Category Archives: charity

charity

Woe is me!

charity, fund raising

We are fast approaching the Easter holidays. One more week and schools and colleges are closed for two weeks.

So inbetween preparing for the last term of the academic year there are opportunities to play some games in that break.

But there is a catch to this. Hardly anyone else is free to play anything. The majority of people are not working in education, so unless they book holiday, they are working for the man.

I know one or two of our gaming group are also in education. But sadly the universe has conspired to make life hard for them at the moment (that’s putting it mildly, and my thoughts are with them and their families).

But I suppose before I start worrying about what I’m playing over Easter, I should worry about surviving next weekend! It’s manic. 

My killer weekend starts next Friday with work! We then have our NSPCC Big Board Game Day All Nighter. Twelve hours of gaming running from 7pm that Friday to 7am Saturday morning. I then have to be in Cambridge by 10am for PiWars where some of my students are entering a Raspberry Pi controlled robot.

So potentially I’m home by 6pm on the Saturday. If I’m really lucky a bit earlier than that. 

I think it’s fair to say I may be a tad tired by that point, and ready to drop.

If you’d like to show your support for our charity effort for the NSPCC by throwing money at us (doesn’t matter how large or small the donation is, every little helps) we have a Just Giving page for our fund raising. Thank you in advance for any generosity you show. 

I know it’s hard, especially after just being hit also by Red Nose Day, and it’s the last week before payday (if you are paid monthly). So if it’s not possible to make a donation that’s cool. We totally understand. But if you could spread the word to your friends and family instead that would help us just as much, and we’d really appreciate it.

I’d also like to thank you for taking the time to read the above. Your support means a lot to me. Thank you. 

Then I’m going to close this post off with a picture from the past of the original wolf pack and me, that Facebook decided to remind me of.

The NSPCC Big Board Game Day All Nighter – What to play?

charity, Fenland Gamers, fund raising

I’ve spoken about the first world problem of what games to take for a game night before. 

But with two weeks left before The Fenland Gamers do their bit for the NSPCC Big Board Game Day event (it’s the 31/3/17). Thoughts have turned towards what to play during our twelve hour gaming session running from 7pm to 7am. Yep an all nighter.

Jonathan started the whole discussion off yesterday with his post on the Facebook event page we set up. 

But the choice of what to play is so hard. Obviously with such a long gaming session planned we can go for meatier games. But during the early hours of the night will we be lucid enough to play something complicated? 

The all nighter is also the ideal opportunity to get some of those games we love that haven’t been to the table for a while back to the table.

We have some hard decisions to make. Two weeks to chop and change our choices. 

Plus as Jonathan pointed out we only have twelve hours of play time! 

Oh the indecision ahead of us. Joy!

Naturally we are doing all this for charity, having fun playing games with friends is just a side benefit. If you’d like to make a donation/sponsor our horrible tedious game playing for the NSPCC Big Board Game Day you can visit our Just Giving page HERE. Thank you for your generosity. 

Fighting Ebola by playing a game!

charity, pandemic, tabletop

Last night was the Pandemic Party in Wisbech at The Entertainment Centre. Eight of us got together to play the game Pandemic by Matt Leacock to raise funds to help fight Ebola. One customer of The Entertainment Centre had kindly donated some cakes for the evening, which were rather nice. The crew at Bossa Studios creators of Surgeon Simulator the game (it's a great fun game available on multiple platforms click here for more details) kindly donated some “injection” pens to help raise funds for the evening.

Only one of us (not me) had played Pandemic before. So the game was setup for an “easy” setting.

For a first time playing I think we did pretty well. Three of the deadly diseases were cured, before we ran out of player cards (one of the three lose conditions). At the end of the game even though we failed to save the planet from being wiped out by deadly disease, we'd had a fun time.

We finished the evening off by playing a quick game of Zombie Dice. Which amazingly I won! Usually and this will surprise those I play Dice Masters with, I roll badly playing Zombie Dice. During my first two goes my rolls were true to form, and I was not scoring. Then I rolled eight brains before sticking. That's the best I've done in one round ever at this game. A couple of players had decided they liked playing Zombie Dice so much that they are planning to get their own copies. I also think they also took a shining to my dice tray and may also be looking at getting one of those too.

It's nice to see people like a game so much that they plan to get their own copy. Zombie Dice isn't a complicated game. It's a press your luck game. But in a group it's great fun to play. I just didn't warn them this is the start of a slippery slope.

The remaining pens from the evening are being sold off in the shop to add to the total of money raised. Which reminds me once I have a final total raised I'll put it up on here.

So a great evening, great company, all in the name of charity a win win situation if you ask me.

 

 

A Pandemic Party This Thursday

charity, pandemic, tabletop

This Thursday sees a Pandemic Party being held in Wisbech at The Entertainment Centre in aid to raise funds to help fight ebola. I wrote about Pandemic Parties previously here. Hopefully if you live locally you will be able to attend, have a great time playing Pandemic the game and help raise funds to fight ebola.

Click HERE to get full details of the event (it's a facebook event page)

 

 

Pandemic Parties

charity, fund raising, pandemic, tabletop

Today I came across a story of board gamers playing a game to help raise funds to fight Ebola. What game are they playing? Pandemic of course.

Pandemic is a collaborative boardgame where you work together to stop the spread of four deadly diseases around the world. It was created by Matt Leacock who also happens to be one of the folks behind this idea of playing the game to raise $100,000 to go to Doctors Without Borders and their fight against Ebola.

So Matt is asking people to hold Pandemic Parties, where people come together to play Pandemic the game (or any game) and donate money to fight Ebola.

When I heard about this I thought wow! This is amazing. It’s such a great idea, and a perfect match between the issue and the game. This isn’t the first charity gaming event by a long shot. And they aren’t asking people to do like marathon events. To me they are asking for something more akin to a MacMillan Cancer Support coffee morning. Come together, play a game or two of Pandemic, enjoy a coffee (or other beverage), have a good time, donate money, leave with a warm fuzzy feeling.

The great thing I think about holding a Pandemic Party is that you can theme it a lot. Petrie dishes to hold the virus counters (I know some folks already use this for the game), players could wear surgical masks and rubber gloves while playing, you could get some injection pens (pens that look like injection needles) and have them stored in a test tube holder and give them to participants.

The nice thing is Pandemic is one of my pile of shame games. So this will be a great excuse to play the game. I’m not sure when the deadline is for doing this, I know nothing will happen this side of Christmas but I will look at organising something for January.

Hopefully after you have looked at the links below you will also feel like holding a Pandemic Party. I do hope so.

You can find out more about holding a Pandemic Party by visiting the official web site .

You can read the original story I read here it also has video to.

And if you want to find out more about the game and see what it is like to play there is the rather excellent episode of Wil Wheatons tabletop.

 

You can get Pandemic from your friendly local gamestore, or online from the likes of Amazon. There is also Pandemic the Cure that is a dice based version of the game.