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

Match Report 16th August

With the summer hols in full swing and with all the many things going on in our busy lives the numbers attending Monday night fluctuated throughout the day. With two hours to go, the potential 11 came down to 6, before finally finishing with 7.

Apologies were received from Malcolm who has escaped to Northern Ireland, Helene and Josh with other commitments, and Pauline and Natalie needing to spend some playtime with Darcy (the wild beastie shown in previous photos) in order to ensure they got a peaceful nights sleep; sadly this meant they were not able to bring along the toffee and pecan cup cakes they had made!

We welcomed a new face to the evening session in the form of Liza, plus regulars Crispin, Ian, Daniella, and the less regular Joe and Alex.

RoboRally (Age 12+, 2-8 players, 120 min playing time)

Back by very popular demand this amazing Board Game was the requested game from at least three of the evening’s attendees. We started this game (it doesn’t seriously disadvantage late arrivals) without Alex and Joe, meaning we had 5 little robots all competing to get to the

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,

Match Report 2nd August 2010

Having had a fun afternoon leading the first of the St Marys Social Afternoons with games. Daniella, Crispin and Ian (now a qualified a Dive Master – well done
) met for an evenings gaming and relaxation. With relaxation being the order of the day we quickly dismissed the opportunity to learn San Jaun which Crispin had been reading up, in favour of RoboRally.

Apologies were received from Natalie and Pauline desperate from some sleep given the exertions of playing with the dangerous beastie Darcy, Josh only just back from Durham, Joe of on holiday, Malcolm otherwise committed, Liza baby sitting, Ben back in Nidri and Alex in Edinburgh mystified as to how his rostering has managed to mean that every games Monday he is flying whilst the alternate Mondays he is back in Crowborough.

RoboRally

RoboRally is essentially a race between some pretty dumb robots controlled by a bored super computer around a dangerous factory floor with many lasers, obstacles, conveyer belts and more beside. The race is to be the first robot to touch three flags scattered around the factory floor. Ian and I had already had a trial game of this with Danny (not reported in the blog) where Ian won whilst I found it virtually impossible to get off a conveyer belt.

With Crispin and Daniella having not played RoboRally before Ian quickly explained the fairly simple rules and so we were off. I took an early lead before it all went

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