Garry Harper and David Coulter, the directors who transformed a Lewisham kitchen-table project into the United Kingdom’s largest network of community roleplaying game clubs, have announced their retirement from The Role Play Haven CIC. The move marks a definitive shift from a founder-led organisation to a distributed national model, with an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) called to formalise the transition to a board representing Scotland, Wales, and Northern England.
The announcement follows a record-breaking year for the Community Interest Company (CIC), which raised £7,000 for charity in 2024. This success brings the organisation’s verified lifetime charitable contributions to over £30,000, following an official milestone of £23,000 reported late last year. While David Coulter is scheduled to step away from his duties as Community Director this weekend, Garry Harper will remain in an advisory capacity for several months to ensure a managed handover during this “new chapter.”
The decision to move toward a board with representatives from across the UK signals a strategic pivot away from the organisation’s historic London-centric governance. By inviting leadership from Scotland and Wales, the Haven is seeking to align its management with its expanding geographic footprint, which now includes branches as far north as Edinburgh and Liverpool. The calling of an EGM, rather than waiting for a standard Annual General Meeting, suggests that significant legal restructuring of the CIC’s Articles of Association is required to accommodate this new national oversight.
This leadership change comes at a high-stakes moment for the organisation’s specialised initiatives, Mythic Minds and the Young Dragons programme. These projects, which focus on the social and educational benefits of roleplaying games, recently secured industry veteran Sir Ian Livingstone as an official ambassador. While the founders are retiring from the day-to-day operations of the club network, the continuation of these high-profile partnerships will be a key test for the incoming board.
Garry Harper, Operational Director at The Role Play Haven, said in a statement,
From humble beginnings around a kitchen table in Lewisham, The Role Play Haven CIC was built on a simple but powerful vision: to bring people together through storytelling, creativity, and community. Today, we feel that vision has been realised, and the time is right to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders who can carry it even further.”
The “Founder Era” of the Haven has been defined by a grassroots, volunteer-led ethos that has raised tens of thousands of pounds for local hospitals and mental health charities. As the organisation professionalises into a national entity, the challenge for the new directors will be maintaining that local community feel while managing a complex, multi-regional operation.
