Building Community One Board Game at a Time
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it takes to build genuine community in 2025. Not the algorithmic kind where you’re fed content based on what keeps you scrolling, but the real, messy, face-to-face kind where you actually have to look people in the eye and remember their names.
There’s something happening in Wantirna South that’s been quietly growing over the past couple of years, and it’s exactly the kind of thing that gives me hope when I’m feeling particularly pessimistic about the state of human connection. Someone has been running a weekly board game group at Knox Library, and from what I can see, it’s become a proper community hub. They started small, advertising on Facebook and Meetup, and now they’re getting close to 70 people turning up on Sundays to play everything from Catan to Blood on the Clocktower.
What strikes me most about this isn’t just that it exists – plenty of hobby groups exist – it’s the intentionality behind it. The organiser has clearly thought deeply about accessibility and inclusion. They ask for photo consent every single time. They make sure newcomers aren’t just spectating but actually get into games. They’ve kept it completely free by partnering with the library rather than running it as a commercial venture. That’s the kind of thoughtful community building that doesn’t happen by accident.
The economics of community spaces is something I’ve been wrestling with for a while now. Everything costs money, and most social activities either charge entry fees or expect you to buy drinks, which is fine – people need to make a living. But there’s something quietly radical about creating a space that’s genuinely free and accessible. No $45/month Meetup fees passed on to attendees. No pressure to buy anything. Just show up and play games.
I’ve watched loneliness and social isolation become genuine public health concerns over the past decade. We talk about it a lot – too much, perhaps, without actually doing anything about it. The statistics are grim: people have fewer close friends than previous generations, community organisations are struggling for members, and we spend more time alone with screens than we do with actual humans. The irony of me typing this on my MacBook isn’t lost on me.
But here’s the thing that the board game group in Wantirna South demonstrates: the solution isn’t particularly complicated. It’s regular, accessible, in-person gatherings built around shared interests. That’s it. No app required, no algorithmic matching, no venture capital funding. Just consistent effort, welcoming attitudes, and a willingness to teach people the rules to games they’ve never played before.
What impresses me is how they’ve grown the thing. Discord for coordination, Facebook community groups for reach, Reddit posts for visibility. They’re using the digital tools but keeping the actual experience firmly analogue. That balance feels important. The technology serves the community rather than the other way around.
I’ve been part of enough tech projects in my career to know that sustainable growth requires attention to capacity. When attendance hit 68 people, the organiser paused advertising to let numbers settle because they only have two rooms. That’s the kind of pragmatic thinking that prevents burnout and keeps things sustainable. Too many community initiatives collapse under their own success because nobody thought about scalability.
The discussion thread I came across showed something else that matters: people recognising the value of what’s being built. Comments full of encouragement, people saying they look forward to seeing the weekly posts, others pointing out how the group keeps growing and becoming more diverse. Someone even spotted an old friend in one of the photos. That’s community in action – the kind where connections form, persist, and occasionally surprise you.
There’s a broader lesson here about infrastructure and public spaces. Libraries have become crucial community hubs in ways that go far beyond lending books. They’re warm in winter, cool in summer, free to access, and increasingly they’re being used for exactly this kind of community programming. When we talk about government spending and public services, this is what we should be defending and expanding. Not just the books, but the spaces where people can gather, learn, and connect.
For anyone thinking about starting their own community group – whether it’s board games, coding, podcasts, whatever – the template is here. Contact your local library or RSL. Make it free if you can. Be consistent. Be welcoming. Teach people who don’t know what they’re doing. Use social media to advertise but keep the actual experience offline and in-person.
I’m still not going to drive out to Wantirna South on a Sunday afternoon – that’s a bit far from my side of Melbourne, and honestly, I’m more of a flight sim person than a board game person. But I’m genuinely glad this group exists. It’s the kind of thing that makes a city liveable, that turns a collection of isolated individuals into something resembling an actual community.
We need more of this. More free community spaces, more regular gatherings, more people willing to put in the consistent effort to make these things happen. And we need to recognise and support the people who do this work, often unpaid and unrecognised, simply because they believe community matters.
The alternative is what we’ve been trending toward: atomised individuals, increasingly isolated, meeting our social needs through parasocial relationships with streamers and podcasters (guilty), wondering why we feel so lonely despite being more “connected” than ever. I’ll take the board games and awkward small talk any day.