Swiggers meets every Wednesday evening to play board games in the upstairs room at the Shipwright's Arms (88 Tooley Street, London SE1). This is 2 minutes walk from London Bridge station (Tooley Street exit and past the London Dungeon) – here's a map (in a new window).
We welcome visitors and new members. If you have an interest in games, pop along one Wednesday evening and find out what it's all about. Or e-mail Mike Eggleton or Paul Evans.
There is also a mailing list for Swiggers: to sign up, follow the link or use the button to the right.
The games we play are generally modern, proprietary, board (and card) games, usually involving more skill than luck. In particular, we play games produced in Germany, where board games are a much more significant part of the culture, as well as the UK and USA. Examples of the sort of games we play include: Ave Caesar, Escape from Colditz, Family Business, Puerto Rico and Settlers of Catan. More recently published games that we play include: Agricola, Brass, Canal Mania, Container, Hamburgum, Phoenicia and Race for the Galaxy.
We also have occasional role-playing sessions, but there's nothing regular at the moment.
The club started life in 1980 (probably – memories are hazy) as the Esso (London) Games Society. The six founder members (Paul Evans, Paul Hanton, Pete Munn, Mike Sharp, Steve Tayler, Alison Wells) all worked for Esso Petroleum in central London and discovered a common interest in role-playing games (specifically Dungeons & Dragons). They set up the club, which met in the social club in the basement of Esso's office block in Victoria (London SW1). The club grew rapidly and the members became regulars at TSR's annual GamesFair convention in Reading.
The proportion of Esso employees dwindled over the years and the group eventually had to leave Esso premises in the late Eighties. It moved to The Victoria, on Buckingham Palace Road and became Swiggers {SW1 g(am)ers}. Over the next couple of years, several pubs were the home of the club until it settled in The Royal Oak on Regency Street, SW1 for several years. At the same time, the focus of the club gradually shifted from role-playing to board games and the membership changed.
Redevelopment of the Royal Oak in 1997 forced a further move. After a few unsatisfactory months at the Rising Sun on Buckingham Palace Road, we moved to SE1 and the Bunch of Grapes on St Thomas Street in 1998. The upstairs room at this Young's pub remained our base – through several changes of manager – for eight years.
A new manager took over the Bunch of Grapes towards the end of 2006 and started making things difficult for the club. After he refused to honour our booking of the room, despite having assured us the week before that we were welcome at the pub, we decided we had to find another venue. We are now based at the Shipwright's Arms on Tooley Street (a couple of minutes' walk from London Bridge station).
The club usually has 20-30 people attending each week and a much larger membership. One of the founders, Paul Evans, is still a regular. The club has no formal rules (apart from no smoking!), membership requirements or membership fees. We welcome anyone who plays games – come and join us.