This meeting was held at the home of Keith Levy, 9 Augusta Wood Court, Reisterstown, MD21136-5849, with approximately 20 people present and a few munchkins as well who probably did not sign in. A sign-in sheet was passed around and the following names appear on it: Hal Haag, Ben Foy, Robert Waters, Rich Shipley, Brian Stallings, Wei-Hwa Huang, Jonathan Hutcherson, Lisa Goldstein, john Weber, Stan Hilinski, Victor Hutcherson, Neil mcIver, Matt Mason, Chris Shockey, Courtney Shockey, Andrew Bergstrom, Doug Hoylman, Paul Gauniel, John P. Roberts, III, and Jim Yerkey.

Keith was prepared with a tentative Meeting Agenda:

I. Welcome and Thanks
II. What is GCOM
A. Helping gamers
B. Spreading the hobby
C. Communication
III. Communication
A. Meetings
1. Protocol
2. Frequency
3. Input- Brainstorming
4. Voting
B. Host
1. Input
2. Responsibilities
C. E-mail
D. Newsletter
IV. State of GCOM
A. Future goals.
Expanding the Club
a. More members,
b. More locations,
c. More visibility,
d. More GCOM sponsored gaming events
e. Involvement with other groups
f. further reaching communication
B. Organizing
C. Board of Directors
D. Web page
1. Input
2. Web design
3. Increased exposure
E. Advertising
F. Monetary Needs
V. Games Day 2002
A. What is Games Day?
B. Pricing
C. Content
D. Scheduling
E. Game masters
F. Snacks
G. Hours of game play
H. Expanding convention
1. Raising attendance.
2. Advertising
I. Location
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Meeting Notes
The following was accomplished at our first meeting:
1. The club's growth and expansion were discussed.
2. Assistance is needed to help the club grow.
3. Increase communication with other clubs.
4. GCOM will hold face to face meetings once every two months (bimonthly). Meeting location may change.
5. GCOM will have a board of directors. Three initial positions were created and voted on. President, Secretary, and Treasurer.

Keith Levy was nominated and voted on for President.

Secretary- Not yet selected. The secretary will need to be
present at GCOM meetings to take attendance, minutes, and list games played. All proposals and decision need to be documented by the secretary.
Treasurer-Not yet selected. Collect all incoming monies. Place monies in GCOM savings account. Help allocate monies for various GCOM needs.
-The position of Vice-president was mentioned but not decided on.
John Paul (JP) Roberts and Rich shipley will be working in
tandem to improve the website.
6. We suggested monetary needs in order to fufill our goals.
7. A suggestion was made to set up a table at WBC to promote GCOM.

Membership
1. A Suggestion for different membership levels was made. There was a consensus that anybody could come to gaming events for free and buy (and wear) GCOM T-Shirts these would be non-voting members.

2. We voted on a level of membership which would require annual dues and give the paying member certain benefits. Some recommendations for benefits were:
A. Voting rights.
B. Discounts to GCOM conventions.
C. Ability to use GCOM as a buying group to purchase new games at discount.
D. Business Cards to identify members and be useful for promoting the club. (These are now available from Keith at $2 for 30 cards).
E. Members names on the website.
F. An E-Mail list for gaming news.
G. Some conventions give discounts to organized groups (Balticon will give a discount of $5 to groups over 20 purchased at the same time.)


Games Day
Other venues are being sought such as Camp Fretterd, but
this is not easily available any more

1. To have a mixture of open gaming and scheduled games.
2. Current fees are reasonable.
3. To increase the con's attendance.
4. Keep snacks.
5. Search for possible alternate locations.
6. Create a gaming event to take place in the fall. May, 1996 is the Founding Day for GCOM, this is why Games Day is held in May. Due to venue scheduling, 2003's Games Day will be held in April. The organization could sponsor another large gaming event in another time of the year.
7. Rio Grande has offered to help with prizes (maybe). Looney Labs should be contacted.

E-Mail

There was some discussion about how often there should be "official" notification via e-mail. No firm decision was made. Once upon a time, there was a newsletter, but it
required too much work for Keith, so he stopped doing it.

At this point a suggestion was made for the position of
Club Historian, there seems to be more use for one of
these than for a Vice President.


Next Steps:
To assign board positions of Secretary and Treasurer.
Volunteers or nominations are needed.
To come up with, write and set up by-laws for club, host and membership rules.
It was suggested by someone that GCOM should select a "Best Game of Year" and make the announcement at the annual Games Day.