Building Community One Game at a Time - By Jonny Collett

I have done a couple of previous blogs on Games Community and what led me to start this group in 2018. This blog will be focussed on the Games Days that as a community and with the support of St Pauls we run 3 times a year.

We have just run our 14th Games Day and what a fun day we had. This was our highest attended event (bar Pokémon hybrid last year) with 106 adults and kids attending.

What is Games Day I hear you ask!? It is an all day Board games event that welcomes people from the local and wider area, particularly aimed to be accessible for families. We offer refreshments, a tuck shop a boardgames library to borrow on the day, and a large space within the church with tables and chairs. More recently we have been fortunate to have a group called 'Chance and Clockers' who run a social deduction game similar to the BBC series traitors, which is called Blood on the Clocktower. We have also struck a relationship with Hachette Games, a local board game publisher who let us borrow giant games for people to play at the games day.

I really enjoy running the games days with the wider Ireland Wood Games Community, and as an introvert this isn’t my natural social space! At the heart of Games Day is a coming together of different friends, groups and families - it's a bigger community with people enjoying a hobby together. Many people make new friends or encounter games they never knew existed. There is a really friendly and energised atmosphere. 

What we have seen over the years is people coming back again and again, whilst also then bringing friends. Many people comment about the beauty of the church space, some ask why we do it. Some are interested about the history of the church. For me, the Games Day acts as an entry into a church when many of those that attend are not Christians.

We also have seen an increase in families attending and we cater for young children, helping adults engage them with suitable games from the library. As an event in Ireland Wood, it's a great way to get kids off screens, interacting with other kids and adults and playing some great games.

Jesus's 2nd commandment was 'Love your neighbour as yourself' (Matthew 22:39). Games Community is a community of neighbours, and so we simply love people through the playing of board games.

Our next Games Day is Saturday 13th June 10am-6pm. Why not pop along and see what it's all about?

Jonny Collett