I'm still up for doing something, as long as someone else takes charge! ;)
(sorry, I was on two short holidays in a row and I just don't check the forum when I'm on the go)
I dig the idea of a tournament this year. At the very least, it might give GTG an idea if it's worth doing one at UK Games Expo next year, if they wind up going.
Looking at the thread, I can tell two things- we are at this point not a lot of people and we are all over the map (heck, I don't even live in the UK myself!).
Not being a lot of people is not terribly concerning at this point, because advertisment and store location will get some people in who are not on the forums. If we're lucky, I'd say we'd be looking at a 15-20 people turnout, depending on venue.
What we need is a Games Store that has table space for about 20 people, does tournaments, stocks GTG products, and in the ideal case of ideal cases, has an open copy of Tactics knocking around that they'll let us use (we'll need about two copies of the game, I think). And the store should be somewhere you can get by public transport (most stores are).
I know Leisure Games in London covers most of these. Any others?
They are the solid bet due to their previous hosting of >G a couple of years back so I'm sure they would be keen. 'The MIssing Geek' in Staines does not have table space but they use the function room of a nearby pub for game nights twice a week and I believe that they run MTG tournaments so they would be no strangers to this sort of thing.
I don't know any games clubs that have the space to host (and most meet in pubs which isn't ideal for this sort of thing) but a thought that comes to mind are smaller cons the like of Swancon and Tringcon. Unfortunately neither of these are due to meet again until March next year. The advantage of Swancon is that they have two meets, one in the North (Manchester I believe) and one in the South (Harrow), plus entrance to the con is only a fiver for a day and provides the advantage of being able to join the regular days activites outside of the tourney. I'm sure there are other min-cons like these that are active and could provide a more accessible option. If they are popular then we can turn to the expo as the next step up as they will definitely want cash to play.
Another option is one of the two board game cafes that have sprung up in the last year or so (one in South London, another in Oxford), but that would also involve money changing hands for sure.
Midcon's in Derby in November.
Midcon sounds like a good bet then! plenty of time to get something organised, it's also local for you Anna I believe? Do you know if they would be receptive to hosting?
If anyone wants me to get them in contact with Mike from Leisure Games, I can do so. Just shoot me an email.
I'll add "research MidCon" to my list of things to do tonight (after the Handelabra stream of course). 