Bill Barnes examined the Scrabble board. He scratched his head. He finally laid "toga" across the bottom right part of the board.

"I'm just trying to improve my rack," he said.

He moves slow with his move, which he says is a problem he has to overcome with each Scrabble game he plays. On his next move, he places "rant" across the board, which he again says is to improve his rack of letters.

And on the third turn, he strikes a "bingo," clearing his entire rack with "soaring." The word scores him 83 points.

"If I get the right letters, I can really go to work," said the Union resident.

Barnes is one of more than 20 people who are members of the Millburn Scrabble Club, which meets each Monday night at the Millburn Public Library. The group has been meeting at the library since 1991, and the only time they're not there is if the library is closed. Then they meet elsewhere.

Most weeks are for fun, although everyone keeps a record of their game, but the final week of the month is when the group holds its tournaments.

Don Carson, the club's director, said the group averages 10-16 members per week, and they range from very young to older. One member playing on this particular week was 10 years old. They also range in skill.

"A lot of the new players learned to play Scrabble online," Carson said.

The group comes from all over, including Millburn-Short Hills, Maplewood, Scotch Plains, Morristown and Montclair.

Carson called playing Scrabble a "good, clean hobby." His mother played Scrabble with him in another club, so the appeal was in his family.

"I get to play with some nice people and I have fun," he said of the club. "I also learn so many crazy words."

Teri Peppe, of Plainfield, called playing Scrabble "an exercise of the brain."

"There's an appeal to all age groups, and one group doesn't have an advantage," she said. "The younger people learned their words differently, so they have that advantage. The older players have the experience as an advantage."

Seth Mandel, of Booton, placed "zine" on the board and said the word wouldn't have counted when he joined the club six years ago.

Barnes said he played Scrabble against crummy players for quite some time until he went for a weekend tournament. During that "weekend of words" he met many fantastic players and people who created crossword puzzles, he said, and it made him interested in playing against better players.

He spends a lot of time in Millburn, including at the library, and he saw the club advertised two or three years ago. That's when he started coming to the weekly games.

Barnes' game, however, isn't the buzz on this particular Monday night.

"Hey, what was the highest score," Mandel, who tallies all the scores together, calls down the table.

"628," someone announces.

"She just scored 629," he said pointing to a member, who just finished her game. It's a new high score for the club.