Starting and Growing your Club
Looking to start your own club? Want to have a growing group of in-person players so you and others can both enjoy in-person play, practice, and improve? Read on!
—
Before you get started:
Before you say “Name of City/School/Game Store/Library Club is Open!”, there’s a few things you need to get out of the way to make sure it works out.
– Location
You need to find a place that will let you play at a regular time that is open and inviting. Examples are rooms on a university campus, play areas of gaming / book stores, even recreational/event areas in public libraries. If you are comfortable with more spectating and interaction with the public, places like food courts, parks, and lobbies of different educational / recreational places. Don’t overlook partnering with local university clubs! Gaming clubs and anime clubs will have space and people willing to join in.
– Equipment
If your location doesn’t have suitable tables and chairs, both are available from chain department stores (Target, Walmart, etc). for tables, you are looking for “30 inch card tables”.
Regarding tile sets, there are often domestic online options for purchase. For example, MJ Stars carries these items. ( https://www.mjstars.net/ ) If not, you can buy from multinational general stores (such as amazon.jp). The search terms you are looking for are “mahjong tiles” (in Japanese, 麻雀牌). As for which set to get, this guide suggests “take” (tahh-kay, means “bamboo”, but its a brand name not a tile material. Japanese is 竹. Altogether, “Take mahjong tiles” is 麻雀牌 竹) brand sets for their cheapness and durability. Other options are AMOS tiles. Most sets come with carrying cases and points sticks and die and markers as well.
For mats, again, check domestically, if you buy internationally the term is “mahjong junk mat” (Japanese: 麻雀ジャンクマット). Note that shipping these, particularly the rollout out versions, may be extra due to the package length.
Lastly, a compass is a welcome addition, especially for newer players, and relatively inexpensive. Japanese for “mahjong compass” is 麻雀コンパス.
All of this equipment should last you for years, given responsible usage. to wash all of the above, warm water and dish soap works well, followed by a warm water rinse or wipe.
– Base Four Players
This is going to be the “core” of your club. (referred to as the “Core” going forward) Having four reliable people means a game will always be running, and new player will always be able to jump in. This step is largely up to you: friends, fellow nearby players with the same desire for a club. Important notes is that players must be willing to help newer players, and not show frustration at any mistakes or delays. Good sports, whether they win or lose. Inoffensive to newcomers, in regards to language and odor. Solid, responsible people. For the beginning stages of your club, you probably won’t even be playing – you will be helping others, standing to let someone take your spot, working on club maintenance, and so on. However, there are upsides to this, your club will remember you all as the founders of the organization for years to come. It’s a big responsibility, but well worth it. To placate those who might not want to spend a club meeting every week not playing because they are helping others, look at having a second meeting each week just for your core. This way, you all can talk about club matters over a game and still get to play.
– Prepare “How to Play Mahjong” script
This is the thing that you say to players who show up for the first time, including teaching the game. Introducing yourselves, learning who they are, exchanging contact / social media, and so on. Even if you aren’t much of an outgoing person, this is something you’ll have to get used to doing. Tailor it to your audience. As for teaching, there are tons of guides available, and again, tailoring it to your audience will help a lot. For example, if you are in a gaming club, you’ll be competing with other easier-to-learn games, so you’ll want to play up the strategic aspect of it, and competition availability, similar to other games (scrabble, etc). In an anime club, the players will often want to learn regardless of the difficulty in doing so, so you can focus on the highs and lows of emotion you get from playing. For an older audience, the game’s historical connection to other card games such as gin rummy goes a long way into teaching strategy. Who your audience is matters.
\*\* When Money gets Involved – outside help needed here
– costs
– dues
– prizes
Base Club Activities
This is your “what you do at your meeting” loop. Getting a repeatable process will give players stability, knowing that when they show up how they’re going to get pertinent information, get seated into games, and so on.
– How To Act Like A Human Being
this needs to be addressed, just so that you don’t hit a common roadblock to growth for early clubs – a knowledgeable player that nonetheless berates, annoys, offends, even frightens others, that might not be called out because “well at least they are here playing”. Players need a baseline of respect for themselves, the equipment, and others, if they are going to be a part of a growing community.
– Basic Etiquette (No gatekeeping, let people play slow, etc)
Players shouldn’t gatekeep information, or talk down to players that don’t know as much as they do. They shouldn’t complain if someone takes time to think. They should answer questions nicely. They shouldn’t make fun of or laugh at players who lose. They shouldn’t tell people a legal discard choice is “wrong”, regardless of what they think, nor should they offer advice to players playing correctly that have specifically asked not to be given advice. Again, respect.
– Sample Meeting Flow
The core shows up 15 minutes before meeting start to set up equipment. Players are greeted as they come in. At meeting start time, weekly info is announced (new tournament opportunities, new players that know how to play, and newer members, draw tiles to determine table seating. Empty seats are filled by core players, with the remainder helping teach people how to play, helping others score hands, and so on. As games finish, players are shuffled and new games drawn, emphasizing players that have just arrived or had to sit out, again using core players as a fill-in. Once end time is coming up for the meeting, announce last games, finish them off, thank folks for coming, let them know when next meetup is, and pack it up. Awesome.
– Dealing with Problem Players
Figure out how you are going to do this in advance – how you are going to escalate issues that need resolving, who is going to talk to players that need it, and so on. As an example, you could tell players a few seconds of “be respectful, don’t do other non-game things in between drawing your tile and discarding so as not to delay unnecessarily”, and then if you start to have issues, start with a general announcement of what rule folks shouldn’t be breaking, then if escalation is necessary moving to privately talking to the offending player, next publicly, next privately telling them not to return until they have resolved their issue, then publicly, then authorities. Have a system down that works for your community and local laws, and follow it, because confronting people if you’ve never had to do it can be very stressful.
Side Events
This is things to do when not at exactly X4 people. Suggestions are to keep it mahjong related. If for example, standby players play video games, you may one day have the issue that your club has become Video Games club, with a side of mahjong. Example mahjong related activities: mahjong anime. M-League game viewing. “What would you discard” discussions (noting as always that people aren’t “wrong”, they just have different opinions between each other and the source of the problem). Playing mahjong online might work, but be aware that you’ll have issues where people are in games online so they can’t immediately sit and play in person, which defeats one of the main purposes of club.
Growing that club past the Core Four
Outreach is how you get new people into your club. Once you get past 8-10 people, “finding enough for a game” and “needing one more to make two tables” stops being an issue, and you will start to have that wonderful situation of new games constantly starting, people coming in, people taking off, and the bustle of an actual fully-functioning club.
– online discussion area
you’ll need a way to reach out to your players. Discord is an example way: make a discord, have a small slowed-down no-link / no-image public channel where players land, a role that lets them into the discussion channels proper (all this to avoid botting and spamming), and announcements sent out before every meeting as a reminder. Or, an email list. A LINE group. Your own website. A Facebook group. Or, a mix of any or all of the above, or something you come up with yourself, as long as it lets you let everyone know what is happening.
– Outreach for local new players
To find players, you have to find people interested in learning to play, or find people who know how to play and getting them to join up with you. For this, you have to get them aware of you. Flyers with contact information at colleges and gaming stores. Activity boards. Local internet sites. The loose collection of mahjong discords , both for other clubs, general mahjong, and specific applications. Game rooms at anime conventions. Side events at other gaming events. Find your players, and let them know about you.
– \*\* Where to make yourself known online
– Teaching and Organizing delegation
once you start to get established, invite some players into your core. let them know that their responsibilities at the meeting may periodically shift to teaching and helping, but that they are “paying it forward” so that everyone can get better and the club can grow. Some people like that sort of responsibility. If you are doing the “secondary meeting” way of satisfying your core members desire to play, invite them along.
Advanced activities
As you get big, you can start to do more things.
– League
you can run a league, tracking games with players. note that there are pitfalls involved with this – players now have something on the line, and can get upset if they lose or feel that others are berating them. players may not want to show up if they are doing poorly, or play certain people. there are a number of ways to combat this.
– – make leagues short – event only one meeting long.
– – make it only certain times of the year or opt-in only.
– – make a separate meeting
– – make it a league with no negatives (for example, if your league score ever goes negative, you are just set to zero immediately. Say a players is +20, then gets -5 for +15, then -25. Instead of going to -15, they are simply at +/- 0. Next game, if they get +17, they are now at +17.)
– Tournament
See the Tourney in a Box Writeup
=====
Notes:
Required sections to do (that I require help with):
– money
– online outreach
\*\* : I definitely need other input with sections marked as this, and do not believe I have the background to approve any writeups therein. Any input from any other person that things they are competent in those actions, by all means contribute, I pre-approve your writings as long as they follow the law
Possible expansions:
– fulltext of how to play, opening announcements, scripts when dealing with problem players