[Daanz-dip] Fw: Recruiting

Wed Sep 3 15:48:46 EST 2008

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Craig & Louise Sedgwick 
To: DAANZ-dip Email Discussion Group for Diplomacy in Australia & NewZealand 
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 3:36 PM
Subject: Re: [Daanz-dip] Recruiting

Hey Edi,

If I am reading your email correctly Conquest draws about 1000 people each year from a pool of 300,000,000 people, or about 36,000,000 from the state of California.

>From that pool the Dip tournament has had (at its peek) 33 people and is trending down.

So if we take NSW with a population of 6,000,000, then based on similar success in recruiting we should look to have almost one board of players per year. You will be glad to hear our tournaments are actually doing better than that (on average) - we are regularly achieving tournaments that attract around 10 players or more!!!!

Sorry Edi, I am just having a bit of fun. My point is that the sort of numbers that Diplomacy tournaments achieve with hugely larger populations overseas is incredibly small (percentage wise) and if you simply extrapolate to the widely distributed, thinly populated Australian landscape, we should be happy if we get the tournament organiser turning up!

If there are any examples of TRULY successful recruiting (lets say where tournament numbers grow at 10% per year for 5+ years) please let me know. And find out what they are doing!

Craig.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Edi Birsan 
  To: DAANZ-dip New Zealand Email Discussion Group for Diplomacy in Australia & 
  Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 1:37 PM
  Subject: [Daanz-dip] Recruiting

  I just came back from running the Diplomacy Event at Conquest in the San Francisco Bay Area. � Conquest is a general gaming event which pulls in between 800 and 1200 people each year and is held the last weekend in August. � 

  I started running this event in 2001 as a recruiting and rah rah event/tournament. 
  It does not count for our Grand Prix (= to Bismarck Cup)/

  You have to go after the youngsters and intergrate them into your games or if you have enough of them put them on a board together. �Looking over the list of players for 2001 there were two 13 year olds that I taught the game: �Siobhan Granvold and Adam Sigal. �Both are now 8 year veteran players who have traveled. �Adam lives in New York now and Siobhan is still local but has been Seattle to play.

  The number of people who have played in the typically 3 round event plus one Mentor round
  has been 32-33-32-30-23-20-25-24

  In nearly all years between a half and a third of the players are playing their first game or first tournament.�

  The tournament has just three plaques: Champion, Outstanding Debut and Outstanding Play
  though I do record outstanding play of countries.

  In the course of the games I will give out prizes in the general theory that people are often only playing one game and sometimes a small thing helps people have a smile on their face. �One of the favorites lately has been a Demon Pirate Duck that fits on the end of a pencil which we award to people who end a game with just one unit and it is a fleet.

  In the convention I am very aggressive at recruiting and position my area at the front of the board game area so that all board gamers have to come by us on the way in. �On the average I will personally approach 200+ people trying to recruit them.

  I have a whole series of set responses to the general public in regard to standard negative responses.

  I make sure to teach people quickly...I say it takes 5 minutes when it is probably closer to 7...
  see my Video's on You Tube.

  I make sure everyone plays even if it is a game of less than 7.
  I make sure that the deadlines are short 10 or 8 minutes with 2 to write and that we have a newbie friendly rule interpretation. �For example we put the newbies in Turkey and France for a start and we read their orders first to make sure that any errors can be corrected without any affect of the other people.

  Even if people cannot play I get their email address and follow up with the type of letter below.

  �Working a Con is an article in the Diplomatic Pouch
  http://www.diplom.org/Zine/F2001M/Birsan/workacon.html

  The key is to attend and to work it every year, year in year out.

  There are about 3300 games being played by email at the moment on places like FaceBook as well as others.
  It takes �a lot to bring an Emailer into the FtF hobby as they are two rather different games and the culture shock is usually a lot for the Emailer. �The issue is really a matter of persistence and scale.
  Go after them and after them and after them and wash them through the local social game structure.

  Have Social Events not just tournaments. �Tone down some of the competitive tournaments and feed in social funny things. �Think of tournaments as a Tourney Party not as the housing of the latest intense peoples who have gone off their prozac.

  Here are some other references:
  http://diplom.org/Zine/F2004M/Birsan/Prize.html
  http://www.diplom.org/Zine/F1999R/Clarke/runit.html

  Edi Birsan
  EdiBirsan at astound.net

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