The 'Bloke Down the Pub' is Lying to You.

A personal, and hopefully occasional, rant. - AP

I had a very interesting conversation with a handful of club members yesterday. In summary, it went something like this...

Me: 'I found a bug that means some club members have had trouble using the club shop on the website. I've fixed it, but given our volume of sales, I wonder if it's worth keeping it open?' Club Member: 'I thought the club shop was just an experiment and it closed months ago.' Me: 'Err... no. Why did you think that?' CM: 'Because all the stuff we bought was crap and it came from Poland and lots of it had to be sent back. That's why you closed it and got the local craft shop to do embroidered badges.' Me:' Err, again, no. What products were faulty?' CM: 'The dice trays.' Me: 'We've never sold dice trays. Who on earth told you all this?' CM: 'Oh, I dunno, chatting with the guys down the pub. Everyone thinks you closed it. Which is a shame because we've all been after team shirts for ages!' Me: ' FFS!'

A few FACTS

• We had a bug that prevented about 20 members from viewing the shop page of the website. It is now fixed. If you're a member, you have access.

• The shop has been live for 2 years (March 2023) and offers a range of t-shirts, hoodies dice bags and mugs.

• We have never had a return of any of the 63 products sold.

• All of the products are print on demand and are shipped from the UK or in some cases Germany.

• Most of the products are customisable with names or graphics (just click the little pencil icon when ordering).

• We don't sell dice trays because I've yet to find a small volume custom supplier at a sensible price. Happy to be shown one if you know of anyone.

• We set up the embroidered option at the Local Craft Shack 8 months ago, because a number of members specifically requested putting an embroidered logo on their own items. To date this option has been used three times (one of them by me).

However what has bothered me most is the fact that this 'closure' of the shop seems to have been a subject of gossip for many months.

Stoppit. Just ... stoppit!

We work really hard to manage communications to all of you. Every news item that we send out gets a post on the website, which emails to members, and then we copy it to WhatsApp, Discord and Fb. We are really diligent about it and its been that way since mid 2022. There are eight people with publishing rights to the news items (we are keen to add more to keep you informed about whats going on) and they are encouraged to post ALL club news there.

Do you think we'd quietly close the club shop and not say a word about it?

If people have had questions about the shop, or problems using parts of the website, are people willing to believe the gossip instead of just asking? I may be biased here, but I don't think I, or the rest of the committee are difficult to approach? Maybe I'm a Tyrant?

Now, I recognise that many of you may not be interested in club merch - that's entirely understandable. I don't expect everyone to rush there and buy stuff immediately. But when people do want something, we have a store with dozens of products. If there's something you want that isn't in the store then ask - we may be able to add it. For the record, the club benefits from between 5-10% of any sales made - this isn't a get rich quick scheme. To celebrate this new-found realisation that gossip is often untrue, the shop will be running 20% discounts on everything from 1st to the 18th April.

1/4/25 - 18/4/25

In addition to this print on demand store, there are a couple of club members who have the ability to create other club goodies for us. We are trying to work with them to create a portfolio of items for offer.

So next time you're down the pub and some random club member says

"Did you hear that the committee have decided to ban games using dice with an even number of sides because they are wearing out faster than all the odd sided dice!"

Ask yourself, did a 'bloke down the pub' tell me that, or is it true?

End rant.