Sunday night was my first-ever time hosting a Meetup - our Girls' Game Night. I was so incredibly nervous.
Originally, I decided to host these nights as there seemed to be quite a few people who were interested in my Tuesday night group and I wanted to provide something similar for them. I actually have an incredibly full gaming schedule already, let alone family time and other parts of life, so this one would have to be less often. I started a Facebook group, but I didn't get the numbers to make it worthwhile. 4 or 5 people is fine for a game group, but only if most people attend every single time, and I know from experience that wasn't going to happen. At that point, I had to decide whether to abandon the idea or to throw myself fully behind it. Abandoning it was tempting. I have plenty of gaming opportunities and get my girl-game time regularly anyway - to be honest I was/am doing this for other people. I decided not to be a quitter and decided to shell out the small fee to host a Meetup Group. So yes, I'm paying to run a game group to benefit other people, and providing the rather pricey games, and can't afford to hire a space for the meetup so I also had to invite strangers into my own home which was certainly not the greatest set-up. Why am I doing this?? I'm doing this because I want to provide other women the chance to play these games and enjoy the social experience they bring because I know it's fun. I'm doing this because although there are a quite a few gaming groups around, they are male-dominated and quite a few women are just not comfortable with this. I'm doing this on the offchance I get to meet other awesome women who share my interests. I'm doing this because so many women (especially mums) just don't get the opportunity to give their brains a regular workout, and I believe that it's a really important thing to do. So - Sunday night. Everyone arrived and we had a huge potluck - there certainly wasn't a lack of food. Unfortunately it was absolutely pouring with rain which made a real racket on the conservatory roof. Trying to play a game in there would have been very unpleasant, so I decided to set everyone up around the coffee table and pull out a modern party game. I also thought this was a good idea as a bit of an icebreaker since about half the group were friends of mine and the other half were strangers, not to mention that some members of the group had never played a modern game before! I bit the bullet and practiced being decisive by setting up Codenames. I felt like a few people were apprehensive over the idea (more likely they just didn't know the game so didn't have an opinion either way) which made me more nervous than I already was and that caused me to do my typical jumping-into-the-rules-too-quickly and messing them up. This is doubly frustrating as I know, intellectually, how to do a good rules explanation. I can do it if I make sure to be mindful and deliberate. Next time! Codenames isn't complex though, so once we got playing everybody cottoned on to the idea and seemed to really enjoy it. I was super impressed that almost everyone tried out being Spymaster - if you've played it, you know how difficult that is. I love that "give it a go" attitude. :) I think we played 4 or 5 games before the end of the night and one person even put the game on their own to-buy list! There were difficulties. I've run games events for my friends for years, but I've never run a Meetup before. It was a bit awkward for everyone to have the meetup at my place. My house is small and my family is right there. This might have been less of an issue if we'd been able to use the games room and kept everyone separate from the general household. The location is something I'd like to address and we have a couple of ideas, but I really can't afford to hire somewhere as that would put the cost of running this to the point where it's not worth it (even if I asked for contributions). Let's call this a work-in-progress. Overall, I think the Meetup was a success. It seemed like everybody had a good time.
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On Sunday the 27th of November, I held a Pand-Tastic Afternoon Tea, attended by Lisa, Carlos and Dion.
It was a beautifully warm and sunny day! Attendees: Lisa, John, Gareth, Nigel, Luke, Emma, Brad
We had the first games night in a while last night, and I'm keen to have another soon. We started with Codenames. Luke and I were the spymasters. Due to my overly obscure clues (trying to desperately to link my particularly eclectic set of words) it looked like Luke's team had it in the bag. His team had one word remaining, and ours a stack of four. I threw out an "unlimited-guess" clue and hoped that there were few enough words on the board at this point that they could figure out my earlier clues. Somehow, the gamble paid off and my team (me, Lisa & John) won. I suspect that I may have been accidentally giving away a bit much during the game though, so I'll keep my mouth shut next time. We followed up with 7 Wonders which is a popular choice for many people in the group. Poor Gareth was the only person new to it so he was thrown in the deep end. In the end I took it out by a single point (Lisa and Nigel tied for second), due to the massive pile of cash I had managed to accumulate - thanks neighbours! ;) Following this, a couple of people cheekily suggested Rock Band, so we diverted from board gaming to play a few sets. I enjoy Rock Band and was happy to play, but still feel the need for some more board gaming (as the games we played were pretty light) so I'll probably hold another games night soon. Thanks for a great night everyone. |
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