Welcome To The Forums - Why should you join?

[SaskGamesAdmin]

Welcome to the SaskGames Website.

What is the SaskGames website?
The site is primarily in place to promote board games and help locate others with similar interests in the Province of Saskatchewan. This site has a calendar where events can be posted for Public or Private gaming venues. The public venues can be viewed and accessed by anyone, the private venues are open to only those members as dictated by the owner of the venue. Each member will only see the events and postings for venues they have been given access to. The result is a consolidated calendar which will show a variety of gaming events occurring in the Province. This will serve to make it easier for people to get involved in various board game activities that interest them. This site has a section devoted to various styles of games where players can indicate their interests in particular games or genres for the purpose of connecting with others who share that interest. We hope this helps members get some of their favourite games to the table more often.

MISSION:
(1) Organize board gaming in the province of Saskatchewan by having a consolidated calendar of gaming events.
(2) Assist people to connect with other people with similar game interests.
(3) Make it easier for people who visit Saskatchewan to find game stores and/or board game events.
(4) Continue to grow and promote the hobby with fun, family-friendly events.

VALUES:
    * The philosophy behind this site is simply to help people maximize their enjoyment of games and gaming events.
    * Respect shown to all members, all gaming venues, and game store owners.
    * Games are for fun and gatherings should be enjoyable.
    * Maintaining a community that is welcoming to all.

What benefits do you get by registering an account?
We live in an age of websites. There is no shortage of sites that you can view and many of them ask you to register an account or join. At SaskGames, most of the content is available for the general public and does not require that you have your own ID. There are some distinct advantages when you do have your own account and we will highlight them here.

Access to Private Venues
Guests can view all of the events in the public venues, but will not see any of the events posted at private venues? When you have an account and start becoming involved with the community, members may invite you to their private venue events.

What are venues?
Simply put, venues are physical locations where games are played. There are basically two types of venues: Public and Private.

All game related events on the calendar will be tied to a venue indicating where the event is taking place. All of the public venues are open to all members. In addition to the public venues, there are many private venues which mostly represent private residences for groups of friends. These venues will NOT show up to the membership at large. You will only see these venues if one of the people hosting games at a private venue recognize your user name or somehow know you personally. They will likely then have the administrators give you access to events at their venue. Then, when you look at a calendar, you will see all public events and all private events that you are invited to attend. The Calendar button at the top of the web page will display a standard calendar view and all events you are authorized to view will show up on the calendar. If you click on the event name in the calendar, it will take you directly to the event thread where you can learn more about the event details and register to attend.

Every venue has a "PLEASE READ" thread that lists important information about that venue. Please read the information and if you have any questions, direct them to the owner of the venue.

Notifications
When you have an account you can turn on notifications for various sections of the website. This is helpful if you would like to be notified of a new event at a particular venue, or perhaps you would like to be notified if there is new material posted in one of the game categories. Notifications are in the form of an email message to your designated email address with a link to the content for which you wanted the notification. Event notification will instruct the site to email you whenever a new event is added for a venue. It is an easy way to keep informed of upcoming events. All game events will be posted in their respective VENUE section on this site. If you would like to be automatically notified by email when a new event is posted for a particular venue, click the NOTIFY button for that venue. You will then receive email notification every time a new event is posted. Follow the same procedure on every other venue (or board) for which you wish notifications.

Your own venue?
As a member, you can be given your own venue. If you host game events and would like a private venue set up on this site, please send a private message to the administrator. Once your Venue area is setup, you will need to let the administrator know who you would like to have access to your venue. You must be 18 years or older to establish a venue. Also, we ask the venues only be established if you host events on a regular basis. No use in establishing a venue if you only host a game night once or twice a year.

See what is new from your last visit
Another benefit that membership grants, is the ability to see what is new on the site since your last visit. Once you sign in, you can click on the link:
"Show unread posts since last visit." and the site will give you a listing of new content. View what you wish to look at and then click "Mark All Messages Read" and the next time you sign in you will only see new content once again. It is easy to stay on top of new content this way and not miss anything you might be interested in viewing.

Interact with the Site
Once you are a member, you will have the opportunity to post comments about a game you like, send private messages to other members, share information and tips about the hobby, and interact with the site in general. The hobby and community grows and benefits the more people get involved.

There are lots of game entries, posting your ratings in the game entry is a good starting point. May people have contacted other members simply based on the ratings and comments under the various game threads. The site has specific sections for different types of games. There are many types of games that get played in Saskatchewan and we wanted to categorize them to allow for more focused discussions. Each category will have threads about specific games, information about leagues and tournaments, links to special interest pages on the web, and information about clubs devoted to those games. Any time there is a categorization of games, there will undoubtedly be some exceptions. We hope that the categories we have selected make sense for the majority of games. Each section has a PLEASE READ post with details and information that should help you get the most out of the site. Here are the sections:
General Board Games
Collectible Card Games
Miniatures Games
Role Playing Games

Marketplace
A number of members have bought, sold, and traded games locally in the marketplace. You have a focused audience for your market, why not use it.

Final Thoughts
There are many reasons to sign up, but that is for you to decide. This is a volunteer non-profit effort. The site is just in place to help promote and grow the hobby. If you are thinking about registering on this site, we recommend you choose a meaningful User Name. Many members have chosen to register with their full name. It helps keep the site friendly and personal. You are welcome to sign up with a nickname if you prefer. All registrations get reviewed by an administrator. Sorry if there are brief delays, but an unfortunate reality is that many spam agencies register on all kinds of sites like ours. We use a spam checker to verify that User IDs, Email Addresses, and IP Addresses are not from know spammers / spam agencies.

"Life is Short; Play Games!"