Discussion Konnichiwa from Japan

Well, it seems from other posts that we have quite an eclectic mix of countries participating here, so I thought I'd throw in my nametag too. My name is James and I currently live and work in a university here in Kyoto, Japan. I and a close friend and colleague here also run a game club twice a week, mainly focussing on eurogames like Catan and Carcassonne but also short easy games like Blokus and Set. I've also recently started my Wii once a week, though my colleague isnt so keen on it and the students tend to get a little noisy ;)

The university is small but we have around 15 regulars and a lot of randoms who drop by when they can. Our biggest challenge has been getting recognition by the university to be an official club - they scoffed at the idea of games being a real extra-curricular activity (as opposed to a sports "game" club like volleyball). Now that one of the student committee members has joined Game Club, we may finally gain official recognition (next year sometime, and not yet as official sponsored club but merely as a "circle" of like-minded people). Although we arent technically gaming in a library as such, I'm hoping to learn a lot from this course - like how to market the idea and gain more members, some other good games suitable to our situations, and pointers on justifying the exisitence of a purely "gaming" club to the university.

Thank you, looking forward to participating when I can. 

James