Bouncy Castle Goodness or I need a new camera

I finally had my birthday party! It ended up being a joint birthday with my friends Lyn and Jon, and I would post pictures so you could see how cool it was...but none were taken. Sorry.

FORTUNATELY

I can still tell you all about it.

The party was sort of epic. We hired out two tunnels at T47 which is an indoor football (soccer) pitch underneath London Bridge Station. Fire-Hazard runs Survivor Sports there, which is how I knew about it. The neat thing about T47 is not only do they have space to let us run fun games, they also have a bouncy castle that they rent out. So in one tunnel we ran glow in the dark tag, dodge ball, red light/green light, and a game wherein you have 1 minute to throw as many glowing objects on to the other team's side as possible. In the other tunnel we had music, food, general chatting, and a massive bouncy castle.

I think about 28 people showed up. Everyone was really helpful (if a little confused when I made them all put on glow stick bracelets. Had I not explained that part before? Oops.) We ran a bunch of the games from Survivor Sports, though in a less focused way. We didn't run Riot Ball (a.k.a. indoor glow in the dark Circle Rules Football) because people were so wiped out from the bouncy castle. Instead we improved on Red light/green light/grandmother's footsteps/night stalker: usually it is played in a small area that is difficult to get as dark as the main pitch and with only half the group while the other half is tearing each other up in Riot Ball. This time we had the whole group playing at the very back of the pitch where it is the darkest. And because we couldn't find a laser that worked (in order to let people know they'd been seen moving) we used a flash light. So the combination of being periodically blinded by the flash light (torch, whatever) combined with the fact that if you were It the only thing you could see was an ever encroaching line of disembodied coloured lights, meant that the whole game was a lot creepier. In a good way.

In running these games I discovered that while I love talking to players after the fact, getting feedback, thinking about long term strategy for the organization, and the general planning-ness of game running- what I don't love is being the figure head/spear head/main leader. I can do it, but I tend to forget half the rules, ignore the back story, and fail to consistently referee. I'll get to know you as a player and improve the running of the games, but I don't want to be the head zombie unless I have to.

FORTUNATELY

I have friends who like ref-ing, so we were set. Then at the end we played a big game of pass the parcel which was nice to get everyone together. I think I had 8 different social groups represented and then with Lyn and Jon that bumped things up to about 11 different groups (if not more) and everyone got along! It was really lovely. We were only supposed to have the space until 9, but I left with a group to go get some supper just before 10 and the bouncy castle was still going strong and they hadn't kicked us out. Thanks, T47!