The Big Meet

1. ) Q: What is "The Big Meet"?

A: It is the beating heart of this whole group - our once a month gathering. It is a brilliant place to meet a whole heap of group of members, find out who is behind that avatar and handle, get acquainted with what is happening and who is in your area.

2. ) Q: When is it?

A: It happens on the second Saturday of each calendar month.

3. ) Q: Where is it?

A: It is at the Barley Mow in Leicester. Look it up in our handy list of Venues

4. ) Q: How do I get there?

A: Asking for a lift works quite often, our members are friendly and helpful like that. Not always possible though. The venue is easy walking distance to the Train station in Leicester so that might work.

For people in Derby you could do worse than to check out the Skylink bus service to Eastmidlands airport. It actually goes all the way to Derby from Leicester and back, has a stop outside the train station in Derby and more importantly operates 1 bus every 30 minutes 24 hours a day. Link for up to date information/timetable/etc.

Charles Street is also right on hand which is home to a stop for just about every bus route going and will put you a bit closer the Mow than getting off at the Bus station itself.

5. ) Q: How is parking?

At the Calais Street car park which is just to the rear of the Barley Mow their Saturday parking charges were:

£4.10 paid for 6 hours, which is enough to cover you if you show up just before the start time until the evening, whereupon
£1.50 will cover you from 18:00 until sometime the following morning - well past home time at any rate.

Sadly the machine is old and cranky so this would require popping out at 18:00 to buy the second ticket and it is a "cash only no change given" kind of a machine.

Other options exist but have not been checked, there is some on street parking which might actually be free in the evenings - it used to be in the week but these things can change.

There is also an NCP multi story something like one street over in the direction of the train station, not checked prices there but you might be able to pre book and get it a discounted rate.

6. ) Q: What do you play?

All sorts of role playing games and even the occasional board game. There is usually a fantasy game of some sort being run in some flavor of Dungeons & Dragons or d20. Whether that is old school red box stuff, d20 3.5, pathfinder 4e or something inbetween. But if someone is willing to run it there are usually people willing to play it at The Big Meet. To name only a handful we have had: Call of Cthulhu, Serenity, Warhammer Fantasy Rolepllay, Savage Worlds, GURPS, SLA Industries and Runequest. And that genuinely is the tip of the iceberg.

7. ) Q: What do I need to bring?

A sense of humour is a good start. Clothes, ideally worn. Everything else is pretty much optional. It would probably be helpful to have some money so you can partake of the food and drink on offer. Bringing dice, pencils, pens, a notebook/some scratch paper and so can all be helpful but there is usually plenty of those supplies around that can be borrowed (with permission of course) that you need not worry about it.

8. ) Q: Can I run something?

Yes. Yes you can. In fact we would love for you to run something. Let us know about it in the forum thread stickied here and one of the organisers can add your game to the listed events.

9. ) Q: How can I find you at the venue?

If in doubt ask at the bar. Normally we can be found in the upstairs area. No matter where we are there are tell tale signs like stacks of books and bags of dice around that are a dead give away.

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