Writing as of Spring 2026
Introducing Mimic’s Milestones! This a system to track Mimic’s saving up some spare cash to make improvements to our community space, and all our community members can assist! It’s kind of like a fundraiser drive but with lower stakes and automatic completion.
Here’s how it works:
This is our first attempt at the Mimic’s Milestone system. We want some reliable and uniform new chairs for the tables in the main room. We’ve got the chairs sourced and the budget set for $1200 (details at the bottom). To show our progress, we’ve got the Loading Bar above the register in the shop! This money is tucked away in a savings account week over week so by the time the loading bar is full, we put in the order and wait for the new chairs to arrive!
Here’s how the Loading Bar fills up.
Mimic’s Market contributes a percentage of our net sales at the end of every week. With this, the Loading Bar will automatically fill up over time, meaning it cannot fail! We will eventually just get new chairs, but this can be sped up with contributions from our community members.
Here’s how community contributions can speed it up
- Loose change. Like a tip jar, if you don’t like carrying change, put it in the Mimic by the register.
- Voluntary table fee. There’s a lot of events we don’t charge for and we will keep it that way. But if attendees want to contribute and choose to pay a voluntary $5 for a free event, the entirety of that will go straight to the Milestone.
- Tiered contributions! A contribution of $30 (no sales tax) to the Loading Bar, covers the entire cost of one of these chairs. For this chair, we’ll put a custom engraved plaque on one of the chairs with your name or a dedication of your choice. A contribution of $40 dedicates a chair and snags you a fabric Mimic’s tote bag (just like NPR!)
We’ve already had several community members dedicate six chairs. Please don’t let us forget how you would like them dedicated!
We hope to do more with this system if it proves effective. The idea is that our community can contribute directly to support the improvement of Mimic’s Market, but just patronizing the shop also noticeably contributes to the project. As long as Mimic’s is your go-to FLGS, we’ll keep improving the space, and we want you to see the progress of that!
For future Milestones, we’re considering renovating the back room, getting better shelving and organization for our Games Library, stuff like that. If you have an idea for a future Milestone, questions or comments on this system, please let us know! You can email jayimbrie@mimicsmarket.com or ping @Jay on our Discord.
Details on Mimic’s Milestone 1 – New Chairs
We intend to be fully transparent on how the money is collected and spent. We expect to purchase 32 of these, Lancaster stackable banquet chair with 2″ padded seat. A contribution of $30 will cover most of the cost, sales tax and shipping of one chair.
Before the Loading Bar is completed, we’ll be purchasing one of these chairs to test their suitability for the store and affix a test dedication plaque to it as a proof of concept.
The funds contributed are placed in a savings account with the shops primary banking partner and are not accessed until the Milestone has been completed. We expect the completion of dedication plaques within two months after the completion of the Milestone and the delivery of the chairs, contingent on the success of engraving and affixing the plaques.
Tote bag availability is limited, first-come-first-served. We will not offer a $40 contribution if and when we expend our stock of tote bags.