Subject:
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Re: Lego club Question
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.loc.au
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Date:
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Sat, 23 Jun 2007 03:57:29 GMT
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Viewed:
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4645 times
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Most of the lego clubs here in Australia are informal. Local meetings are
usually just a case of someone saying "everyone come over to my house on
<SuchAndSuchADate>" where the activities can be things like:
* bring whatever new MOCs you have
* bring whatever sets you've just bought
* show off some classic sets you own
* a bit of trading
* placing large combined orders at Shop@Home or bricklink sellers (as
sharing the shipping costs makes it very affordable)
* discussing interesting auctions on ebay, crazy bricklink buyers/sellers,
and generally exchanging news and gossip about Lego and the Lego community
* prices and availability of sets in local retail stores
* eating and drinking
We generally have the understanding that the host makes the rules on food
and drink, because everyone's financial situation is different. So some
hosts provide the food and drink, others may ask you to bring some along, or
put in $X for pizza. Ditto rules about bringing kids (how old, can they come
without a parent, etc) -- not all hosts are comfortable with having kids in
their home for various reasons. We try to take it in turns to host meetings,
but realistically some people can't easily host the group because they live
in a tiny apartment or they are in shared house or they live with their
parents who don't like the idea etc etc, so you have to spread it around
those who can realistically host the event.
Sometimes meetings have themes, like Christmas or Space, where you are
supposed to bring along sets consistent with the theme.
Other activities can be everyone meets at a large shopping precinct and you
visit all the stores that sell Lego to shop. Warning: shopping in the
company of other addicts tends to make you spend more! And of course eating
and drinking in the local food courts or cafes, while you chat about all
things Lego.
There are other activities like building competitions - everyone builds the
same set to see who is the fastest. Or give everyone the same set of parts
(usually multiple copies of the same small set) and they have N minutes to
build something creative in some chosen theme (planes, garden, etc).
There is "partsies", where a group of people split the cost of a large sets
that has great parts and then take turns to pick out the pieces they want.
Obviously this works best if people are after different parts and not all
wanting the same parts!
I don't know about NZ but in Australia it is hard to find venues outside of
people's homes to meet as there is either a fee or, if it is free, there is
often a requirement you have your own public liability insurance. However,
if you ask around, you can sometimes find places. For larger functions (e.g.
long weekends where you invite people from all over the country), we've
found a hotel who let us use their function room for free in return for
asking people to buy their meals from their bistro (so there's a sort-of
payment back to the hotel, but not a fixed charge).
Other things the groups can do is participate in hobby shows and other
exhibitions of their work.
If you have someone with the space, you can set up a group train/town
layout.
And sometimes groups get together, just for a meal and a chat without
bringing any Lego along.
I'd suggest you start with something simple just to get people together.
Invite people around and get them to all bring at least one set of some kind
to show off. Ask everyone for $X to buy some pizza for lunch. And see where
the group wants to take it from there.
Kerry
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Lego club Question
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| Oops, I forgot Brickwars! How could I have done that? (probably because I find it about as dull as watching paint dry). Anyhow, some lego groups play a lot of Brickwars (wargaming with Lego). Kerry (17 years ago, 23-Jun-07, to lugnet.loc.au)
| | | Re: Lego club Question
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| Excellent and comprehensive list Kerry (...) Down in Melbourne, we do a mix of private/public locations. We have found Community halls, and scout halls can be books for a small fee (Usually a gold coin donation), This enables us to have meets in (...) (17 years ago, 23-Jun-07, to lugnet.loc.au)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Lego club Question
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| Hello, I am in the process of creating a LUG group local to christchurch New Zealand. I am mainly asking people who attend lego user groups. I just want to know what you would do at a lego club (on a regular basis), where do people have their clubs (...) (17 years ago, 23-Jun-07, to lugnet.loc.au)
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