“We all have day jobs, and we all log on anyway”
A volunteer crew of adults from Maitland and the Hunter Valley, held together by a shared chat server and a spare key to one room.
“Why a crew and not just a server?”
A server is a place; a crew is a promise. When I started playing online I noticed that the people I enjoyed most were the ones who turned up every Tuesday whatever the weather, and who remembered that the new voice in the channel might be nervous. A crew is simply that habit, written down.
I work shifts, and so do most of our members, so the crew was built around evenings and forgiving schedules. Squads rotate their captains, matches are rescheduled without fuss, and the club room on Elgin Street, lent to us by a local property owner who likes to see lights on in the evening, gives the online nights somewhere to land once a month.
The crew itself is run entirely by volunteers: nobody is paid, nobody pays, and the committee is whoever turned up to the last meetup with a pen. The website is operated by WAFFLE ADVERTISING LTD, 85 Great Portland Street, London W1W 7LT, United Kingdom.
“Squads, captains and a very short rule book”
The crew is divided into squads of four to six players. Each squad has a captain who changes every season, a vice-captain who keeps the roster, and a mentor who is usually a member from the season before. Squads are drawn in the warm-up weeks so that friends and strangers are mixed, and a newcomer is never placed without someone experienced alongside.
Decisions are made in the open. Anything that affects the whole crew, from the game for a trial night to a change in the fixture rules, is posted in the announcements channel for a week and settled by a show of hands in the chat. Moderators carry out the result; they do not overrule it.
The club room follows the same spirit. Whoever arrives first unlocks the door, whoever leaves last checks the windows, and a list on the wall says who has promised to bring the extension leads. It is not complicated, which is exactly why it works.
Three people you will meet first
Karen Jenkins
Moderator
Karen has moderated the chat server since the crew's first season. She came in as a player, stayed because the channels needed someone calm, and now reads every report herself before replying. Her favourite genre is co-op survival, and she keeps a paper notebook of nickname changes so that nobody is ever introduced under the wrong name.
Heather Mason
Event organiser
Heather books the club room, drafts the fixture list and brings the urn on the first Saturday. She joined after a neighbour talked her into a meetup and stayed to fix the seating plan. Her habit is a label maker in her handbag and a name tag ready for every chair, nickname first.
Lynette Lawrence
Guides editor
Lynette edits the guides section and writes most of the how-to posts herself, usually after testing each one on the slowest PC in the club room. Real-time strategy is her genre, and she is known for a spreadsheet of build orders that nobody else has ever dared to open.
“Who do I ask?”
- Who actually decides things in the crew?
- Squad captains and moderators handle the week-to-week, and anything big goes to a vote in the chat. I have a casting vote only in a tie, and in all our seasons so far I have needed it twice.
- Is there a committee or a membership list?
- There is a roster, which is a list of nicknames and email addresses kept by the moderators so that we can contact people about fixtures. There is no committee in any formal sense; the jobs are shared out again at the start of each season.
- Can a friend who lives in another state join?
- Yes, for squad nights, as long as their connection to OCE servers is reasonable. The monthly meetup is open to anyone who can travel to Maitland; a short email beforehand lets us set out an extra chair.
- How is the club room kept going?
- A local property owner lends us the room and the members look after it. We do not charge for the room, we do not take donations, and the only things we ask people to bring are tea bags and patience.