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

April Wrap-Up; Big News!

So I’m waaaaaaaay late with my April wrap-up post, apologies. It’s been a hectic few weeks. We had a successful evening a couple of weeks ago, you guys outdid yourselves with the donations once again. It’s very much appreciated.

I think we’ve finally figured out the right way to seat people at Geeks Café, so our overcrowding issues should be much alleviated. If that kept anyone away this last time, please come out and see us in May. I promise it will be better. We’re making much better use of the space, and we’ve obtained more chairs and tables. Thank you to Geeks Café for being such a great partner for this event every month. You guys are amazing.

Some pictures from the night… Not as many as usual due to operator (me) error:

Samantha, Sean and Stephanie playing Evolution

Samantha, Sean and Stephanie playing Evolution

Game Library

Game Library

Name Tags!

Name Tags!

 

SAAF Nerd Night Donations

Judy from SAAF posing Vanna-style with the donations table.

Our Big News

The 501(c)(3) is FILED! Hopefully our application will sail through in ways that defy everything any of us know about the IRS and we’ll have some good news to report on that front soon.

Also Very Big News

In June, we will begin hosting a second monthly event. This event will be a Sunday afternoon/evening version of Nerd Night, and we will have date, location, and all that good stuff ready to announce at the beginning of May.

Other (less, but no less awesome) Big News

We had our quarterly board meeting last weekend, and boy, are you guys going to be excited when some of the things we’re planning are ready to be made public! We’ve just about finalized the rest of the year’s partner organizations, and I think you guys will really be able to get behind all of these groups. We’re thrilled to be hosting book drives for Book Buddies at both of our next events (International Tabletop Day at Wonderland Mall and May Nerd Night), and I will be updating our calendar here to reflect all the groups we’ve made arrangements with through the end of the year. Some new faces, some old ones that we just enjoyed a heck of a lot.

As always, I want to express my gratitude for the support and generosity that you all have shown at every single Nerd Night event so far. None of this would be possible without all of you. Hope to see everyone at ITTD at Wonderland Mall on April 30th! Come on out and support a pile of local gaming organizations at the largest local ITTD event!

April Wrap-Up; Big News!2016-11-25T10:59:33-06:00

March Nerd Night Wrap-Up

Going to the Dogs

Hello again! Thank you to everyone for a super successful March Nerd Night. We gathered a ton of things for the Animal Defense League and I delivered them earlier this week. They were over the moon about the quantity of items. It’s always a good feeling when I drop off the donations, so thanks to all of you for a bright spot in my Monday.

Animal Defense League Donations

A note on Nerd Nights going forward. We know we were overcrowded, and we’re working with Geeks Cafe on a way to alleviate that – new table layouts, more chairs, maybe moving the sofas somewhere… long story short we know it was hard to move around and we want you guys to have a comfortable place to game, so we’ll work on it for next time!

Speaking of next time

April’s charity is the San Antonio AIDS Foundation. Spotlight to come soon. The date is April 8th. We’ll be gathering items for clients of their housing and hospice programs.

Our next event, though, is ReDo Recess at the DoSeum. I’m looking for a few people to come with us and hand out postcards, talk about Nerd Night, and help out with staffing their event. You’ll get a free ticket to Recess (which is a lot of fun) and also I’ll be decking you out in a fabulous Nerd Night polo that you can wear to future events! If you’re interested drop me a line (steph@sanerdnight.org) ASAP please.

Who knew you all were so photogenic?

Thanks to Lene Griego of Master Photography by LG for graciously sharing her photos of the event with me! So much nicer than my camera phone pictures.

Don Jennings - Animal Defense League - Master Photography by LG

Don Jennings from the Animal Defense League speaks about their mission.

March Nerd Night - Master Photography by LG

Don Williams - Animal Defense League - Master Photography by LG

Childs Play March Nerd Night - Master Photography by LG

Childs Play had their mobile store at the event.

March Nerd Night - Master Photography by LG

March Nerd Night - Master Photography by LG

March Nerd Night - Master Photography by LG

Geek Out SA March Nerd Night - Master Photography by LG

Geek Out SA doing that podcast thing they do.

March Nerd Night - Master Photography by LG

This game involved donuts, I’m told. And there’s a kickstarter? Someone give me links.

March Nerd Night - Master Photography by LG

March Nerd Night - Master Photography by LG

March Nerd Night - Master Photography by LG

Red Star Gaming March Nerd Night - Master Photography by LG

Red Star Gaming

March Nerd Night - Master Photography by LG

March Nerd Night Wrap-Up2016-11-25T10:59:34-06:00

November Nerd Night is in the books.

November Nerd Night Wrap-Up

What a great night! Thank you so much to everyone who came out to see us at Magic Beans and especially to you lovely people who donated toys. We collected two large boxes of new, unwrapped toys for the Elf Louise Christmas Project!. It was a great learning experience for me, and even though we didn’t get to do all the things I would have liked, the things that were done were enjoyed and everyone had great feedback for me on what they’d like to see at future events.

Our Ticket to Ride winner was Kelly, and she was super excited to get her Alvin & Dexter expansion. I have custody of the little monsters, as she doesn’t own a copy of the game just yet… I might have to see what can be done about that 😉 and Shane and Paulina won the raffle, with their own copy of Settlers of Catan!

Watch the site over the next couple of days for more information about December. Nerd Night is scheduled for December 11th (Friday) at 6:00 pm. We’ll be gaming for the San Antonio Food Bank, and the site will be hosting an online Food Drive. We’ll also be collecting non-perishable food items at Magic Beans from December 4th through December 14th!

Elf Louise Elves
Our guests from Elf Louise: Elves Betsey, Lewis and Laura.
Toys for Elf Louise
Two boxes this big!
Kelly won Ticket to Ride
Kelly with her Ticket to Ride prize.
Raffle Winners
Paulina and Shane won the raffle and got a copy of Settlers of Catan
November Nerd Night is in the books.2016-11-25T10:59:39-06:00
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