Hand Limit 2025 Event: Canterbury Pride Board Game Club

On Saturday we held our first ever Hand Limit Event, Pride Board Game Club, and it was a huge success. We seated approximately 58 people playing games throughout the day, plus a further 22 who came in to browse our stalls. We had a lot of fun demoing games, making recommendations, and helping people get set up. The games played ranged from Molly House, to Fluxx, to Ghost Castle. It was particularly nice to meet some fans of the blog as well!

Now that the dust has settled and we've had a chance to take stock of everything that happened, we thought it would be good to share a few thoughts and highlights of the day.

Drawn and Quartered tattoo studio ran a stall selling art prints and temporary tattoos, which were very popular. It was great to see so many people from the alternative community come out and be board game nerds for the day.

Dice & Destiny, our Friendly Local Gaming Store (FLGS) came along to sell and demo some board games including Yogi and Bad Trevor, which were both received really well and were both prizes to be won at the charity tombola.

Kitsch Flamingo ran our tombola, which was hugely popular and had some truly awesome prizes, including tickets to an immersive Grease experience in London, a free aerial fitness course from Inspire Fitness, and a tattoo voucher for Drawn and Quartered, which were all claimed before the end of the day.

Fruitworks Coworking and Coffee Shop, the spiritual home of Hand Limit, was the perfect environment for the day. Their event space was the perfect size and many people enjoyed the fantastic coffee and cakes they offer.

Huge thanks are due to all of our sponsors and contributors. Needless to say we would not have been able to get this far without their support and they helped make the day truly unique.

Throwing this event was a learning curve for us and we have certainly come out the other side with some valuable lessons on what we can change to throw future events and offer the best possible experience to our guests. 

We asked all those attending to fill out a questionnaire giving us feedback and valuable data that will help us run future events. Some highlights of the data we have received so far indicate that 50% of the people attending heard about the event through word-of-mouth, 100% of replies stated that they would like to see more events like this one, 100% said that we had created a safe and inclusive space, and 85% of people said that their mood improved as a result of Pride Board Game Club (the other 15% indicated that their mood hadn't improved, but it hadn't worsened, which is a win as far as we're concerned!). This last point is particularly important to us, as Hand Limit is all about the promotion of tabletop gaming as an aid to positive mental health and community building. Also interesting is the largest group of people (35%) stated that Pride Board Game Club was the first time they had played table top games in a very long time. We will be going through all of the responses carefully and apply any learning to our future activities to make sure we continue to provide a service that is beneficial to the communities we hope to serve.

So where do we go from here? After such a successful first event, Hand Limit is certain to host more in the near future. We are already looking ahead to Pride next year and are starting talks with local community centres to arrange for smaller gaming events targeting specific communities. We want to use this momentum to grow and strengthen the Hand Limit brand and continue to help people by using board games to promote positive mental health and community building.

Finally, I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who came along on the day. It was all our lovely guests that made this event what it was.

Do you have an event or community group and would like to collaborate with Hand Limit? Please contact us using the Contact Us form on the website.