I downloaded the Chess.com app and the lessons have really helped me (hit the weekly limit yesterday which was a bit annoying). I understand a bit about controlling the centre and opening up diagonals, and have managed to engineer a few pawn promotions against one of their bots. Also managed to salvage a stalemate from a terrible game which I had no idea about this time last week. A lot of my moves are blunders and I don't always understand why yet!
I'm up for a tournament if someone wants an effective bye to the next round!
I'm happy with either really. Timed games are more stressful and might be more complicated to arrange but equally there is a benefit to getting it over with in one go. Having said that, have you thought about a best of 3 format to mitigate the slight white advantage? Or are we all too pants to worry about that?
I think numbers permitting, round robin will be preferable so everyone can play everyone.
Rather than best of 3, we could just do 2 matches versus everyone, with one black and one white? Then you get 3 points for a win and 1 point for a draw.