How to decide a time for a weekly meet?

Here's the background for a local college group. They have a new secretary every year and this year's one has found it's more work than desired. They have a Thursday meet at 19:00 and a Sunday one that is generally viewed as an extra. The secretary is concerned about the lack of numbers because there's usualy just enough to keep it going.

The situation for Sunday is that its' start time varies between 10:00-13:00 and finishes around 17:00. Each Thursday the secretary asks everyone what time they want it to start on Sunday, and emails the results to anyone who wasn't there and who asks. I've pointed out that the obvious less-work solution is to revert to how it used to be done, i.e. pick a time for Sunday such as 11:00 and stick with it. Apparently that's hard to remember, to which I reply: (a) if that's true, then, frankly, what are they doing at a university, (b) they can remember Thursday just fine, (c) instead of a fixed time, now they have to remember to ask what time it is. (I also had a response along the lines of how it's easier to remember because Sunday is only three days after Thursday, whereas a fixed time has a whole seven days between each Sunday.) The other justification for pandering to the indecisive is that they're only casual gamers.

I believe the uncertainty will ultimately cause less people to turn up because I've seen it happen before. As it stands, I won't turn up if it starts too late, and after a couple of passes I'm less likely to bother asking or checking the email. That's what happened for their last term, I went about three times and then it got so erratic that I gave up. So far for this term it's been a 13:00 start today, and here I am typing a post for F:AT...

Agreed. Consistancy is best even when it doesn't work for everyone's schedule. The only way you're going to maintain committment is through consistancy. GL with that.

Steve"My 2 cents"Avery

I can't imagine it's actually worthwhile (fun, fulfilling) playing with people who are incapable of even remembering a time .

Sheep need a shepherd, not a secretary. Can you cut her out of the loop and contact these people directly?

There are a couple of serious gamers so the trick is making sure I'm in that group.

The secretary's a he, and I wouldn't want to cut him out of the loop. Given the current setup, I'm fairly peripheral as I turn up less than half the time. Plus I wouldn't want the hassle of mollycoddling the iffy contingent.