Hi everyone,
Last week, the national committee met to discuss recent matters, the
upcoming year and what we can do to grow larp in New Zealand. We
wanted to comment on a few things specifically and give you all an
update:
The Role of NZLARPS
NZLARPS exists to support and encourage all larps in New Zealand. It
does this by being able to provide funding, gear libraries, electronic
forums, advertising, a calendar to plan games, and offers experienced
advice and logistical support.
It does not seek to run a business and make money beyond what is
needed to fulfill its sole mandate of promoting and facilitating larp
across New Zealand. No single person on any committee, or in the
community, benefits from “profits” - everything NZLARPS makes is
reused for more events.
It does not control the running of larps in New Zealand. It does not
dictate what games or style of games can or cannot be run, nor dictate
when they can be run. Full control of games are in the hands of the
individual project owners and game masters, including what tools and
methods they use to run games. NZLARPS is not here to function as a
"police state" or the “morality police.”
When a larp is accepted and runs using NZLARPS funding (called a
"project"), the committees will do what they can to ensure the
financial viability of the game and may provide advice and mentoring.
NZLARPS has some basic financial reporting requirements for use of its
funds, and work with the Project Treasurer. The Project Manager and GMs
control the running of the game and the day to day issues, working within
the spirit of NZLARPs
NZLARPS is not a collection of larps that get special treatment, its
primary purpose is to promote larp in general. While NZLARPS does run
some larps and larp conventions directly, all this means is that those
larps run their finances through the society, and they use the gear
pool that the society has accumulated using revenue from Project
larps. Project larps are fundamentally just one specific way of
promoting larp in NZ in general, and are in no way considered by
NZLARPS to be ‘superior’ to any other larp event in New Zealand.
The Code of Conduct.
The national committee had a lot of discussion around this and the
different view points.
Individual games and events often already have their own guidelines
for out of character conduct in place already. The Diatribe forum (a
project of NZLARPS) has its own set of rules which has been enforced a
number of times historically.
The conclusion was that to put something like a code of conduct in
place and enforce it
across NZLARPS would require it being voted on by the membership at an
AGM/SGM and being
made a set of regulations attached to the constitution. We
brainstormed a simple code of conduct, but a number of points may
already be covered in the extant constitution including the banning of
people who break the law or bring the society into disrepute. The
primary point in a code of conduct is that our Members should treat
each other with respect.
Promoting LARP in New Zealand
There are a lot of Larps being run in New Zealand at the moment and
that is great. We would like to thank Jackie for stepping forward to
look after the events calendar. I have made contact with the various
university groups through out the country to get them to add their
games. And I have already seen a number of people letting us know when
they hear of conflicts or big events coming up.
In Auckland we have strong connections with the America University
games club and they are going strong. Campaign and monthly games are
going well, and Chimera coming up later in the year. We have of a
several 1 off games being run and members have been attending events
like Battlecry, Aethercon and Armageddon.
In Wellington we have been working on building our affiliation with
the Vic Uni games club, who are planning to run 4 big larps this
year. We have Hydra in April, a couple of campaigns coming and a
continual run of one offs. We have also targeted events like Aethercon
Wellington for promotion, with a table orgainised and up to 4 games
ready to go afterward. We also have the National Sci Fi con.
This year we are also trying to work with Christchurch and Dunedin
more. Making sure they are aware of our events and their events are on
the Calendar for all to see. To promote Larp and their games clubs we
have offered games and props from Wellington for games like Diamond
Geezers and Black Hart of Camelot and so on.
We are also hoping to get people down for Buckets of Dice and
sancon.org.nz/.
Memberships
Work is currently going on to make sure these are all up to date. That
members get enough notice if their membership has expired and that
details reflect where people currently are.
We are also looking at trying to arrange discounts for Members at
various places around the country.
Accounts
The accounts and taxes are currently being sorted out with work by
Anna Klein and Hamish Meads.
If anyone has any concerns or questions or things you want us to look
at, please PM me or send me an email to nzkell at gmail.com
Cheers
Scott Kelly