Clubs & Organizations

Summary

These are the new policies regarding a club or organization’s participation in Origins, detailing the specific benefits such a group can attain, as well as the requirements to achieve those benefits. It is the intention of this revision to simplify the process and enhance the benefits for both GAMA and the participating clubs.

In essence, a club or organization can bring a number of its members to Origins to present games and other events. In return, those presenting members can attain complimentary badges, vouchers good for food and products, and even accommodations.

In addition, such groups that join the GAMA Clubs & Organizations Program as members will gain the added benefit of their non-presenting members getting into Origins at half-price.

Outline of Benefits

For 2006, we are interested in tracking the total hours of service the club contributes, rather than worrying about individual performance. We intend to leave that up to the concerns of the club organizers. You will be able to aggregate the total hours contributed by your club members to attain the benefits outlined below.

1)   These can be Administrative Hours (helping in various areas throughout the convention, such as Registration and Security) or Event Hours (further defined and detailed under the Event Hours section).

2)   This is a new option for 2006. The voucher (probably broken down into $5.00 or $10.00 increments, which you can further disseminate as you choose) will be good for food purchases at various restaurants throughout the area, as well as for products in the Exhibit Hall.

3)   These are exclusive of each other. You can choose either to receive a $60.00 voucher for 32 Hours, or accumulate 128 Hours for a hotel room. Of course, you can choose a combination of benefits – use 256 Hours for two hotel rooms, and another 64 Hours for two vouchers, for example.

4)   This will be a room assigned by our Hotel Coordinator. Origins will not be doing reimbursements anymore. However, the major benefit to clubs here is that you will get an entire room for your people, rather than having them just assigned with other GMs and Volunteers. If a club ends up with an “odd” number of people needing accommodations beyond a full room’s worth, they can elect to have 32 Hours count towards a room slot in one of the regular Volunteer rooms (though this means that person will be assigned to a room as per the normal procedure).

Half-Price Badges

Last year, C&O participants attained half-price badges for their members by fulfilling a certain number of hours of service. This year, we have chosen to tie that benefit to participation in the GAMA Clubs & Organizations Program. This is a separate, though related, concept to the Origins C&O Policies. Selected clubs (most of whom have provided years of service to GAMA and Origins) will gain their first year’s membership for free, making the group an actual member of the GAMA organization.

Individual club members of GAMA C&O Program groups will be able to attain their 4-Day badges to Origins for ½ the current price when they purchase them.

More information about the GAMA Clubs & Organizations Program can be attained  here or by contacting Sean Fannon at events@gama.org.