Howdy! Ryan here from the Gnarly Griffin 👋

I am really excited to share this piece of news.

Hopefully, as you all know, we here at GG (that's shorthand for 'Gnarly Griffin'. I use shorthand syntax to save time on typing. Life Hack) are avid gamers of both the video and table-top variety. The GG team and a few friends have even recently started playing D&D together after meeting a Dungeon Master at the Hilton Arts Festival last year (shoutout Nick!)

While we were at the HAF, (that's shorthand for Hilton Arts Festival. You guessed it! More time saved. BOOM! Life Hack) we met lots of cool folk and had great conversations about all things nerdy. One of the most common sentiments we got from folks at the festival was: "I'd love to play [insert board game/card game here], but I have nowhere to play/nobody to play with!"

This is when we realised something. People here are not getting their medically prescribed dosage of tabletop experiences. (I checked with a doctor, this is a real thing) And so this sparked the idea of GG hosting tabletop gaming events for people who live in the Howick/Hilton/PMB and surrounding areas. 

So as part of our vision to grow the nerd community in our area and hopefully soon, the world; we started planning events for monthly table top gaming. Our goal is to start a community of tabletop gamers that will spread the love of board games far and wide. Hence, the Gnarly Griffin Board Game Open Nights (name subject to change) was born.

After just a few weeks of planning and lots of nagging people to join our WhatsApp group, on Tuesday the 2nd of April 2024, we successfully hosted our first game night event! With a headcount of around 24 people, we consider this a huge success as it was born out of nothing but just a few passing comments flying around. We are really proud of it and are incredibly happy that everyone who came through had a good time!

With this success and momentum, we are going to carry these events forward. Our current goal is to host these on the first Tuesday of every month. But since its very early days, this is of course subject to change. As we grow in numbers we will start requiring larger venues and more equipment, and thus the time and date may change as well. So we're keeping it pencilled in for now.

But if you live in the Midlands region and you love board games, you should definitely join the WhatsApp group and stay posted on when and where our next Gnarly Griffin Board Game Open Night event will be!

The link to the group can be found here: https://chat.whatsapp.com/HQxKZQSlnXt3YLIbFueZnx

And now, some photographic evidence for your viewing pleasure:

Game: Here to Slay

Game: Magic: The Gathering

Game: Unstable Unicorns

A massive thank you to everyone that came through that night. It was truly a blast and has left us with nothing but excitement and hope for the next one! We can't wait to keep growing with the community.

And for you, reader, thank you for taking the time to read my nonsense.

Take care and have a gnarly day! 😎
Ryan, signing off!