A recent gaming gathering has me convinced that there is nothing I'd rather do with my money or leisure time than getting together with old friends and meeting new friends who enjoy the hobby as much as I do. So I've put together a list of upcoming events that I am going to try to make it to this year--hoping that friends will decide to go to. (I have not listed invitation-only events since I have little control over whether I or my friends can go to these.)

May--Atlanta Game Fest (previously Batty's Best Game Fest)
June/July--Origins
August--WBC, GenCon
September--Dragon*Con
September/October--Buckeye Game Fest (Arg...Ward Batty and CABS, did you have to schedule your gamefests for the same weekend this year? I'm going to support my local gaming group, of course, but I'd love to do both.)
November--Euroquest, BoardGameGeek Con
January--Atlanta Game Fest

Someone needs to organize one for late December/early January! School is out for 4 1/2 weeks and I have no place to go. Maybe that is when Anye and I can organize our Girl Gamers Gathering....

Hope to see you there!

Hi Val,

I plan to attend several of these gigs - Origins, WBC, GenCon, EuroQuest, and BGG.CON with a tentative maybe for Dragon*Con based on your recommendation.

As for the 1st Annual Meeting for the Association of Hot Gamer Chicks, I'm cool with late Dec./early January except that anyplace we try to book is likely to be more crowded and expensive that time of year. As late in early January as we can swing it would probably be better. Of course, this is when Mike and I usually try to make our yearly scuba trip (which we sadly missed this year) so I may have to work around that.

Except I lied. I think we should have the 1st Annual meeting sometime much sooner than that. Like maybe May, June, or July in-between the other events.

We'll just have to be sure to keep the location top secret lest those M.E.N. try to crash the party

Hot Chicks gathering, eh? You should fit right into DragonCon, depending on what you wear!

We're going to Origins this year, and possibly DragonCon (but unlikely - we went twice before, but the gaming wasn't especially good ... is it better now?)

Wanna go to the Gamer Chicks con too!! Post again when there is an actual date/place for this so the rest of us girl gamers can go - thanks!!

You can also do GCOM Game Days in April. No tournaments, but plenty of great open gaming!

You're looking at it all wrong! With a convention named "Hot Gamer Chicks", I bet you could get those men to pay for the whole thing, if you play your cards right.

Could you maybe arrange for some hot single gamer chicks, and then stage some sort of outreach program?

It was good seeing you this weekend. I might catch you a Batty's AGF in May. I can't stay the whole weekend, but I'm sorely tempted to ride down for a long Saturday.

The boardgaming at Dragon*Con has been getting steadily better. But I have to admit...I really go to this con for the night life.

Oh no, I'm not. My grandmother used to call me 'boychik.' That's the source of my confusion I suppose.

I look forward to meeting you at Batty's... err... the Atlanta Game Fest.

As the organizer of a gaming event, I'll point out that you have more control over getting an invitation than you think. Email the organizer and ask for an invitation. If you know other people who attend the event, have them put in a good word for you. Remind the organizer periodically that you are still interested in an invitation if something opens up. If you're on a waiting list, make sure you email the organizer to change your email address if you move (this happened to me last year, I couldn't get ahold of someone on the list and they lost the chance to attend).

Dave