Festival of Hobbies - Board Gaming (Featuring Treehouse Board Game Cafe)
“...and then we just had to take the plunge. We signed a lease and handed in our notices - it was all pretty daunting”
From a group of like-minded friends gathering in the back room of a pub to a thriving independent business, Treehouse Board Game Cafe is proving that it is here to stay. Ruth Haigh, one half of the founding duo behind Treehouse’s success joined us to talk about why people love board games, board-gaming as a hobby, and the leap of faith involved in making your hobby a business.
Ruth wasn’t always a professional board game aficionado and successful cafe owner, and admits that her nine-to-five used to be a little bit more dull. “Before I opened the Treehouse with my other half Andy, I was an analyst in the civil service It was your average nine-to-five with lots of spreadsheets and graphs and stuff, so this is pretty different” she laughs.
Board games started off as something that Ruth and Andy enjoyed just as a hobby, but quickly began to grow into something more. “It all happened quite abruptly really! Board games had been becoming more and more a fundamental part of our social lives over the last few years, sort of growing from something that we occasionally did with a few friends, to something that we would be pushing on people whenever we had the chance. We were both sort of kind of fed up with our careers - Andy was an engineer before we opened the cafe and we'd been doing what we'd been doing for around 10 years, so we were ready for a career change. We heard that board game cafes existed and suddenly a possibility opened up. We started doing some research and thought that this was maybe something that could actually work! We started originally by doing a monthly board game night at Sentinel Brewery at first, and then the Showroom Cinema and got some good interest in that...and then we just had to take the plunge. We signed a lease and handed in our notices - it was all pretty daunting”.
“We get a lot of people coming to the cafe who struggle with social anxiety and have said that board games have really helped them”.
Ruth found that while working a nine-to-five, board games offered an escape that was at once meditative and creative, allowing for the exploration of new possibilities, worlds and relationships. When asked how she got into board gaming as a hobby, she explains that it started as something to do socially that shook up the status quo a little bit. “Board gaming really adds a new dimension to social interactions. It’s like sitting around a table with your friends is a good place to be to start with, but eventually it can end up focusing too heavily on drinking or get a bit samey other time. It's just introducing a totally new aspect - and depending on what you’re playing you can push the night into all sorts of different directions”, says Ruth. “There's also an element of make-believe in certain games that you don't get to indulge in as an adult and allows for some real creativity. It's a great way of seeing how your friends react in different situations and finding out about each other... who's really competitive who is really good at lying. I’m terrible at lying and can be competitive in certain situations but I don’t have to win”.
The social aspect is certainly something that seems to draw a lot of people to the ever-growing world of board gaming, and can be a fantastic social lifeline for people who find social situations difficult and daunting. “We get a lot of people coming to the cafe who struggle with social anxiety and have said that board games have really helped them. People on the Asperger's spectrum for example, find that having a structure can really help you you interact if you're not sure how to operate in a social environment. Having a set of rules that everyone is working towards can really help you feel more comfortable. Board gaming is a really good one in terms of improving your social interactions with people”.
As well as engaging you socially, board games can also be an excellent workout for the mind, with studies regarding the positive effects on cognition and mental health just starting to be understood. “I believe that all hobbies are certainly a form of meditation, especially board gaming. As well as the more socially focused games, you've got the other games that are much more cognitive and far more in your head, that involve a lot of Mathematics and strategy. They're really good for getting you into a kind of Zen state and forgetting about the world. Certainly if you're working full-time, they are a good way of getting your mind into a different channel. I think if you're doing the same thing all day, your mind can get stuck in a rut. It can be quite depressing when you come across obstacles at work and they completely dominate the landscape, so it's really good to do something different and to get your brain working in a different way, to meet new people and to step outside of your every day life”
“We realised that we would rather try and fail than not try at all”
With Treehouse now a thriving business, I asked Ruth what advice she would give to anyone who was thinking of turning their hobby into a full time venture. “You've got to be willing to put the work in and make sure you do everything you can if you want to succeed, but you also need to be realistic about the fact that it might not work. You never know unless you try”, Ruth admits, but follows “We realised that we would rather try and fail than not try at all”.
Ruth considers for a minute before continuing. “I think it's working out how you can ease in gently. I feel like in the modern age there are a lot of ways that you can do that. For example, a lot of people use Etsy as a tool if your hobby is more to do with crafts - you can get started that way. It very much depends on what your hobby is. We made use of ‘Business Sheffield’, a scheme that the City Council offer. There’s a lot of free workshops out there that can help you work out how to structure ideas a little bit and get them into a business plan, apply for funding and that sort of thing. That's actually a really good resource that will hopefully that will continue”, Ruth laughs “it is EU funded”.
“Get advice from as many people as possible you can and get in touch with somebody who's already doing what you're doing - that could be really helpful. Definitely just doing your research and getting information from wherever you can before you make any drastic decisions”.
So how can people get involved? If you’re already a keen board gamer or fancy trying out a brand new hobby and meeting new people this new year, Ruth warmly extends an invitation to The Treehouse!
The cafe is open every day apart from Mondays, operating pub hours (11AM to 11PM Tuesday to Saturday, 10AM to 10PM Sundays). “It absolutely doesn't matter at all if you haven't got much experience with board games or you don't know where to start. We have a fantastic library and a lot of tools to get you going - there's a games taster menu that offers great games for beginners and some quick, simple ones to get started off with. Our games taster menu is structured like a food menu; so you got your starters, mains, and then to something to finish with.”
If you’re looking to meet new friends, or having got a group that’s available, don’t fret, as Treehouse has you covered. “Most people do come along with a group to play with, but we’ve got a lot of events that are all about getting stuck in and getting to know new people!”, says Ruth. “The main one we've got is a monthly social gaming night, which is generally on the second Sunday of the month - that one's just turn up, sit down with a group and get playing! We've also been running some ‘speed friending’ events…we’ve done three of those so far, generally around every 3 months at the moment. It's a bit like speed dating, so you go from table to table and playing some quick two-player games, have a little chat - you've always got the game there as an icebreaker. People tend to stick around afterwards and play party games together as a group. We've got an LGBT+ group every third Sunday of the month, we've got an over 50’s group that's every week on a Thursday morning and there's also a ‘babies and board games’ group on a Friday that’s for parents and babies”.
There really is something for everyone, so if trying something new, meeting new people and improving your mental wellbeing are things that are on your list of new years resolutions, why not pop into The Treehouse Board Game Cafe and say hello!
You can visit The Treehouse on their website here.
If you want to learn more about Business Sheffield and get some advice on starting a business, you can do so here.