Go Club finally taking off at the Pasadena Central Library

For a couple of years now, I've been coordinating a Go program at the Pasadena Central Library. It's been tough, with many weeks having only 1 or 2 kids in attendance and others with no kids at all. I've lost a couple of my original volunteers, and I'm always on the lookout for more. At this point I have only two others and myself to cover the weekly Saturday sessions. Back in December, though, attendance started to pick up, and this Saturday I had 11 kids, one parent, and one adult who dropped in to learn the rules. This is very exciting! It proves my theory that you need 4-5 people weekly in order for new people to come to your club and decide to stick around, but more importantly, it means that we finally have a real club at the Pasadena Central Library. We meet every Saturday from 2-4 pm in the Teen Central room. You should come by sometime and check it out!

Gaming Lunches at the LA Times

As a shameless promoter of the game of Go, I'm always trying to get my co-workers involved in the game. After talking to Reid, one of my co-workers, about various games that we enjoy playing, I decided to set up a weekly gaming lunch. The idea is pretty simple:

1. Use Doodle to set up polls to choose a time and a game.
2. Schedule a conference room for the weekly game.
3. Order lunch for people.
4. Have fun!

I'm proud to say that Go won the first week and consistently comes in second. The most popular game? Werewolf, introduced to our group by Giles Bowkett. It's apparently very popular at Ruby conferences, and our group has lots of fun with it too. Me? I like it because it excites people in a way that Go doesn't, and it keeps the lunches popular. And once in a while people decide to move on to something else, which means I get to introduce more people to Go. What can I say?