I am posting this as a proposal for how WARSoc could be more than just a meeting ground for new players, specifically for Magic: The Gathering players.
I want to make it clear that I think the spirit in which Magic is played in the society is great and hopefully will never change. The idea is just to make the games a bit more structured to make it more fun, not for it to get overly serious and competitive. It doesn't matter who wins necessarily but I think it's just kind of fun to have a winner each night.
What I think could be cool, would be if each week there was a planned tournament. This is a list I made up but could be changed depending on the interest level in each format.
Note that Shards of Alara is released in early Oct 2008 with the next part of the block "Paper" coming out in Feb 2009 and the final part "Scissors" coming out in May 2009.
Semester 1:-
Week 1: Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Block Constructed
Week 2: Shards of Alara Sealed Deck
Week 3: Standard Constructed (two-headed giant)
Week 4: Shards of Alara/Shards of Alara/Shards of Alara Booster Draft
Week 5: Extended Constructed (proxies allowed)
Week 6: Shards of Alara Two-Headed Giant Booster Draft
Week 7: Standard Pauper (commons only) Constructed
Week 8: Cube Draft
Week 9: Standard Constructed (no proxies)
Week 10: Shards of Alara/Shards of Alara/Shards of Alara Booster Draft
Week 11: Vintage Constructed (proxies allowed)
Semester 2:-
Week 1: Shards of Alara + Paper/Paper/Paper Sealed Deck
Week 2: Shards of Alara Block Constructed (two-headed giant)
Week 3: Paper/Paper/Paper Booster Draft
Week 4: Standard Constructed (proxies allowed)
Week 5: Extended Constructed (no proxies)
Week 6: Shards of Alara/Shards of Alara/Paper Booster Draft (two-headed giant)
Week 7: Extended Peasant (commons + 5 uncommons only) Constructed
Week 8: Block Wars Constructed
Week 9: Shards of Alara/Paper/Scissors Booster Draft
Week 10: Legacy (proxies allowed)
Playing a tournament every week, new players like myself could get tournament practice in a more casual and forgiving environment, something which would be much harder to do without the society helping to organise it.
Each tournament could allow the use of proxies or could be multiplayer however you saw fit. I think a mixture of using and not using proxies would be nice as players who bother to get a nice collection should get to use it on occasion but other times newbies need to be given a chance.
I think the limited format tournaments (Sealed Deck and Drafts) could also be timed with when new sets come out, so as people are buying new cards they can open their boosters and use the cards in the tournament. Formats using smaller card pools could be put nearer the start of the semester as these are easier for new players to get into.
Notice I have included some much more casual events like Block Wars where people like Dave who have older cards could make say an Urza's Block deck and see how it faces up against Jonathan's Lorwyn Block deck or my Ice Age Block deck. Also, a pauper tournament where we are only allowed to use commons which I think would be fun. There are a lot of possibilities, you could even keep society player rankings and have prizes for each tournament and the player of the year, the only downside is that it requires people to commit to playing for 4-5 hours.