There are a few vaguely exciting things to pass along this week. Read on for vaguely exciting information!

This Tuesday the 7th our year-long RPG campaigns will be starting again, which is a cause for great excitement among men, women and beasts. We hope to see you rolling those 4d6 drop lowest (or equivalent) as we begin our journeys into the magical realm of wonder known as the Food Factory. 

Don't forget to keep an eye out on the game signup sheets, and to let us know how it goes! The committee is keen to hear stories of derring do, feats of bravery, and accounts of terrible stupidity, as appropriate for each campaign. 

* Tasks will not be exciting, and will only be cool during the winter months. 

Until next time folks!

As many of our members are aware, GUGS was refused SRC affiliation this year, thanks to our membership numbers being unacceptably weighted towards non-student members. This has not only meant that we were refused a Fresher's Faire stall, but also that we need to demonstrate to the QMU that we are willing to bring the ratio of our members back into the 80%/20% students/non-students ratio that they specify. To achieve this, the committee has agreed to follow a plan proposed by James Thornbury.

When memberships are handed out, GUGS will only grant membership to currently matriculated Glasgow University students. Thus the society will become 100% student-membership. At the same time, a new society is to be formed, one composed exclusively of non-student members, entitled Glasgow Gamers Association. GGA will exist for the stated purpose of fundraising for GUGS, which it will do in the main by progressing membership dues from its own members to the main GUGS fund. In return, GGA members will attend GUGS events and games, abiding by the rules and decisions of the GUGS committee. They will be guests of GUGS, which in practice means that GUGS members will have to sign them into the QMU (which is something that was commonplace at GUGS not very long ago), but otherwise isn't envisaged as actually changing the day-to-day running of games at GUGS in any way.

This new society will elect its own executive committee, have its own constitution, and hold its own AGMs and EGMs as normal. It is currently envisaged that it will do these things at the same time that GUGS does the same, requiring space timetabled at the AGM for their elections.

In short, it allows GUGS to continue to exist as a student society, while permanently removing the membership quota issue. (Other solutions mainly involve us enforcing the SRC membership quota limit ourselves, which will result in current members not being allowed to attend GUGS in the future.) This solution also ensures that non-student members have say over their own society, even if that society is explicitly subservient to the main society.

In terms of membership, only students are going to be allowed to join GUGS at this time. Non-student members will simply have to be signed into the building for the meantime. GGA itself will come into being during the next GUGS AGM, at which point the prospective members of this society will be solicited to run for its executive positions.

James Thornbury has provided a draft constitution, based upon the SRC's guidelines to societies, which can be found here. This will need to be ratified at the AGM, along with the very existence of the society, but in the meantime comments and suggestions should be directed to him (@jamesthornbury on Twitter).

You can find the minutes for today's committee meeting here, with discussion both of the above issue, our attempts to increase our student numbers, and Magic the Gathering.

Starting tonight at 7:30 in the QMU, join us for a Game of Thrones themed pub crawl! These themed crawls are a GUGS tradition, and we hope that you can join us. 

For those of you who can't join us right at the beginning, our provisional schedule is as follows:

7.30 - 8.00 Jim’s Bar @ QMUnion
8.15 - 8.40 The Crafty Pig
8.45 - 9.10 Coopers
9.15 - 9.40 GUU Beer Bar
9.45 - Crowning ceremony outside QMU, onwards to free entry to the QMU Club Night.

Come to Committee Room 3 this weekend for a Khans of Tarkir release weekend event run by Static Games! The release event costs £8, and will start at around 1pm.

Leicester have kindly provided up with a copy of the Student Nationals pack, which you can find here and on the website's documents page. Signups and other such things will most likely have to wait until after the AGM, but for the moment you can peruse the document at your leisure. 

The website has expanded to now include a documents page. This will be your essential source of all the GUGS documents, such as minutes and the constitution. If anyone has digital versions of old minutes and suchlike, then they are recommended to send them in to us here, so that they can be uploaded. It is hoped that the website will be able to act as an archive for our society's history, for those who are interested to look at the past. 

The minutes for the EGM held yesterday are now available to view here. I have stored them for the time being on my personal Dropbox, but if they are moved then I shall change the link here.  

If anyone has any comments or criticisms, please let me know.