Board Games coming up, Shown & Told, and congrats to Breezy
A write up of the Show and Tell talks, a good boy graduates, and games night next week
Next week: Board Games Night
When: 7pm onwards on Friday 26th May
Host: Chris Holland
Chris is running his monthly board games night on Friday next week (26th May). It’s a chance to get together and try new games or enjoy an old favourite with new friends.
He has a stash of fun games, so don’t be nervous if you’re not usually into board games, regular players will explain how they work, and there’s a range to try so you’re bound to l find something good. If you have a game you’d like to share, please bring it along and introduce us to it.
You’re welcome to bring along some drink or a friend. If you haven’t been along before or don’t really play games but are keen for a social, then you’ll have a great evening. The games range from 3 players up to 10+ and are all super easy to learn.
We’ll kick off at 7 but feel free to come along later, people tend to filter in and slowly join in.
Join Chris’s board games Facebook group here.
Shown and Told
Caroline and Tom put on another terrific Show & Tell on Wednesday with talks by six members. Here’s a little summary of each:
Chloe Taylor is making educational games for small children and showed us several games that she’s built for the BBC and others. She talked about how you make a game rewarding enough that a child will enjoy playing it, and the difficulties of learning multiple game engines and how controlling some platforms are about their games.
Stuart Wallace was inspired by Caroline’s talk last month and is updating his website and messaging to try to reflect the work he does and wants to do now, rather than how he used to work. She showed us a draft of the work in progress and discussed what he should call himself, what influence SEO should have on the site he’s building, and the difference between going for straight skills based work vs working a the crossover point between various skills.
Caroline Beavon used to run Collage Club at The Skiff once a month, now she and Jo Harrison are getting together to run Doodle Club, giving people space to enjoy all the benefits of doodling. Want to explore some doodling goodness before then? Get Jo’s book, Doodling is Good for You. The first Doodle Club will be in June, keep an eye on Slack or the events board by the kitchen for details.
Becky Miller, a Service Designer at Defra, talked about her recent work in the field (literally!) visiting farms and talking to farmers. The field work has given her a chance to immerse herself in the world of the people her work is all about. I really enjoyed this talk as I could see how much Becky had enjoyed being on the ground and it made me think about how disconnected I’ve got from some of my clients.
Niall Coleman-Clarke showed us some experiments he’s been coding using Machine Learning to create images, e.g. a Mandela Generator. This isn’t using ML the standard way everyone else has been recently. You can find these projects on his website. It’s fascinating to see what can be created by looking at code another way, and also going through Niall’s code on Github to see what I can make head or tail of (that’s a me problem, not a Niall problem!)
James Turner gave us an update on OrderWhizz. He and his business partner are running an experiment with using it as a coffee and snack ordering app for small venues, specifically a coffee kiosk as a local train station. We got into a discussion about whether or not this will appeal to commuters and less consistent travellers. It’ll be interesting to see how this works out for all of them, especially the kiosk.
Thank you to everyone who presented, and to Caroline and Tom for organising. Show and Tell will return in June, don’t miss it!
A Breezy graduation
Congratulations to Breezy, the latest addition to the Dallaway household, who has graduated from his Dogs Trust training.
