Networking the gamer community

I've mentioned Meetup.com here before, and I think I've mentioned how they sprung sudden and excessive fees on the Organizers for using the service. They seem to be sticking to their guns, so we're jumping ship, over to the Wichita_Roleplayers Yahoo Group. It's free, it actually has a more flexible calendar and scheduling system than Meetup does, and it's mailing-list based, which I think makes it a lot easier to manage the group.

The point of the Wichita Roleplayers Meet-up Group is to encourage face-to-face get-togethers among the roleplaying community, specifically to get gamers who don't play games with each other to start networking. It's working so far, though the build-up has been a little slow. Once we start offering one-shot adventures to demo games and the like, we ought to be able to attract more folks.

One of the things I've found useful in promoting www.WichitaGamers.com has been the old, reliable business card. The cool thing was, I got a box of 250 of them for the cost of shipping from VistaPrint. The only catch is that they have a small, tasteful ad for the service on the back of the card.

Once I got the free cards, I signed up for their "future offers" mailing list and they keep sending me discounts on products, including the Premium Business cards… I don't care about the ad on the back, but the Premium service gives me access to their entire graphics and template library. This week, they were offering 250 Premium cards for $3.55, and the glossy stock for just a nickel more… $3.60 for 250 full-color, glossy business cards, which I designed myself using their online tool. (It's very nifty, but you have to use Internet Explorer to get access to it.)

If you decide to get some cards, don't bother to mention I sent you. I'm not signed up for their "refer a friend" program. :)