Social Afternoon With games

This was another one of our occasional afternoon sessions at St Mary's Church Hall, Crowborough.

With the weather warm and sunny and one of our regular supporters ill it was never going to be a well attended event but we did nevertheless manage 12 attendees and they played lots of games with much laughter.

Games played included: Straw, Abandon Ship, Cartagena, Forbidden Island and Sherlock

Other photo's from the afternoon can be seen here

Social Afternoon with Games - 22nd February 2011

The best way of promoting a games event is word of mouth

With half term upon us, it was time to break out the games and invite the parish of St Mary's, Crowborough and the surrounding Deanery along for another afternoon of fun and games. This occasion saw 15 joining us with 4 new faces and apologies from a further 5.

In many senses I think this may have been the most enjoyable one yet with people moving between groups when the games came to an end and a

Social Afternoon with Games – 26th October 2010

This session saw four new games being introduced to the group, the return of Peter S, one of the earliest members of the games group in Crowborough and the first visit by Mary and Julia.

The first game introduced was Dixit played the previous night at the games evening and described in a little more detail here.

Then we moved onto Bausack a new acquisition in Germany, only days before, and one that I am sure will prove popular with a wide range of people across the age range.

Bausack (Age 6+, 1-10 players, 45 min playing time)

The Bausack box contains a mass of well made wooden object in natural and red of interesting and non uniform size, none of which are designed to aid you building a tower and that is the nature of Bausack. A box containing 4 distinct games where you aim to build towers in a variety of ways which depending on the game provides opportunities to buy good pieces and pass the rubbish to your

Social Afternoon with Games – Week 5

What follows is a slightly edited note submitted by Daniella (thank you), as I was out of the country for this final session.

It was a slow start but we began with Enchanted Forest with six players, due to the action of 'if you land on a space already occupied that person gets sent back to the village' the game did go on a bit but when we were finally allowed to get to the castle and locate the hidden treasure....I won....!!! We were all quite pleased it was over but thought it might be worth another go.

Meanwhile Incan Gold had started on another table and there was a little family rivalry in evidence with four players from the same family playing this game, I believe Liza eventually succeeded in winning this game.

Jungle Speed was played with three, Liza won the first round and my Tom won the second.

“Take it Easy!” was played with two players with Marcia, one of our younger players, claiming victory.

Straw was played by five players with Crispin winning (hmmm) a suspicious result there, but I couldn't keep an eye on the game as five of us were deeply involved in, dare I say it, RoboRally!!! Amazingly we all reached the first flag with a couple of us losing a life but time got away on us and when it came to the end of the afternoon Danny was the closest to reaching flag two with I think all his lives intact.

On the other table a final round of Jungle Speed was taking place with six players, Marcia won one game and Crispin again!!

I think all enjoyed the final afternoon.

Conclusion
This brings to a close the last of the summer session; a project with mixed results. The people that attended all said how much they enjoyed it but we all lead busy lives and with summer holidays the numbers never quite reached the levels I had hoped for. Also whilst a number of older parishioners expressed interest and indeed support for the idea in reality (whether for health or other reasons) they and their peers did not come along in numbers to balance the younger attendees.

On the up side a number of people did join us who had not played these games before and interacted with other members of the parish, both young and old, with much laughter and fun. I was also delighted to receive an email from one attendee (a professed non-game player) who with children and grandchildren had supported us throughout.

“They have become very interested in such games following the sessions……we all hope for more....”

St Mary's Social Afternoon - Week 4

Well it was a riotous and fun filled afternoon of board games, the numbers were slightly down over previous weeks with only 13 people; a couple of people were unfortunately kept away by health issues.

Games played this time round included:

Incan Gold – A very good new addition to the games collection that is ideal for large groups (up to 8 players) and wide age ranges. It reminds you a little of the Indiana Jones films where the treasure hunters explore deeper and deeper into a lost Incan temple. The further you go the more treasure you find but you only get to keep it if the monsters in the temple don’t scare you and send you fleeing from the temple dropping all your loot as you seek to escape. This was played by two different groups, during the afternoon and one was a very noisy affair, in part because all the adventurers except Jennie had fled the temple. This left Jennie to continue exploring on her own with the potential of gaining lots of treasure all for herself. As she pushed on she found a vast wealth of precious gems that would have ensured she won the whole game. However sadly for Jennie she

St Mary's Social Afternoon - Week 3

This week saw some previous attendees returning from their holidays and the absence of others as they headed off. Overall the number was up by 1, however the ratio was quite different with a total of 10 youngsters and a reduction of those at the other end of the scale to a mere three.

We started the afternoon with a game of Straw on one table, Zeus on The Loose on another and The Mysteries of Peking on a third table. This last game was brought along by Daniella and family and enthusiastically played by 5 youngsters and watched by one of our older friends who came in to see what we were getting up to for half an hour. In essence Mysteries of Peking is a detective game where players look for clues to solve a crime with the ability to hamper other players.

Later we moved on to play a game of Saboteur with 10 players which I believe Leonie won whilst others played Othello and Carcassonne. Interestingly not all the youngster went for the fun but light game Saboteur, preferring more thoughtful games with older players.

Castle Panic – A collaborative game 
As the afternoon continued four of us played Castle Panic an unusual game to the three young people playing with me in as much as

St Mary's Social Afternoon - Week 2

Yesterday saw the second of the St Mary’s Crowborough Social Afternoons with Games. I am pleased to report that the numbers held up and if you include one person who came along to see what was going on we advanced to 18 people.

Whilst chatting to Gervais it struck me once again what an amazing thing modern board games (and card games) are; we looked across at a game of Patrician (described in more detail here) and of the 5 participants, there were three over 60, one in her eighties and two teenagers (14 and 17). They weren’t members of the same family but they had all come together to sit round a table and play some games and, by all accounts talking to them afterwards, they ALL had a great time. At how many places or events in Crowborough, or the UK for that matter, could the same have occurred?! That is not to say this was an isolated case either,

St Mary's Social Afternoon - Week 1

Monday saw the first “St Mary’s Social Afternoon with Games”. It was a great start with 17 people turning up and as was my hope there were both young and old with 6 people aged between 8 and 17 and 7 over 60.

The first part of the afternoon saw the group split into three. One group with all the youngsters and some amused (or was that bemused) older people to play
Saboteur, a second group to play Patrician, meanwhile Peter and Peter enjoyed a good old game of Crib (and I know they would be keen to welcome some new participants for this next week if anyone else is interested).

The players considering their next action in Saboteur

Saboteur - In brief (explained more fully here) this is a game where each person is either a good dwarf (trying to dig tunnels and find gold) or a bad “Saboteur” dwarf (trying to hamper the efforts of the good guys). Your role is concealed until the end of the game which leads to much guesswork and false accusations. If the Saboteurs reveal their intentions too early then they are likely to find all their equipment broken leaving them unable to

Match Report 28th July 2010

With plans advancing for our first “Social Afternoon With Games” (Monday 2nd August 2pm ‘til 5pm in St Mary’s parish hall) it was time for a quick planning session with some of our evening gamers who have offered their support (and were available) plus two younger supporters of this exercise.

With the planning done we inevitably thought it a good idea to have a game or two or indeed four, albeit none were very heavy or serious.

Straw (Age 6+, 2-6 players 30 minutes playing time)

We started with Straw, a new addition and filler type game which has beautiful cards on very good quality card. The idea being to place objects on the camels back without breaking it. Each object has a positive or negative (if a magical object) weight with some cards altering the direction of play, typically when you least want it. The looser of a round is the person that

The Lonely, Connected Society – A Paradox

In a world where we have more ways to communicate than ever before it seems paradoxical that a recent report from the Mental Health Foundation entitled The Lonely Society indicates that 48% of respondents believe that people are getting lonelier.

We have more people living on this island than ever before and cities hum as people rush about their business. Anybody living in towns or near a main road cannot be unaware of the incessant comings and goings. Yet increasingly in this maelstrom of activity we find an ever increasing number of people living alone. This is no longer simply the aged of society suffering the loss of a loved one it can include amongst others the following; break downs in relationships, single parent families, people living away from home in order to find work, people living at home because you can’t find work. Whilst to many, living alone may be a choice or at least a situation that they are very comfortable with, for others this can lead to a state of isolation that creates a unique and increasingly challenging set of health issues.

In a world were the youth are often referred to as the Connected Generation (or Generations Z and Y) , they are far from immune from this isolation, and in fact the report identified them as surprisingly more at risk.

An Introduction To This Blog

This blog records my own experiances with board (European) games and will over time explore how they may be used to bring people together,across the age ranges; within families, schools, churches and libraries and maybe even within the care setting. With a focus on fun and collaboration they provide a relaxing focus that can entertain, challenge, educate and distract, yet they do not have the prominence in the UK that they do in either mainland Europe or the US.