Chess Club [Name Pending]

Week 1 - 28/04/25

The first session was hectic as it was my first day at my new job. I didn’t want to seem like I was leaving work too early, but at the same time, I needed to arrive early enough to set up. Luckily, Isaac and I had a little rehearsal over the weekend and agreed on how we want it to look.

Not including Isaac and I, a total of 7 people came. All of whom were family and friends. From 6:30 to 7:00 pm, the streets were very quiet, but as the rush hour commuters were arriving in their droves, our little group turned heads as they passed.

We triggered varying levels of curiosity, most were just a quick glance. I want to say 5-ish people stopped and looked at the posters to understand what was going on. Of which, one person even promised they would be here next week (spoilers: they did not, as I reckon they forgot it was a bank holiday next week).

Isaac and I agreed that we would go for a ‘chill’ marketing strategy. We want to let it grow organically and let it spread through word of mouth. Despite this agreement, I want to try a guerrilla marketing strategy by placing our posters in and in-between the daily free newspaper outside the station.

Week 2 - 05/05/25

A different set of school friends came to check out the chess club, with 8 people (not including Isaac and me). We are still waiting on our first new face, who will hopefully become a regular. As it was a bank holiday, there were a lot fewer commuters. Despite this, people would still stop and see what’s going on. Whilst we agreed we are going for a ‘chill’ marketing strategy, I think it is worth being friendly and giving the intrigued person a final nudge to come play.

It seems that by around 8:30 pm, people seem mentally exhausted (note that no one had a full working day either). From this point onwards, there was more general conversation and catch-ups. I really like this aspect about the community, and hopefully, once we have more people rotating in and out of games, there will be time to recover and play.

I’ll close this with a thanks to S.W. for gifting us one of their chess mats and pieces.