June Nerd Night, Part One

I’m going to have to think of new ways to distinguish between Nerd Nights! Can’t just call them by their months anymore, with two events. What’s she taking about, you’re asking? Well, now you now have two opportunities to join us for gaming and supporting local charities. We’ll still have the second Friday events at Geeks Cafe. That’s not going anywhere. But now, with the grand opening of Knight Watch Games, we have a second space to play and a new day and time. Fourth Sundays, 2-10pm. Come on out and support a new local business, run by gamers, for gamers. I promise it’s going to be one of the most unique spaces you’ve ever played in. Brenda and Paraic have done an amazing job getting it ready to unveil. The grand opening celebration is this weekend, so stop by and say hello! Mark your calendar to join us next Sunday for Nerd Night Part Two.

Part One was a good time for a great cause! Sue Dodson from the Texas Burn Survivor Society came out and gave a short talk. She told us about some of the things they do to support burn survivors and their families.

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It was great to see so many of you out to game with us and pile up donations for the kids at Camp David! Let’s keep it going throughout the rest of the month of June.

Donations for Camp David

About half the donations collected for Camp David.

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Announcements

The donation page is down but I’m hoping to have it fixed this weekend. As we fully transition to  501(c)(3) status a lot of accounting things have needed to be updated. I’m glad to say we’ll soon have a full profile on Guidestar so that everyone can see where our money goes. Any donations to Nerd Night this month will go directly to paying for our Meetup subscription and would be very much appreciated.

T-shirts! At Sunday Nerd Night I will have signup sheets for those of you interested in a classy Nerd Night shirt. They’ll be $12 and proceeds will go to support our operating expenses, such as the Meetup, web hosting and printing costs.

Join us at Knight Watch Games on the 26th for another great event. Bring backpack-stuffing stuff for the Texas Burn Survivor Society and your own snacks and drinks. River Tree Bistro, a fabulous little restaurant in the same shopping center as Knight Watch, will be opening from 5-8pm to serve dinner.

June Nerd Night, Part One2016-11-25T10:59:33-06:00

May Event for Literacy

An update on our recent event from your special guest host, Keller! (Steph had tickets to The Cure, so you can excuse her for taking a night off).

We had another great night last Friday at Geeks Cafe, raising awareness and donations for Book Buddies, an initiative of San Antonio Youth Literacy. They provide books to kids who may not otherwise have a book for the summer.  We had about 40 people come for the games, and they brought over 400 books!

We also learned about the importance of children’s literacy from the Book Buddies volunteer Kathy McPherson. She shared some stats about how important literacy is, especially for elementary school kids that are the focus of their program. Reading is so important for kids to succeed in school, and many households have few, if any, books. Getting books into the hands of children is a good way to help them out.

Kathy also really had fun with the games, and we enjoyed welcoming new gamers to the event (Special thanks to Veronica for sharing Smash Up!)

We’re looking forward to our June events to benefit the Texas Burn Survivors Society’s Camp David for pediatric burn survivors.

Wait, did I say “events”?  Yes, we’re having a second event in June: in addition to our regular 2nd Friday event at Geeks Cafe on June 10th at 7 PM, we’re also having an event on June 26th from 2-10 PM at Knight Watch Games!  The afternoon time gives more time for games and is easier to bring the kids.

See you there!

 

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May Event for Literacy2016-11-25T10:59:33-06:00

International Tabletop Day and Updates

Apologies for my absence from this blog lately, I started a new job and things have been super-crazy!

To start, here are some pics from International Tabletop Day. It was great to meet so many new people and see so many old friends. We collected some books ahead of tomorrow’s Nerd Night, and Kelly, Nathan and I handed out about 100 postcards to attendees. We had about 150 people at ITTD, so congrats to GaMExpo on a very successful day! The space at Wonderland of the Americas is huge, and that’s definitely something to keep in mind for future events.

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Giant GaMExpo game library!

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Silent auction. All proceeds to benefit San Antonio Youth Literacy!

 

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Knight Watch Games was one of the vendors.

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Childs Play

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Alamo City Fleet Command

As I mentioned, tomorrow is Nerd Night. We’re hoping for a huge turnout to support Book Buddies and San Antonio Youth Literacy. Pick up a kids book (here’s a link if you need ideas) and come play games with us at Geeks Cafe from 7-midnight. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend this month (*ahem* The Cure live in Austin! *ahem*), but I am leaving you all in the capable hands of Lisa, Keller and Nathan. I know it’s going to be a great night.

Lastly, our big news this month: San Antonio Nerd Night, Inc. is now a registered 501(c)(3) public charity! This means all donations are tax-deductible, among other benefits. Thanks again to everyone who contributed to our fundraiser to make this happen – you can now deduct that contribution from your 2016 tax return!

International Tabletop Day and Updates2016-11-25T10:59:33-06:00

May Nerd Night: Book Buddies

San Antonio Nerd Night Benefiting Book Buddies

May’s partner organization is Book Buddies, an initiative of San Antonio Youth Literacy. Book Buddies collects books suitable for kids in kindergarten through 5th grade and distributes them at the end of the school year in free book fairs at their Reading Buddy Schools.

Children choose books to take home to read over the summer, which helps prevent the “summer slide” — a regression in learning over summer vacation when they are not being actively taught. Studies also show that children who grow up in homes without books, and who are not read to as children, are far more likely to fall behind in school, fail to complete high school, and suffer the unfortunate outcomes associated with failure: drug use, criminal behavior, early pregnancy, etc.

San Antonio Youth Literacy developed Book Buddies as an offshoot of their Reading Buddy program, which exists in San Antonio Title 1 schools where at least 75% of the families are below the poverty line. Children at these schools attend the free book fairs at the end of the school year and take the books home and keep them as their own. They can read them over the summer, share them with family and friends, or even their parents. In many cases these donated books are the only books in the home. An added benefit is that children in more advantaged homes learn to share their no longer needed books with another child. Everybody wins!

May Nerd Night is holding a book drive to collect books for this year’s fairs. Bring your new or gently used books to Geeks Café on May 13th!

Types of Books Needed

Picture Books (Example: Where the Wild Things Are)
I Can Read series
Children’s chapter books
Any book appropriate up to a 6th grade level

Amazon Shopping Suggestions 

books

May Nerd Night: Book Buddies2016-11-25T10:59:40-06:00

Charity Spotlight: San Antonio AIDS Foundation

About The San Antonio AIDS Foundation

The San Antonio AIDS Foundation was founded in 1986 by Papa Bear, aka Robert Edwards, to respond to the medical and social crisis of AIDS in the 1980s at a time when many were afraid and there was little assistance for people who were sick. SAAF’s mission is to provide compassionate medical care and social services to people with HIV/AIDS, and to help prevent the spread of HIV through education, counseling and testing.

SAAF began in the back of a bar with an all-volunteer-staffed hospice and seven clients, and has grown into a multi-service agency reaching thousands of individuals every year with healthcare, support services and prevention education outreach. All the services provided are free, with a requested sliding scale donation for those who can pay.

SAAF is the only organization in Texas that offers residential HIV/AIDS special care/hospice facilities and is the largest licensed HIV/AIDS special care facility in the state. They also operate Carson House, a 20-bed transitional housing facility for HIV-positive homeless individuals, and the only mobile HIV-testing unit in Bexar County.

Some of the services SAAF offers are:

  • Testing and Education
  • Special Care Facility and Hospice Care
  • Case Management
  • Hot Meal Program
  • Short-Term Transitional Housing
  • Dental Assistance

San Antonio Nerd Night will be partnering with SAAF this month to collect items to support the needs of their in-house and transitional housing clients. Please join us as we help SAAF further their mission of compassionate care for all those with HIV/AIDS without discrimination on any basis. Nerd Night is Friday, April 8th, and needed items are:

Men’s Boxer Underwear (M/L)
Men’s Slippers
Men’s T-Shirts (M/L)
Men’s Socks
Men’s Flip Flops (11-13)
Women’s Flip Flops (S/M/L)
Men’s and Women’s Deodorant
Furniture (primarily Dressers/Nightstands)
Used DVDs
Dish Soap
Cleaning Sponges
Bed Sheets, Twin (Fitted and Flat)
Bath Towels

 

 

Charity Spotlight: San Antonio AIDS Foundation2016-11-25T10:59:34-06:00

Nerd Night Reminder and Meetup Group Updates

Nerd Night Updates

Just a quick note to remind everyone of Nerd Night on January 8th at Magic Beans. We’ll be collecting item donations for the Battered Women & Children’s Shelter run by Family Violence Prevention Services.

A quick look here will tell you a little more about FVPS and the shelter specifically.

We are again planning a lot of open gaming, a raffle (Prize TBD by whichever game gets to my house first, curse you FedEx!) and possibly a Ticket to Ride or Catan tournament, depending on interest. I’ve got two new games I’d like to play – Dead of Winter and Castles of Mad King Ludwig – and one borrowed game I need to practice, King of Tokyo. I’ll be demoing some IELLO games at PAX South and it’s probably best to be able to explain it quickly and concisely before a command performance 🙂 So I hope some of you will let me use you as guinea pigs.

Meetup Group

In case you missed it, we now have a meetup group! There are almost 100 people subscribed to the meetup as of this morning, and I’m super excited for what that means in terms of publicity for Nerd Night and for the new people it may bring to the event. We have 15 Yes RSVPs as of this posting. Some of those are brand new folks, so there will hopefully be some new faces at the event this Friday.

Very important!

Here is the list of requested donation items from FVPS. Please give generously and often 🙂 I’ll be collecting these items into boxes/bags at Nerd Night and delivering them to the shelter next week.

Again, thank you! See you on Friday night.

Nerd Night Reminder and Meetup Group Updates2016-01-04T14:53:33-06:00
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