...and a Happy New Year

Hope every ones Christmas was a good one and you weren't affected by the awful weather. Did Santa bring you all the toys you wanted?

Over the next months Lyndsey and I will be discussing the best ways to improve on our impressive start with our volunteers and the rest of the club. Sometime soon we will hold an AGM so you can let us know what you think we can do to make the club even better.

We already have a few things up our sleeves for this year. Our demo copy of Deadzone has arrived and the rules are sitting on my desk as I write this, we also have the prospect of the 40K Killteam tournament to look forward to. David is planning on running some Only War roleplay, which I can confirm is great game as I'm running a campaign using it at the moment. We should have all the old favourites continuing with more X-Wing, Judge Dredd, Settlers of Catan, 7 Wonders etc., plus a load of games we haven't played yet e.g. Flames of War, Necromunda, Mordheim, Risk.

Have you registered as a book giver?

Check out their website for details

Looking further ahead we will run an event for World Book Night, held on Shakespeare's Birthday, which is happens to be the club's 1st Birthday too. I may even get around to running the Neverwhere roleplaying game I had planned for last year. Even further ahead we have International Games Day, for which we hope to be able to do something even bigger and better than last year.

But that's not it there are a whole host of other things we can do. For the younger members there is Games Workshop's School League to enter, we could run painting or scenery making workshops, a murder mystery, trips to local conventions. The list could go on. The GCN is looking to create better links between local clubs and I'm hoping to do some networking myself especially at Conception in a few weeks and at What's Your Game LRP kit fair after that.

On this blog we still need more contributors we are looking for book reviews, battle reports, game reviews or even simply your musing on games and gaming. I am planning a series of posts focusing on different aspects of gaming, imaginatively titled "Focus On - <insert type of game here>"

It should be a good year.

The results are in!

Two sets of results to inform you of, the Global Gossip Game that a small number of you participated in during International Games Day and the painting competition last weekend.


International Games Day 2013, Global Gossip Game Map

We were one of 74 libraries taking part in the Global Gossip Game; which took place in 17 countries over 7 continents, by 840 players in 6 languages, sending a message 94,423.15 miles. The original message at Geelong West Library was "Play is training for the unexpected", taken from the title of a research paper by biologists Marek Spinka, Ruth C. Newbury and Marc Bekoff*. By the time the message reached us as "The Secret of the Dark" it had been passed onto 273 people and had changed 161 times. When the message reached the USA it was split ways and the final 5 messages were "I Love The World", "Clouds Travel Around the World" Glow, Glow Peanut Butter Jelly, "Ian Needs Help" and "Zombie". The full details of the game can be found at their blog.

The second result is that of the painting competition, which were pretty close. The open category was won by David with his Empire Pistolier on Pegasus and the speed painting was tied between Ben's Imperial Guard and George's Ork. Sadly, there can be only one winner, so the judges (i.e. my) decision is to award George the speed painting prize. David and George you can collect your prizes, a £5 book token, at next weeks session (I'm not likely to be there so ask for them at the main desk on floor 1).

Miniature © Games Workshop 2003. All rights reserved. Used without permission

Miniature painted by David. Photo by Darren Edwards





* In a bizarre coincidence I'm pretty sure I read this paper whilst studying Biology as an undergraduate. Evolutionary theory and sociobiology where my specialisms at the time and I definitely cited papers by these authors in some of my work.

The Best Session Yet?

What a great turnout for Saturdays session on International Games Day we hit a total of 20 attendees (thats 3 more than our previous high attendance) and at least 10 more people were playing with the games that were left downstairs on the first floor. We are already thinking about how to do things better for next years IGD and have had contact with Poole Chess club who may be using the library for one of their weekly sessions in the future.

International Games Day at Bournemouth Library. Photo by Darren Edwards

In total we had eleven different games played on Saturday, which in order of number people playing  was Jenga, Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game, 7 Wonders, 5ive Straight, Ticket to Ride: Europe, Blokus, Judge Dredd Miniatures Game, Advanced Connect Four, Warhamer Fantasy Battle, Uno, Draughts.

Don't forget we have our miniature painting competition is next weekend, we will have some kind of exciting prize for the winners and will be roping some of our colleagues in to judge the competition.

Miniature Painting Competition

International Games Day is tomorrow and we are nearly set for the biggest event the club has yet run. The entrance display is complete, the rules for the boardgames have been photocopied, cards for the Round Bournemouth Game scanned and printed, emails sent to Ekerö library in Sweden and phone calls taken from Scandicci library in Italy and from the Global Gossip Game coordinator in Australia! The giant snakes and ladders game arrived in the post tray this afternoon as well. I hope your all as excited about it as we are here at Bournemouth Library.

Just look at how many other libraries are taking part around the globe.



The events are coming thick and fast and next week we are going to hold our painting competition. There are going to be two different contests, the Open category and the Individual Model category. The rules can be found below.

1. You must be a Worlds Away member to enter (i.e. you need to have filled in a membership form)
2. Only one entry per category per person.
3. Any model or group of models may be used into the Open category as a single entry e.g. a tank would be just a suitable as a squad of troopers or a single model. These can be in any scale and for any game you like.
4. Any single model in 28mm (or similar) scale may be used as an entry in the Individual model category. These models can be for any game you like.
5. All models used must be painted by the Worlds Away member entering the competition. Models for the Open category can be painted before the session but models for the Individual Model category must be painted at the library during the club session on the 23rd

Events for November and December

12 intrepid gamers braved the rain on Saturday to play some 40K, Carcassonne, Munchkin and Word Thief. We've now welcomed 42 individuals through our doors and we have 17 official members in the club. If you haven't picked up a membership form yet just ask me or Lyndsey (or one of the volunteers).

This weekend we have our Halloween Special be prepared for a selection of spooky games.

Then 16th November is International Games Day. We aim to introduce you to as many different games as possible, so we'll be running lots of short games, from WH40K using kill team rules, to quick board and card games. More details to follow including a full list of the games we will be offering.

The at the end of November we will be hosting our painting competition, again further details will be announced soon.

The Saturday before Christmas we'll be having our Christmas party and then the week after we'll all be trying out the new stuff we've received as presents (including those tasteful Xmas socks you're bound to be given!)


Munchkin. Photo by Darren Edwards

PS. One of you left your gloves last week, they are in our office at the Library.