Was part of a small college town club for many years and while I benefitted (rather than had to organize), here are some things our director had to do to make things lively for us:
- He had us meet once a week at his house between 6 and 10. That was the venue!
- He repurposed his dining room and a part of his living room with tables and boards : rather simple USCF chess kits (board + pieces) that sell for under 8 dollars a pop.
- We had a few clocks that he owned though we often brought our own.
- He had his son-in-law manage a website that told us if we had club that week or not.
- Once a semester, he would hold something at the college campus to pull in more crowds .. usually students from our rather large university!
- His wife was an awesome confectioner and we had atleast 2 cakes/pies as goodies to eat while we played.
- He vetted his club members with impunity :) No kids (this included even the well mannered ones!) or people who showed the slightest signs of being a jerk were asked to come back again.
- The highlight was a weekend 5 Rd G/30 Swiss held once a month. He had a USCF tournament director certification (its actually quite easy to just get the club TD qualification and you can start hosting USCF tournaments)
- He used SwissSys to run these tournaments. This is available for a cheap price these days.
- For big out-of-town tournaments, we would car-pool and finding people at the club was always easy. Our director would organize this for us.
Just a few ideas ... though it looks like it was a lot of work, he really loves chess (not really that highly rated a player) and did a remarkable job letting adults have a venue to play friendly games without much noise or distraction.
I currently live in Fort Worth and we have a much less "cosy" club but it still works great ... we schedule our weeknight session at the local Barnes and Nobles. They usually are good sports about using the cafe area in the evenings as long as we're not too loud.
Hope this inspires you :)
I live in a college town that has no chess club. I know there are some folks who would play if there were a club, and I would be a much happier person if I could play more OTB than I currently do. I would love the convenience of just stopping in and joining, but obviously I am going to have to consider starting one up. Does anyone have any experience/ advice they can share with me about starting something like this? Obviously we will need a venue that is large enough to contain several boards. We will also need the several boards, which won't be too much of a problem, as I've seen deals for several club type sets at decent pricing on this site from time to time. A set time would have to be agreed upon, I'm thinking of after work, mid week. Anyone care to brainstorm a bit? I'm sure that suggestions will be made that I never thought of, and problems as well. Thanks in advance for the time......