Pause Gaming Committee Meeting Minutes for 19/8/09

[Gunder]

Minutes for the second meeting of the new 09/10 committee.

Committee Meeting 19/8/09

Present
President: Niall (Pixie)
Secretary: Chris (Gunder)
Treasurer: Neil (Giga)

Agenda
1) LAN Hosting
2) Fresher's Stall
3) Pause Server

LAN Hosting

QMU is insisting that a charge of £25 will have to be paid in order to host all upcomming LAN events.
We have received an invoice totalling £100 for all of last years LAN events hosted at the QMU.
Meetings with current QMU President have proved unfruitful.
Face to face meeting with QMU General Manager and President forthcoming. Hopefully we'll make some proper headway into debating costs there.
GUU have not responded to any and all attempts for us to get some information about their facilities, so for the moment that's a no go.


Fresher's Stall

We have booked a stall for the Fresher's fair (Sept 15th-16th). We shall need some volunteers to help out with that. Additional details coming very soon.
We're going to have a Monitor/TV set up with a 360 playing Halo 3 so people can come and have a split-screen game.
Meeting to be held before the Fresher's Stall extravaganza to organise it. This will happen the day before.
Also present: Posters, membership cards and badges.


Pause Servers

Game server seems to no longer be required due to dwindling turnout at weekly TF2 night, and also the fact that we never have any problems just using someone else's server.
A new Ventrillo server has been rented. See Giga's thread (http://forum.pausegaming.com/showthread.php?t=2488) for the details. (20 slot server £5.75 per month)
Further minor design changes to be implemented into Pause website such as possibly implementing Xbox/GFW Live stuff similar to what we already have with Steam.


Post any questions you might have.

[saladin]

£25 per LAN? Have they indicated where this charge is coming from? I take it we won't be paying the charge from last year, as there was never any mention of charges when we booked the venue, and therefore no contract?

Have the QMU really been as unhelpful as they sound? It's almost as if they don't want us there any more.

[To0]

My understanding from what you put there is £25 charge for the entire year not on a per LAN basis? That seems doable but obviously if we are paying for a service we should have a contract and terms of service. I assume you are disputing paying the £100 as it is a retrospective charge, in the long run, current finances allowing, would we not be better to sign off an agreement that clears all previous costs as a "gesture of goodwill" and then get them to sign a performance based contract for the internet services going forward.

That is a bummer about the dwindling numbers for the TF2 server, I get internets tomorrow but I expected a decent turnout would last a wee while. Maybe the reason the turnout isn't good is because using someone else's server isn't a good solution?

Good luck with freshers week

[GigaFuzz]

I think the problem with the TF2 was that it was a little too frequent. There's talking of just having a regular 'gaming' night and mixing the games up a little. I'd quite like to try and get another big game of TF2 going at some point though. In a week or so maybe.

[GingerPrinz]

For me it was as simple as putting my back out - haven't gamed outside work for weeks :( Still in physio, but once I'm out TF2 would be good - I still think given the tiny cost that getting a Pause server is a good idea.

[Bluepixie]

Sorry to hear it Dave, a speedy recovery indeed.

In regard to a Pause server, it's not cheap. It would only be worthwhile if people were actually going to use it on a regular basis. You are not the only person not appearing on a Monday for gaming, many others, myself included have been unable to make it. We're not slaying the idea of a Pause server, however, current evidence suggests that it would not be a good use of funds. Donations are a great idea, but I'm not convinced that there would be enough support.