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What exactly are gaming clubs? I keep hearing about them, but I don't know what they are.
Do you have to sign up or pay a fee or something?
Do they have gaming tables, and support all systems, or just a few?

A gaming club is just a semi-organized group of gamers. All of your other questions depend on the specific club.

Like haendas says, it all varies group-to-group. If you have a large group of like-minded friends, you can set up a gaming club however you like. For example, I know a local club that only plays Bloodbowl. They meet at a member's house, drink beer, and occasionally play for money.

Another larger local club plays 40k and Fantasy and meets regularly at a FLGS. They've written up a large book of club-written/tested/approved scenarios for players to use and organize semi-regular campaigns.

But these are just two examples. Clubs can look like this, that, or anything in-between.

Agreed with the above. It all varies. If you are thinking of starting a club, here are a few things to consider

1 Games: Some clubs are organized around a sepecific game or type of game, some play everything, most will have some favorites or "go-to".

2 Location/Frequency: Some meet periodically at a FLGS or people's homes. A very few have their own rented space and may be able to meet anytime.

3 Organization: Some are casually affiliated, some will elect leaders and officers and document it and a few will even incorporate

4 Money: Some have no need or support, some willl require some sort of chip in for things like website, equipment, etc. Some will have defined dues for rentals, incorporation, etc.

I guess this probably makes it as clear as mud, but the fact is that there really is no specific definition. Also, many of the above factors will evolve with a club. There's no reason to try and nail them all down from the beginning.

I'm part of a club that has existed for about a year. Here's how it handles the above catagories.

Games: Mostly 28mm Sci-Fi and fantasy skirmishes. Mostly rulesets that are fast playing and "generic" in that they can incorporate any brand of figures. We do dabble in spaceship combat and 10mm sci-fi as well.
Location/Frequency: Mostly we meet bi-weekly at a FLGS, sometimes a member will host, and once in a while there will be additional events.
Organization: We have no official leaders -or even defined members- though myself and another member have taken on the yahoo group (me), blog (him) and scheduling(me) and could be looked at as "leaders". Most club decisions (games to play, schedule adjustments, how to present the club, what cons to participate in, etc) are decided by input from active members.
Money: During a brief stint with Meetup, some members chipped in to pay the monthly dues, but now that we've decided to leave meetup, there's no reason to require any payment at this time.

Don't take the above as a definitive guide, but it works for us and is just one example of how it could be done.

Sometimes you even have more than one in the same area. We've got three or four within driving distance (that I'm aware of). Sometimes they compete, sometimes they hate one another. There is some bad blood between clubs around here, but I'd love to see more friendly competition.

1. Here's an example of a not so large one: http://snakeyesgaming.blogspot.com/

2. It depends on the club, if they are providing their own gaming space, yes generally there is a fee. Some clubs get shirts and have a yearly party for their members so money tends to go there.

3. Again, depends on the club, normally they have a mission statement on what they support. Clubs i know of generally stick to a LGS to use those tables/host events, this helps them and the owners. Holding tournaments at said store generally raises revenue that day during the event.

Also gaming clubs forming show the general "health" of the local gaming community IMO. The fact that a club exists for a particular facet means folks have been around playing for a while and chances are that the hobby isn't going to dry up any time soon, leaving you standing with a horde of plastic men and no one to play with.

Jimsolo wrote:Sometimes you even have more than one in the same area. We've got three or four within driving distance (that I'm aware of). Sometimes they compete, sometimes they hate one another. There is some bad blood between clubs around here, but I'd love to see more friendly competition.

What reason would wargaming clubs possibly have to beef over?

Not much difference between a club and a gang...socially speaking

My old school's club had a 20$ fee which went towards running lessons and tutorials and such, as well as buying terrain and setting up a canteen. We had regular game nights on Wednesdays, and the rest of the events were organized by whoever wanted to do something.

It was really just a good way to get a bunch of like-minded people together. The club had great terrain and some of the members knew other games so we got introduced to a bunch of different systems.

Don't know how other clubs work.

Out here we have less of a club (although base Gagetown is starting one) and instead its just an ad hoc group who show up to 40k night at the FLGS...there are 2 of us who alternate organizing 40k and fantasy tournaments every month.

Here in the uk there usually organised around a local community/sport centre or town/church hall; also the backroom of a pub is popular for some reason.

These places have that vital thing that many of us lack - space to get a decent table in, plus they are usually cheap or even free.

Again it usually set up by a group of independent gamers. Why because if you like gaming the only thing better than playing a game is playing a game in a room full of games.

Personally I don't have time for one because of family and playing rugby (while I'm still young enough!), but look forward to the day soon when I regularly join one.