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How do!

So as you may know, I founded the Loot Sharing Group on Facebook, and very proud of it I am too.

A post was made this evening, regarding a new school club that was pointed to GW’s “Warhammer Alliance” thing. In short, it’s a service where GW provide new school/youth clubs with a bunch of freebies (models, tools, paint etc) to get them going.

Now, at the moment, I do not know if that’s the extent of their product support. Whether it is or isn’t, I’ve had an idea for a new Facebook group. The kernel of the idea is a sort of swap shop/donation facilitation group.

If you run a club in a given area, you post up, and peeps in your local area can then get in touch to donate any hobby surplus, or if they’re feeling very generous, even provide specifically bought donations.

Now. There are a number of hazards that I can foresee, and I’m smart enough to know I’m not seeing all of them. But here’s what I’ve considered so far.

1. Would donations of paint be solely limited to pots, as spray paints have, uh....other uses
2. Some of the tools are sharp by requirement. Many of the beneficiaries are likely to be young.
3. Is it safe to donate partially used paint?
4. General safeguarding (because when it comes to child safety, one cannot be too careful)

I’m convinced the core idea is a solid one. And indeed one many hobbyists would embrace. I for one have various failed/abandoned projects. And being a charitable chap, I’d far rather bung them to Ninja Chris’ school club than go to the bother of flogging them online (but you do you!) It’s all grist for the hobby mill when it comes to such clubs, which often run on little if any budget.

Can anyone weigh in on how they see such a thing working? And, more importantly, any laws, rules, safeguarding etc which might jigger an otherwise good idea?

If you’re just gonna gakpost, please don’t bother.

Two quick things:
We have a teacher in our gaming club who runs a school club - I'll ask him about it.
As someone who worked in schools (in a non-teaching role): you need a member of staff to take responsibility, and somewhere to keep the stuff. Your 1 & 2 would depend on what storage the school has available.

Thank you

My mate Ninja Chris runs such a club as well, so I’ve reached out to him.

The concept definitely needs refining and rationalising into something genuinely practicable.

Perhaps (using English terms) County specific groups, so each club has better visibility.

So for me, it would be West Kent. I could then do a search within the group for each nearby town, and go from there.

Ideally it could be something I just pitch to GW, akin to Amazon’s Wishlist. Seems a safe and effective way to get each club what it needs. Because let’s be honest, if I set it up it’s gonna be wonky and need revising, because it’s me and that’s just the way I work!

Having mentioned the Amazonish Wishlist, I think that has some legs. But again would need some way for donators to find a club local to them. If it was a function on GW’s website, it’d be a doddle! Each qualifying club could then list up what they need/want. Even a cash donation to be store credit/gift vouchers might tickle that particular pickle.

Hmmmm.

You might want to local to your local council offices about this as they might have a department that will know the safeguards that you might need to put in place for such a thing.


That said even though it involves kids at the clubs, what you're more looking at is a donation service which means it should mostly be directly involving the adults only. You yourself aren't holding any personal contact information on the kids or anything; you're purely saying "Here's a club, donate to them".



At which point my thoughts are what safeguards can you impose to ensure that donations are going to legitimate clubs that are in need and are not being used for other purposes.

Eg people who pretend to run a club, but who are simply using it to get free stuff which they can then use for themselves or sell on. Or who do run a club, but only use a portion of each donation.

Another one is how do you ensure that one club doesn't end up dominating with donations. Even if there is no nefarious intent a club could end up gathering more attention to itself and getting a lions share of donations.

Furthermore we all know that different clubs have different resources, do you want to make sure that the club at the private school with a lot of affluent students and parents and such isn't taking a lot more in donations than the one at the community centre which has only whatever they can scrounge up.


Granted these might not be concerns for you as right now you're mostly thinking of just being a middleman advertising board; facilitating others to trade and network without actually taking part yourself. So these concerns might not be an issue; or perhaps you want it to do more and for your setup to be more much more of a middleman between the trades.

Another thought is that people are donating and when it comes to donations people like to know where THEIR donation has gone and that its all working as it should. How can you go about, whilst ensuring safeguarding of the kids and such, ensuring that those who donate things are going to get the positive feedback from the group(s) they've donated too. This could be something as simple as some photos of their stuff arriving at the club; of it setout; of people playing etc... In essence how are you going to thank the donators and welcome them into the process.

Again you could say this is down to the clubs to organise, however I would wager having it as part of the groups formal setup would help ensure it happens.


Ultimately I think the idea has a lot of merit. There are always those who are more willing to see their models and stuff go to a good home and help grow the hobby and fanbase; rather than purely be sold for profit.

Turns out GW already have gift lists.*

Right, that’s a significant part of the job done, and makes the FB Group that much more feasible....

*I think I already knew this, just didn’t realise they existed beyond Christmas.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Current thinking is to use a FB group as searchable database type thing.

Each club can then setup a Wishlist, and provide the details.

Start off with a bunch of sticky posts/announcements, one for each County.

Clubs can the flag themselves up in the relevant one, including their town.

So, if I wanted to bung something to a very local club, I can eventually drill down to find my County, then the Town, then their Wishlist.

And yes, a lot of this is being based on good faith and trust that those posting are genuine clubs and not greedy wee chancers looking for freebies.

Now I’ve not used GW’s Wishlist system before, so might need to suss it out a bit more, as it might better inform my thinking. Will ask a friend to set a quick one up with any old thing, so I can see how it handles things.

Spoke with friend.

Non-toxic paints are preferred. Tool donations should be OK, just need a Responsible Adult etc

Seems what his club need more of are models, and I suspect his won’t be the only one!

Ask them, get them to have a brainstorming session over ideas, then plan them on a calendar. Obviously some ideas might need adjusting to suit your facilities. Eg I worked with a group that wanted to do The Great British Bake Off, but we only had a tiny kitchen and 1 oven so it wasn't possible. It'd been requested loads of times so I had the idea to do it with biscuits, we did a technical where they had to ice a specific design on a biscuit in 60 seconds and a showstopper where I gave them all an equal stack of biscuits (about 6 or 7 different types and shapes) and they were to build a structure from them and the icing. They loved it and got so creative, a couple of the older ones didn't want to join snaptube vidmate in at first, but took the role of judges very enthusiastically.

More GW support posted about today

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/09/10/start-your-school-year-right-with-a-free-warhammer-alliance-pack-and-exclusive-back-to-school-offers/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook