enough to get people to sign up and come in the first place so lower barriers of entry are often favoured outside of groups which are basically just a bunch of already established friends hanging out with each other and being open to adding a new friend now and then but not really looking to grow the group.

If you are building from 0 to a hobby group, you will want to build up a time for social painting and project time. Things like building terrain, painting, assembling, sourcing are all skills that the veteran gamer will need to pass on to their new acolytes. Very few people will be able to join the hobby of wargaming with a full-painted force and a fully realized set of terrain to play on. Therefore, building these things needs to be a part of the wargame community building process via organized social painting and force building events.

I found my club has big issues with retaining newcomers. Like we get regular intakes but they all end up doing runners