We are More Than Board Games - Community Interest Company

Kira Litchfield is organizing this fundraiser.

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About Us

More Than Board Games is a registered Community Interest Company (16586644), created to unite people through board games.

On a scale of Limited Businesses to Charities, Community Interest Companies are in the middle!

More Than Board Games is a new social enterprise established and run by self-confessed board game fanatics, aiming to provide welcoming, fun and inclusive spaces for people to socialise and play board games. Focusing on the opportunity to break down societal barriers, improve skills and support mental well-being.

Board games..? Yes, board games! Well, technically tabletop games.

Everything from quick card games and tactical tile placing games, to thought provoking roleplaying games and sneaky social deduction games.

We are carefully curating a board game library to be enjoyed by everyone, from children and families playing their first game to hardcore board gamers looking for something new, or even someone who has never picked up a meeple before.

Feel free to check out our board game library on BoardGameGeek.

Sometimes a board game isn't just a game, it's sitting around a table with friends and checking-in with each other, meeting new people and making connections. It can even be developing and learning new skills like teamwork and communication skills, or pattern recognition and strategic planning. We really love board games, but we also love their benefits.

Now for the sciency bit - Psychologists from Edge Hill University have investigated the players behind the popularity of board games, providing data that could help support the use of games as a therapeutic tool.

More than 25% of gamers reported mental health or neurodevelopmental conditions, including anxiety at 12.2% and autism at 4.7%.

Dr Cross explained: “The revelation that many gamers have anxiety and autism shows that board games already serve a therapeutic purpose for many people…”

We at More Than Board Games recognise the mental benefit of board games, and notice a reduction in stress while playing. Board games are a perfect tool to help socialise, especially with those affected by anxiety and loneliness.

“I started More Than Board Games to help others and highlight the benefits that board games can bring to people. Whether that's to combat isolation, help build meaningful connections, learn new skills through gaming, or just to chat about our favourite games!

We are facing a devastating increase in adult isolation, and young people struggling to communicate away from smartphones and social media. Now more than ever we need to find ways to help people re-connect and I’ve found that even the quickest and simplest of games can break down barriers and encourage socialisation.

As someone who is neurodiverse and disabled, finding accessible spaces to play board games was difficult and finding new people to play board games with was even harder, leaving me feeling defeated and excluded from my own hobby.

My determination to find new people led me to restart and organise meet-ups for my local board game group. After a year of many great games and building lifelong connections, my next goal was to start something far bigger and share the power of board games!” - Kira, Founder & Director

Our Vision

We will be organising and hosting regular events, where people can come together to play board games in welcoming and inclusive spaces. As our board game library has been curated with a variety of games suitable for all ages and learning levels, we can create specific game sessions for targeted needs, which will benefit a wide community. Providing a safe meeting space makes being around like-minded board gamers and trying something new less of a social barrier.

One of our personal favourite goals is to be able to offer free events for those in need. For example running a fun and social gaming event to offer respite for young careers, skill developing game sessions for adults and children with additional learning needs, or bringing family board games to those affected by terminal illness/long hospital stays.

We love board games because of the fun we have while playing and being with friends and family. We also recognise the educational benefits board games can provide. For example; Codenames is great for communication skills and ‘out-of-the-box thinking’. Settlers of Catan teaches resource management, trading skills and strategic planning. Sequence X and Labyrinth are both colourful games perfect for pattern recognition and sequence building. We would also like to provide spaces for young gamers to participate in story-telling Role Playing Games (RPG’s) such as Dungeons & Dragons. RPG’s have so much potential for young gamers. Helping children who typically struggle with social interactions, to build confidence and develop stronger relationships with their peers. Through immersive story-telling we can teach empathy, action vs consequence, teamwork and problem solving.

The More Than Board Game Team understands personally that learning a new game, and reading lots of rules can be daunting, and off putting when trying to learn a new game or socialise. We’d like to help alleviate the pre-game stress by producing easy to follow instructional videos on how to set up and play through all of our library games.

Funding Goals

As we are still in our start up year, it is incredibly difficult to secure private funding or funding that won’t come back with a vengeance in the form of high interest.

Although we are working hard to grow More Than Board Games and support as many projects and people as possible, we have created this GoFundMe to ask for support.

Overall our GoFundMe goal is to reach £7000. We have outlined nine funding milestones below, detailing how funding will be used and who we can support with each specific goal.

£50: Pay for online advertisements to broaden our reach, so more people can find out who we are, our community projects and our services. The more people we reach the more people we can support!

£80: Buy adapted games and gaming accessories. E.g. Braille and large print games, card holders, tactile and high visibility dice.

£100: Buy large games for outreach and educational purposes, used in schools and for youth groups.

£170: Will allow our current More Than Board Games team to undergo an Enhanced DBS check to support our work in schools and youth groups. Please see ‘Our Vision’ for more details.

£200: Recording equipment for educational videos, to provide a wide community of gamers with easy to follow set-up and game play instructions. Please see ‘Our Vision’ for more details.

£400: Our amazing logo and unique More Than Board Games branding, is being produced at a discounted and expedited rate, by the wonderful DeeVa. This funding goal will allow us to pay Dee for their kind support and hard work.

£1000: Host our first public gaming event in Central Bedfordshire, to bring the community together, showcase the work we do and how we can support people through gaming.

£2000: Provide 10 charities with a free event. Be able to offer free events for those in need. E.g. Fun and social gaming events to offer respite for young careers, or skill developing game events for those with additional learning needs. Please see ‘Our Vision’ for more details.

£3000: Will provide us with our own office, board game library storage and recording space for our start up year. This will be located within a community hub, making it easier for us to support other community groups.

If you would like to help grow More Than Board Games but are unable to donate, please consider sharing our social media pages:

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