For several years now Border Games Albury-Wodonga has run a small 'in-club' event aimed at cramming in as much board and card gaming action as we can manage in 2 and a bit days. We call this 'BorderCon'.
With the success of the Australian Games Expo (and numerous inquiries from that event) Border Games has decided it is time to open the event to the wider gaming community in an attempt to woo as many of you back to the Border as possible.
Here are the details in brief -
Date: September 19th-21st (This is the weekend prior to the AFL Grand Final and the 1st weekend of the Victorian Term 3\4 School Holidays).
Time: The gaming room will be open from 5pm on Friday night. The event will close around 2-3pm on Sunday to allow interstate gamers to get home in reasonable time.
Like the weekend of the Expo, we will be free to game till the wee hours of Friday and Saturday night.
Location: We will be using the Hume Inn, which was the venue for the social gaming over the Australian Games Expo weekend. This venue offers plenty of space for 60-80 gamers and offers a bar for light refreshments.
We encourage attendees to support the hotel if possible but have no problem if people choose to stay elsewhere.
If you do stay at the Hume Inn please be sure to tell them you are coming for BorderCon as this will help us maintain a secure booking in the years ahead. Joe and Anita are the proprietors of the Hume Inn.
Format: We are generally going for open gaming, with the emphasis on catching up with old friends, making new ones and getting acquainted with a new game or two. The weekend should be fairly relaxed and we encourage all gamers to bring a few of their favourites and new acquisitions. If we all do that we'll have plenty to play.
Dexterity Challenge - See below in cost (the Challenge costs nothing however).
Alternate Worlds - Traditionally BorderCon has been supported by Alternate Worlds Melbourne and they run several CCG events for that section of our club. This will happen again this year, but the space taken up is minimal with approximately 12-15 younger gamers taking part in those events. I plan for Joe to use the upper stage section of the gaming room, leaving the larger tables for board gaming.
Cost: Border Games will be paying for the venue all weekend. There will be an optional entry fee of $5. This money will be donated to a charity as chosen by one lucky gamer on the Sunday.
Dexterity Challenge - We will be running an informal 'Dexterity Challenge' event over the course of the weekend. The Challenge will include playing a few games of PitchCar, Zopp and Perpetual Commotion. I am hopeful of adding Crokinole and Carrom but am still in the process of confirming.
All of these games can be learnt in 5 minutes and there will be plenty of people ready to give tips and advice.
We will do our best to help gamers find suitable times to play their games and hopefully these highly social games will act as good social mixers for meeting new people and laughing at old friends.
The overall winner of the Dexterity Challenge will win the right to select the Charity of their Choice, with all money raised by the voluntary door fee going to that organisation\cause.
Lucky Door Prize - All people who donate their $5 to charity will go into the draw for a lucky door prize. The prize will be a game kindly donated by Mind Games of Albury.
Promotion: Given the tyranny of distance, we are primarily expecting Melbourne Gamers to make it for the event, but we welcome anybody and everybody to attend.
I will be sending out info to Billabong Boardgamers, Eurogamesfest Melbourne, Gamers@Dockers, and friends from the Geek and past ConVic events. If you can think of anyone I may have missed please send this info to them.
I think that about covers it. If I have left out any major details please prompt me.
We'd love to hear if you are considering coming or are definitely coming by replying to this post so we can better plan. If you have any ideas, don't be afraid to drop me a GeekMail.
We hope to hear from you and see you in September for a fun weekend.
Neil Thomson
Border Games Albury-Wodonga
PS - Before anyone asks, yes Patty will be there and the boys too for intermittent periods.
Links -
Hume Inn - http://www.humeinn.com.au/
Border Games Website - http://www.bordergamesaw.com/
About Border Games Albury-Wodonga
We are a non-for-profit club that aims to promote all forms of gaming in the local Albury-Wodonga area. We meet every Saturday in Wodonga, utilising the Trudewind Neighbourhood Centre and are open from 10am till 6pm.
The club has approximately 40 members and they play everything from Strategy (Euro and Conflict) based games to Miniatures Systems (Games Workshop, Flames of War etc), Collectible Card Games (CCG's) and Role-Playing Games. The CCG arm of the club plays out of Mind Games Albury on Thursday and Friday nights.
Last edited on 2008-08-24 02:28:10 CST (Total Number of Edits: 2)
Posted Sun Aug 24,2008 08:21 am
