Who are we and why Boards of Kettering?
We are Gavin, Polly and Dez and we love board games.
Our mission is to combine our love of gaming with making a positive difference in the community.
In 2019 Boards of Kettering formed to retail modern board games in Kettering. Since 2021 we have run a monthly board game cafe night. In 2024 we organised the first annual Northants Board Game Convention.
We have now registered Boards of Kettering as a Community Interest Company to use modern board games in educational settings to teach skills and well-being through play.
Meet our team
Gavin, Polly and Dez are the founding directors of Boards of Kettering CIC
Gavin Price
Retail Director and Programme Practitioner
Polly Shackleton
Programme Director and Practitioner
Dez Dell
Operations Director
A potted history
In 2016 a group of friends started meeting weekly to play modern board games.
Three years later, two of the players, David Byrne (not that one) and our Dez Dell were approached by the owner of Kettering’s pink shop – The Bean Hive – and asked to retail games as one of the traders in Davina Parkhouse’s very cool and popular mini-department store.
We jumped at the chance and became the first place in Kettering to sell modern board games.
Around a year later, in 2020, Dave had a career change and needed to step away from BoK.
The inimitable Gavin Price readily replaced him and became the main thrust of Boards of Kettering!
Gav has a background in youth work and was also previously a chef, so being a regular at Rushden’s Meeples Monthly, he suggested we start a monthly board game cafe, using his vast collection of games and excellent cake-making skills!
As he also voluntarily ran the Youth Works charities’ Throne of Games board game club for 11-18-year-olds every Wednesday evening, Cindy Wrighting from Youth Works agreed to let us use the lovely Johnny’s Happy Place Cafe to host our games cafe night.
The first Boards of Kettering Monthly Games Cafe Night took place on Friday 6th August 2021 and has been running every first Friday of the month ever since. It has grown incredibly popular and in 2024 had to be booked at least three months in advance!
Dez’s partner Polly Shackleton joined the team in 2023 and being herself a huge fan of board games used them in most of her lessons when employed at a local therapeutic school. Polly took part in Play Included CIC’s brick-by-brick programme to use LEGO in therapeutic brick clubs.
Seeing the incredible value in using board games in an educational setting, we searched for a programme similar to brick-by-brick but for board games.
Finding there isn’t such a provision we formed as a Community Interest Company in December 2024 to start our journey to create a programme to use modern board games in educational settings.
Polly has a psychology degree, and Gavin is two years into qualifying as an Occupational Therapist, so they are designing the programme and looking to trial it in Q1 2025.
Oh, and we also organised the first annual Northants Board Game Convention in 2024!
We’ve worked with some amazing organisations.
OUR VISUAL STYLE
We are lucky to have our pal Roop Pandya as part of our weekly gaming group. In fact, it was he who suggested we meet up for our first game of Formula D way back in 2016!
He created our awesome branding and continues to support us with design for the Northants Board Game Convention.
A professional graphic designer with his agency Muzz Design, he is also an award-winning miniature painter. Check out his Instagram for stunning Warhammer models!
Boards of Kettering Logo Square
Polly Shackleton Business Card
Northants Board Game Convention Sticker
