I will be posting my yearly wrap up sometime later in the month when I wrangle some pictures but I wanted to report how amazing the event turned out and thank a few people.

With the semi-official numbers in, it looks like our 4th annual Gamers For Cures 24 hour board game marathon to benefit Turner Syndrome Society of The US raised just over $17,000!!!

An amazing event and an amazing turn out.

Hard work sure pays off, and I am so thankful to our sponsors/game publishers and players for an amazing turnout.

I want to thank Adam Skelding for basically being my right hand man throughout all of this year’s planning and for doing an amazing job on all the printed material, the printouts and all things graphical! Thanks buddy!

Thanks to Laura Drew for being an amazing social media Guru!

Thanks as always to Scott and Crystal from the Gamers Armory for hosting and allowing us to have our event at their amazing store each year.

Thanks to CEI for donating the programs. They are simply amazing!

Thanks to Gary Delorenzo for donating our shirts and all the amazing support for our event!

Thanks to all the great ladies of the Turner Syndrome Society of the US for joining us and  volunteering at our event and helping us spread awareness!

Thanks so much to everyone who donated and play and came out to support us.We cannot do this without your support and the fact that all of you out there take the time to join us, donate, or spread the word about our amazing event!

See you next year!!!

Dan

PS– I will be posting all the winners of all the items from the raffle wall to the big raffle winners in the coming days!

As more an more donations and sponsorships come in I wanted to take the opportunity to thank a few of them. A list ( and logos) to all of our great board game sponsors will be up real soon.

Special thanks to the Carolina Hurricanes, Dr. Jodi H. Foy, UNC and NC State athletics for donating items to our silent auctions.

I would like to also thank Ilene Stacey of Origami Owl for her donations of two gift certificates for our prizes to the event as well.

Also thanks to Cinnabon, Chick Fil- A, Mimi’s Cafe, Jersey Mikes, Dairy Queen,  McDonalds, and Craft Public House, all for sponsoring food for our marathon players!

This weekend will be a truly exciting event with plenty of ways for people to win some exciting prizes.

If you cannot attend in person and would like to donate to the event go to our Tax Free Donation Page.

OR if you would like to buy some raffles for games or to win one of our big ticket items (TV/ XBOXONE/ iPad Mini/ 100$ Visa/ $50 Home Depot Gift Cert) go to the Gamers amory online store HERE

A quick announcement about a great contest to help raise some money for Gamers For Cures/ Turner Syndrome Society of the US.

Darrell Louder, game designer extraordinaire and head honcho over at Unpub.net has graciously given us an AMAZING gift.

We will be Raffling off a DESIGNER TABLE FOR UNPUB 5!! This is the real deal folks. If you are a budding game designer this is the best place on the planet to show off your prototype, get it tested by amazing game testers, and get tons of great feedback. Some feedback even by the likes of publishers and fellow designers.

How to enter: Simply go to our First Giving donation site by clicking HERE. For every $10 donated you will have one entry into the drawing. Just simply put UNPUB in the comments field when you sign up. Also all donations are Tax Deductible, and you can print out a tax receipt right when you donate.

Any Q’s please post in the comments to this announcement and good luck!

–Dan

It’s time to sign up to be a marathon player!!

If you would like to join us to be a Marathon player, and play all 24 hours of the event. Please print out this form and bring it to the Gamers Armory in Cary NC , or e-mail it to gamersforcures [At] gmail Dot com.

2014-24HourBoardGameMarathonPre-RegistrationApplication

To be a marathon player you must either raise $100 in pledges on our first giving site (Please have all pledges insert your name in the “notes” field when they donate– All donations are tax free and receipts can be printed right when they donate!), or you can pay the $100 donation on the First giving site yourself, or you may also pay in person at the Gamers Armory.

Marathon players will receive:

FREE T-Shirt
5 FREE Game Day Raffle Tickets
ALL DAY/ALL NIGHT Game Pass
Game Day Grab Bag w/ assorted freebies!(subject to donations received from sponsors)
FREE Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner!
**This Package is limited as we will only allow
a maximum number of Marathon Players!!

Day of the event people who join us to play games may also help out by purchasing the following packages as well!

Package #1 is a $30.00 Donation:
FREE T-Shirt
5 FREE Game Day Raffle Tickets
1 FREE Big Ticket Raffle Ticket

Package #2 is a $50.00 Donation:
FREE T-Shirt
5 FREE Game Day Raffle Tickets
Late Night Game Pass
**This Package is limited as we will only allow
a maximum number of Players for the overnight Event!!

Any questions feel free to email me at the address above or please feel free to tweet them to me @gamersforcures

–Dan

The 3^rd Annual Gamers for Cures 24 hour board game marathon to benefit Turner Syndrome Society of the US came and went in a flash! What was 6 months of planning, begging, advertising, volunteering, networking, and organizing all culminated to an absolutely amazing event on Nov 9^th 2013. I absolutely couldn’t have been happier with both the resuts and the turnout as we had right around 40 marathon players and around 10 more who were overnight players. The foot traffic for the day was in the multiple hundreds easily, as no table was empty at all during the day. All that culminated in us shattering our fund raising goal. When the games stopped and the meeples were all put away, we tabulated the numbers and we raised $13,500 for TSSUS!  I nearly fainted at that number and I will not lie it did bring a tear to many who were in attendance.

During the day we have a ton of events which go on including demos of games and painting/modeling, but we also had door prize raffles every 3 hours, in which anyone who was in the store had a chance to win one of a bunch of prizes we put out for each one. We of course also had the $1 raffles which could be bought and placed in one of 100 boxes to win the corresponding game/lot of games, and finally we had the big ticket raffles for $5 which we had a bunch of great prizes including an iPad and TV!

Here’s a little re-cap of the day through my eyes.  (And I will do my best not to forget the games I got to play and what Lauren and DJ got to do through the day as well.

The event started as always, bright and early on Sat. , at 8am, with a bunch of great sandwiches donated by Chick Fil-A and some other tasty treats donated by Cinnabon as well. I didn’t get to do a whole lot of gaming in the morning time, between giving out the swag bags, making sure everyone had enough food for breakfast and just generally going over the day’s events and set up one last time with Crystal and Scott (The amazing store owners of The Gamers Armory who help make all of this possible with their amazing hospitality and help. Late in the morning Lauren got to play in a game of Ticket to Ride that I taught to a full group, and as always she had an absolute blast. She’s such an up and coming gamer. The TS often makes it harder for her to grasp some advanced visual and/or spatial concepts but she tries real hard and does an amazing job playing games.

After that game wrapped up Lauren wanted to try her hand at one of the demos going on for the day. We always have a ton of demos each and every event ranging from painting, to mini’s games to euro games to card games. This particular one was Wargames Factory’s Jim Goss leading a co-op zombie mini’s game for up to 8 people. It was a take on their Zombie Vixen’s line, in which up to 8 of us had to get from one side of the board to the other, all the while fighting hungry zombies lead by super model/vixen zombies which drew in hoards of male zombies to their side when they appeared on the map. What started as simply Lauren and myself commanding 8 survivors, quickly became 8-10 of us surrounding the table cheering and laughing at the game. It was an infectious fun that more and more people just wanted to be a part of.  I was real proud of Lauren for trying out new things and getting into some mini’s gaming. Thanks to Jim for the well done demo!

Shortly after the zombie invasion was over Lauren and my son DJ headed over to the painting mini’s demo table. There we had some tanks and space marines, which were donated and Sandy H was helping people get started in learning the fun points of painting. She did an amazing job showing people, especially my kids as I couldn’t believe how good those models turned out!

While they were getting some painting going I got our lunch set up for the marathon players. Once again this year lunch was provided by Jersey Mike’s. They have been with us since the beginning of our events and they have never ceased to provide us with the best quality lunch and plenty of it! Thanks so much to such a great company for their help!

The afternoon was full of more demo goodness for me. I was able to demo one of my favorite games, the DC Comics Deck Building game. It’s a ton of fun for all ages, it’s easy to pick up, it’s quick and of course most importantly it’s got DC characters!!! All the participants loved it, and I of course, can never get enough of this great game. This card game theme continued on as next up was a 5 player game of Northstar Games’ Clubs. This light, family friendly, trick taking game is easily one of my favorites of this year and to no surprise was also a huge hit. While this was going on Lauren was getting into a game of Cinque Terre.

 This is a real fun little Ticket to Ride meets Finca sort of game. She loved it, but she didn’t quite grasp all the deeper strategies of getting the tickets completed and getting the higher points for delivering goods, but none the less she couldn’t stop talking about how much fun she had playing it!

Next up was a small demo of the immensely popular Augustus. What has been dubbed “Gamer Bingo” by many, is easily one of my favorite games, both for that gate way game and for filling that small gap of time at the end of a night. My family loves it too, as it’s not too heavy and plays in less than an hour. We had fun playing it of course at the event, and the best thing you can say after doing a demo of a game, is not only that the other players loved it, but they immediately went and picked up a copy the very next day!

Dinner wasn’t far behind all of this demo fun (see how fast the day went? AMAZING!), and the marathon players enjoyed the food donations by Primo Pizza, Craft Public house and some delicious cheeseburgers from McDonalds!

The evening brought in some real fun social gaming. I am not usually one for playing in Werewolf type games but as I always say, those games are better with the right groupings of players so since I knew we had a bunch of great people around the table it was the perfect time for some! First up was BANG! The dice game. This is a quick moving game of (mostly) hidden objectives and (mostly)backstabbing. Each player has a hidden  objective, outside of the sheriff, who just always wants the bad guys eliminated, and they are all trying to get their objective completed, all the while trying to convince the sheriff that they are his deputies. Dice are rolled shots are fired, beer is drunk (to heal health in the game) and Indians attack. It’s a quick pace game with tons of finger pointing and no trust anywhere and most importantly ABSOLUTELY FUN. We played it a few times during the marathon and I had a blast each time. This social game turned right into another social gamer favorite, The Resistance. We ended up picking up a couple of more players so The Resistance was a perfect choice to head into next. Many of us had never played the game before, but we all really got into it and I have to say I really enjoyed playing it. It’s not a game I would like to play with strangers, but one in which I can say would be real fun to play again with a bunch of my friends. Both times we played the Spies won, but hey I was a spy in the 1^st game so it didn’t hurt quite as badly.

After all the social gaming goodness, it was nearly time to  lock the doors and let the marathoners and over-night players get to the 2^nd portion of the day, which is the overnight gaming. It seems like it went so fast but we still have 8 hours more to game!!!

But first, it was time for the raffles to be drawn!! We had the 90 boxes of $1 raffles and the big ticket raffles. I ended up winning Battles of Westeros and my lovely daughter came away with Cheeky Monkey. (A complete list of winners can be found at the bottom of this post). This was also the first year in which we opened up the raffles (both $1 and $5) to online sales through the Gamers Armory web story. It also was a big success. We had a bunch of winners for the box raffles and one of the big ticket winners was also an online sale.

Overnight is generally where I get in the majority of my heavier games. In the past I got to play some gems like Castles of Burgundy and a playtest of The Princes of The Dragon Throne. This year was no different with our test of the prototype of the Dice Hate Me 2014 release Brew Crafters. It’s an amazing game where you run your own brewery! It’s quite akin to Agricola in nature but a little less constricting on your available actions. A REAL good game , that I cannot wait to see next year.

While the Brew Crafters game was going on Adam O headed out to his patented Cook Out runs, that he frequently does during local cons and the like. While he was gone I got to play an old Reiner Knizia card game called Poison. It’s a typical Knizia game with math and funky scoring, but it didn’t overstay it’s welcome and I have to admit I liked it.

Only two more games to talk about so please stay awake with me!!!

Next up was our Wits and Wagers Demo/Game. W&W is quite possibly one of the best party/trivia game out there today. It’s a game in which you don’t actually have to know anything at all in order to win. You put your guesses on a erase board, they get sorted and everyone bets on who the correct one actually is. So in essence you can know nothing, and get none of the Q’s correct ever and STILL win the game. Thanks to Northstar Games for providing us with some copies of the game for prizes.

Last but certainly not least is an overnight staple at events and cons like these, Tier auf Tier (also known as Animal upon Animal, the on the bridge version). There is no replacement for the mindless fun and laughter this game brings. It’s a HABA game and you might have to hit up Amazon for a copy, but it’s one I CANNOT recommend enough. It’s for any age of player and weather you are a hard core gamer or just a new player you will LOVE the laughing and trash talking that erupts from a game of this.

So that about wraps up the 3^rd annual GFC charity event. I really cannot thank all the sponsors, publishers, designers, the community enough(A good list can be found at the Gamers Armory GFC page). And another big thanks to Crystal and Scott from the Gamers Armory and their sons Alexander and Hunter who also did an amazing job helping out. Thanks to Carol, Mike and Robert who worked at the store during the event. A big THANKS to Adam Skelding who handled all of the graphical design of the posters and programs and online pieces. And of course a big thanks to all the volunteers from The Turner Syndrome Society who helped us that day, and for being there talking about TSS and for being great fans of our charity group.

Lauren with 2 TSS members Courtney and Barbara

And naturally none of this could be possible without the best Wife in the world, Janice you are amazing, and two of the greatest kids a guy could ask for, Lauren and DJ.

And of course thanks to all of you out there for supporting us and spreading the word about our event, without you none of these funds could be raised at all.

Remember next time you see me at a con or gaming event, I might just ask you to donate or be a part of the Gamers For Cures family! I know most publishers have seen my smile and begging face, and they will real soon again!!!

–GeekJock/Dan

(For another real good recap please check out Socially Inept Gamer)

Raffle Winners: Congratulations to our winners!!

Raffle Lot #1
Warhammer 40,000 Dark Vengeance
Donated By: Games Workshop
Winner: Adam Skelding

Raffle Lot #2
Venture Forth
Donated By: Minion Games
Winner: Ronald Watkins

Raffle Lot #3
Thunderstone: Thornwood Siege
Donated By: Travis Bryant
Winner: Cassandre Kowal

Raffle Lot #4
Coutier
Donated By: AEG Games
Winner: Casey Silva

Raffle Lot #5
Twilight Struggle Deluxe
Donated By: GMT Games
Winner: Eric Behymer

Raffle Lot #6
Descent: Journeys in the Dark (+ Token & Minis)
Donated By: Fantasy Flight
Winner: Brin Mackey

Raffle Lot #7
Bundle: Operation Cobra & Beyond the Beachhead 2
Donated By: Bounding Fire Productions
Winner:  John Muje

Raffle Lot #8
Dungeon Roll
Donated By: Tasty Minstrel Games
Winner: Ginger Cherry

Raffle Lot #9
Mr. Jack
Donated By: Asmodee
Winner: Mike Mayer

Raffle Lot #10
Space Cadets Dice Duel (Signed by Designer)
Donated By: Stronghold Games
Winner: Timothy Edwards

Raffle Lot #11
Duel of Ages II
Donated By: Brett Murrell
Winner: Steven Brady

Raffle Lot #12
Panic on Wall Street
Donated By: ACD Distribution
Winner: John Pace

Raffle Lot #13
Legacy Expansion: Forbidden Machines
Donated By: Floodgate Games
Winner: Nicki Courson

Raffle Lot #14
Viva Java – The Coffee Game + Expansion
Donated By: Dice Hate Me
Winner: Burke Drew

Raffle Lot #15
Munchkin Deluxe
Donated By: Steve Jackson Games
Winner: Ronald Watkins

Raffle Lot #16
Dominant Species: The Card Game
Donated By: GMT Games
Winner: Timothy Edwards

Raffle Lot #18
Apocalypse Survivors “The Men”
Donated By: Wargames Factory
Winner: Butch Arthur

Raffle Lot #19
Tahiti
Donated By: Minion Games
Winner: Casey Silva

Raffle Lot #20
Lost Temple
Donated By: Stronghold Games
Winner: Tom Gurgarus

Raffle Lot #21
Battle of Westeros (with miniatures)
Donated By: The Gamer’s Armory
Winner: Dan Patriss

Raffle Lot #22
The Great Heartland Hauling Co. + Expansion
Donated By: Dice Hate Me
Winner: Kerry McManus

Raffle Lot #23
Dreadball Deluxe (figures painted by TGA in Display)
Donated By: Mantic Games
Winner: Matt Parker

Raffle Lot #24
Go Fetch It!
Donated By: ACD Distribution
Winner: Cassandre Kowal

Raffle Lot #25
King Philip’s War
Donated By: Multi Man Publishing
Winner: Allison Mcwaters

Raffle Lot #26
Relic Runners
Donated By: Days of Wonder
Winner: Adam Reeves

Raffle Lot #27
Command & Colors Ancients: Greece vs. Eastern Kingdom
Donated By: GMT Games
Winner: Ronald Watkins

Raffle Lot #28
Citadel Paint Hobby Starter Set
Donated By: Games Workshop
Winner: Luann Hensel

Raffle Lot #29
Fleet (Kickstarter)
Donated By: Matt Riddle & Ben Pinchback
Winner: James Neely, Jr.

Raffle Lot #30
City of Remnants
Donated By: Plaid Hat Games
Winner: Jeremy Maciejewski

Raffle Lot #31
City of Iron
Donated By: Red Raven
Winner: Ronald Watkins

Raffle Lot #32
The New Science
Donated By: Conquistador Games
Winner: Wray Ferrell

Raffle Lot #33
Space Empires 4X
Donated By: The Gamer’s Armory|
Winner: David Wingler

Raffle Lot #34
Dixit
Donated By: ACD Distribution
Winner: Adam Reeves

Raffle Lot #35
Yoda Wooden Wall Art
Donated By: High Tech Treasures
Winner: Kelly Watkins

Raffle Lot #36
Chewbacca Wooden Wall Art
Donated By: High Tech Treasures
Winner: Crystal Blanton

Raffle Lot #37
Command & Colors Ancients
Donated By: GMT Games
Winner: Tony Chen

Raffle Lot #38
Pathfinder: The Inner Sea World Guide
Donated By: Paizo Publilshing
Winner: Mike Tavares

Raffle Lot #39
Compounded: Better Gaming Through Chemistry
Donated By: Dice Hate Me Games
Winner: Scott Blanton

Raffle Lot #40
Viticulture 2013
Donated By: Stonemaier Games
Winner: Lynn Dubar

Raffle Lot #41
MTG From the Vault: Realms
Donated By: The Gamer’s Armory
Winner: Jacquline Coronilla

Raffle Lot #42
Star Wars Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook
Donated By: Fantasy Flight
Winner: Robert Barker

Raffle Lot #43
France ‘40
Donated By: GMT Games
Winner: Mark Palmer

Raffle Lot #44
Ticket To Ride: the Heart of Africa
Donated By: Days of Wonder
Winner: Tracy Lankford

Raffle Lot #45
Time ‘N’ Space
Donated By: Stronghold Games
Winner: Steven Herr

Raffle Lot #46
Canterbury
Donated By: Quixotic Games
Winner: Dan Patriss

Raffle Lot #47
Ticket to Ride
Donated By: Alliance Game Distributors
Winner: Stephen Brady

Raffle Lot #48
Pathfinder Bundle: The Worldwound/Faith & Philosophies
Donated By: Paizo Publishing
Winner: Butch Arthur

Raffle Lot #49
Jungle Speed
Donated By: Asmodee
Winner: Chad Barker

Raffle Lot #50
Pathfinder Core Rulebook
Donated By: Paizo Publishing
Winner: Chris Olsson

Raffle Lot #51
Trains
Donated By: AEG Games
Winner: Tracy Lankford

Raffle Lot #52
Navajo Wars
Donated By: GMT Games
Winner: Mike Hartshorn

Raffle Lot #53
Milestones
Donated By: Stronghold Games
Winner: John Taylor

Raffle Lot #54
Pandemic
Donated By: Z-Man Games
Winner: Casey Silva

Raffle Lot #55
Pandemic: In the Lab Expansion
Donated By: Z-Man Games
Winner: Peter Soloninka

Raffle Lot #56
Pandemic: On the Brink Expansion
Donated By: Z-Man Games
Winner: Adam Yonce

Raffle Lot #57
D&D Magic Items Compedium
Donated By: The Gamer’s Armory
Winner: April Gollar

Raffle Lot #58
Carnival + Expansion
Donated By: Dice Hate Me
Winner: James Neely, Jr.

Raffle Lot #59
Cuba Libre
Donated By: GMT Games
Winner: Matt Parker

Raffle Lot #60
Grave Business
Donated By: Minion Games
Winner: Wray Ferrell

Raffle Lot #61
The Supreme Commander
Donated By: GMT Games
Winner:  Andrew Henrick

Raffle Lot #62
Dominare
Donated By: AEG Games
Winner: Vincent Reyes

Raffle Lot #63
1989: Dawn of Freedom
Donated By: GMT Games
Winner: Cassandre Kowal

Raffle Lot #64
MTG Return to Ravnica Guild Pack Bundle
Donated By: The Gamer’s Armory
Winner: Shawn Purtell

Raffle Lot #65
Steampunk Jewelry (Necklace)
Donated By: Nenne’s Little Treasures
Winner:  Laura Drew

Raffle Lot #66
Steampunk Jewelry Set (Necklace & Bracelet)
Donated By: Nenne’s Little Treasures
Winner: Anna Naples

Raffle Lot #67
Advanced Squad Leader – Starter Kit #1
Donated By: Multi Man Publishing
Winner: Adam Reed

Raffle Lot #68
Advanced Squad Leader – Starter Kit #2
Donated By: Multi Man Publishing
Winner: Voss Graham

Raffle Lot #69
Advanced Squad Leader – Starter Kit #3
Donated By: Multi Man Publishing
Winner: Voss Graham

Raffle Lot #70
Mercante
Donated By: AEG Games
Winner: Breck Roundtree

Raffle Lot #71
Castellan (Yellow & Green International Version)
Donated By: Steve Jackson Games
Winner: Tyler Cooke

Raffle Lot #72
Fallen City of Karez
Donated By: Golden Egg Games
Winner: Chad Ramsey

Raffle Lot #73
Sword of Rome: Conquest of Italy 362-272 BC
Donated By: Wray Ferrell (Designer)
Winner: Tracy Lankford

Raffle Lot #74
Garden Dice
Donated By: Meridae Games
Winner: The Gaddys

Raffle Lot #75
Munchkin Apocalypse
Donated By: Steve Jackson Games
Winner: Ginger Cherry

Raffle Lot #76
Eight-Minute Empire
Donated By: Red Raven
Winner: Brant Guillory

Raffle Lot #77
Pathfinder Bundle: Chronicle o/t Righteous & Demon Hunter’s Handbook)
Donated By: Paizo Publishing
Winner: Swanson

Raffle Lot #78
A Distant Plain
Donated By: GMT Games
Winner:  Ian Harris

Raffle Lot #79
Canadian Crucible
Donated By: Multi Man Publishing
Winner: Vincent Reyes

Raffle Lot #80
Gamer’s Armory – Grey Game Bag w/ Lid
Donated By: The Gamer’s Armory
Winner: James Neely, Jr.

Raffle Lot #81
Hide the Kids!
Donated By: ACD Distribution
Winner: Evan Niconienko

Raffle Lot #82
King of Tokyo
Donated By: Iello
Winner: Elizabeth Calcutt

Raffle Lot #83
Bundle: Munchkin Fu & Munchkin Fu 2 – Monky Business
Donated By: Steve Jackson Games
Winner: Stephen Barrera

Raffle Lot #84
Bundle: Munchkin Bites & Munchkin Bites 2 Pants Macabre
Donated By: Steve Jackson Games
Winner: Stephen Barrera

Raffle Lot #85
Cartoona
Donated By: Game Salute
Winner: Jenny Purcell

Raffle Lot #86
Bundle: The Walking Dead Board Game & Card Game
Donated By: Cryptozoic
Winner: John Koski

Raffle Lot #87
Cheeky Monkey – Stuffed Animal w/ Game inside
Donated By: Eagle/Gryphon Games
Winner: Lauren Patriss

Raffle Lot #88
Bundle: Goblins Drool Fairies Rule Game & Puzzle
Donated By: Game Salute
Winner: Todd Derr

Raffle Lot #89
Bundle: Flames of War Achtung Box Set & 2 Blister Sets
Donated By: Battlefront Miniatures
Winner: Daniel Edwards

Raffle Lot #90
Bundle: DC Deck Building Game + Promos + Playmat
Donated By: Cryptozoic
Winner: Ruth Boyack 

It’s that time of year again! The time when all the big planning and the “Save the Date” comes out for this fantastic event.

This year’s 24 Hour Board Game Marathon will take place on Sat November 9th 2013.

The location again as in past years, will be the wonderful friendly local game store The Gamers Armory in Cary, NC.

Please stay tuned, in the near future I will have our 2013 First Giving site live and more information on how YOU can help us in raising funds and awareness for TS and how you can have a TON of fun at this year’s event!

I wanted to take a moment to extend a great big THANK YOU to Josh from Board Game Reviews by Josh. Josh is doing a monthly feature on Board Gaming Charities, and featured our charity and the 24 Hour Board Game Marathon for TSS in his October installment.

Please check out his site. He does some amazing work and I love his plethora of reviews!

Also we have gotten some of our raffles to the printer and should have them this week.

This year’s BIG 5$ raffles will be for these prizes:

That’s right! The date is official for this year’s 24 Hour Board Game Marathon to Benefit Turner Syndrome Society of the US. This year’s date will be Sat Nov 10th 2012. Just like last year we will hold it at the best local game store in the area The Gamers Armory in Cary NC.

Last year thanks to all the great donations from the community and Game Publishers we raised over $7000. This year we hope to raise over $10,000. And we can only do that with YOUR help!

So please head on over to the FirstGiving site and help us in any way you can. And for more information on how you can be one of the Marathon Gamers for the full 24 hours please click on Mail tab at the top of this page. Or like us on Facebook and post your interest there and I will contact you.

As always if you are a game publisher and would like to donate games,promos or gift cards please mail us or contact us via facebook.

Thanks for your time and see you in Nov!

Dan

Well after all the planning and after all the gaming, it’s over. I am real sad it’s over b/c I wanted the night to never end, but I am infinitely happy that it was such a success as well. So check out this all below for the whole story of the day. And please check us out periodically for both the next event (The Susan G Komen race for the cure in June) and the planning for next years Board Game Marathon!

So… story and recap below!

Ever since July I have been planning a charity event in honor of my daughter who has been diagnosed with Turner Syndrome for just under 2 years. I had always heard of these video gaming marathons people did for charity and decided that I would do the same, cept I would take my beloved hobby of board gaming and have my own marathon.

Thus I created a charity called Gamers for Cures and then the 24 Hour Board Game Marathon to benefit the Turner Syndrome Society of the US was born. I had approached my favorite friendly local game score, The Gamers Armory, and simple as pie we had a place to hold the event. The board gaming community as a whole was AWESOME with their support. Game publishers rallied around my requests and before long I had a bunch of games donated by publishers for use in raffles and giveaways for the event. I then got 14 people to volunteer to raise money and partake in the whole 24 hours of the event. I couldn’t believe how well it all was coming together. Add in some great publicity from great podcasts including The Dice Tower, Pulp Gamer’s Out of Character, What would Patton do, The Geek All-Stars and The State of Games and we were already starting to raise money on First Giving months before the event even took place.

Fast forward a bit to last weekend Nov 12th, the big day. After all the hard work Mrs. GeekJock, myself and Crystal and Scott from the Gamers Armory put in, it was finally here. We ended up with 50 items we had up for 1$ box raffles (you buy the tickets for 1$ each, as many as you want, and then put them in boxes corresponding to the specific item you want). Some great items were in this raffle including Eminent Domain, 1st edition ASL, A Few Acres of Snow, Discworld:Ankh-morpork -Collectors Edition, Alien Frontiers, Yomi -Complete 1st edition. We also had a 5$ big raffle we sold tickets for which included prizes such as an iPad2, MTG:From the Vault, Dominant Species,

Defenders of the Realm + Dragon Expansion. People also donated on the day of the event getting complementary T-Shirts and door prizes. We ended up raising an amazing amount of money surpassing our initial goal by a ton… but I will get to that amount in a little while. First a little re-cap of the event.

The day started off bright and early. I woke up early picked up the Redheaded Pharmacist and we picked up breakfast. Chik Fil-A of Apex donated breakfast for our marathon players and it was nothing less then amazing. They gave us a bunch of breakfast sandwiches, some coffee, some sweat tea and a fruit tray. A great way to start our 24 hours of board gaming goodness off. The gaming started shortly after gobbling down some chicken biscuits, as I taught a couple of the gamers Alien Frontiers and saw a nice 4 player game going, and on the other table they had Thunderstone going on. Right after that we got a nice 6 player game of 7 Wonders going which was great. I simply love the game, especially being it scales well no matter how many people you have playing and that it doesn’t increase the time to play at all. Once the doors opened for the store to the public at 10am I had some friends stop by and I broke out King of Tokyo. K-o-Tokyo is always a good hit among seasoned gamers and rookies alike and today was no exception. We had a decent crowd around it for close to 2 hours but alas it was almost tim for the Tri-athalon tournament  to start. I still had to pick up lunch, which was graciously provided to the marathon players by Jersey Mike’s of Cary! So I grabbed the awesome subs wolfed one down and started to round up everyone who was going to play in the tournament.  The idea behind the tourney was to have 3 tables going of  4 people and rotate each round and get some winners of the games that were played. We had a table for Settlers of Catan, one for Small World Underground, and one with 2 shorter games– Dominion (with base+Cornucopia) and Quarriors!. I had to abandon getting my butt kicked at King of Tokyo by the 7 year olds and take my place among the tourney players. I had a great time playing in the tourney and managed to come in 2nd place overall! A bit of luck and a bit of skill but a LOT of fun.

From noon until 10pm we had hourly door prizes for all those in attendance. Anyone who was in the store at the time of the door prizes received a ticket for the current drawing, and then they were able to take an item from the box of goodies. People really seemed to enjoy this a lot and I couldn’t believe how fast hours were melting away between each hourly drawing.

Next up,after some great pizza donated to the marathoners by Primo Pizza next door, was the Ascension tourney! Man oh man do I love me some Ascension. I got put at a rough table to start as all 4 of us were very good players. The good old Redheaded Rx beat up on the table and I had a rough game never getting much luck at all and round 1 was in the books and I was in last at the table. But, all was not lost as we had 2 more rounds to go. I finished tied for first in the next table with my other co-host of the Geek Allstars podcast Gyroplay (Todd) and then we were thrown together in the final table as well, which I also managed to get the best of him. This time though I had an amazing game just getting killer draw after killer draw and simply ran away with the table. Over on the other tables Mrs. Geekjock was doing well in her tables but she ran into the juggernaut that would be Red in her final table of the night who cleaned up again, en route to his berth in the final table. As for me and Todd, it seems our tieing for 1st on the 2nd table did us in, splitting those points and we were left out of the running for the finals, and that left Red as the only one of our 4 to make it to the final table. Red managed to finish in 2nd in the tourney, getting himself a copy of the Expansion (Reutrn of the Fallen), which he was real happy to get.

Once the Ascension tourney was over it was finally time for the ever anticipated raffles to occur! Crystal and Scott had been working on the game day $1 winners

during the final table of the tourney and then we all gathered around for the big ticket raffles. Red was on quite a roll this day as he managed to win one of the 1$ raffle prizes and also won the big ticket copy of Dominant Species. I am real happy for him about the DS win, but that is prolly only b/c now our little gaming group has a copy we get to play on a regular basis hehe. The iPad went to the Giordano’s who not only simply bought their ticket the day before the marathon, they only bought ONE TICKET! I guess it’s one of those things, if it’s meant to be, it’s truly meant to be!

After the raffles things started to settle down some more as people began to head home and we pretty much only had the marathoners and the extra players who donated to get the all night pass to stay in the store after hours to play with us, left in the store. At this time a few of the guys were still playing Fortress America, my daughter Lauren was getting a lesson from Joey C in Magic: The Gathering (my wallet is not happy she learned this), and I jumped into a game of Elder Sign with Todd and Ruth. I like Elder Sign quite a bit and we went on an amazing roll (pun intended!) and came away with the win vs the Great Old One! NExt up while more people played some King of Tokyo, others played even more Ascension, and the Fortress group finally finished after 5 hours and moved to Acquire, the co-hosts and I set up in the back room for the LIVE taping of The Geek Allstars Podcast! We checked in from the event and had a killer chat with Crystal and Scott, interviewing them about our event and the history of the Gamers Armory as well. I really enjoyed talking to them and I think the show came out great.

BUT, it was time to get back to gaming! Todd, Red Adam O, and I got a game of Belfort going next and I think I can speak for all 4 of us when I say we had a blast. It’s a great game which is amazingly fun, never the same twice and you also have no idea how fast the time goes. Behind us they had a game of Revolution! going which sounded like it was quite hotly contested too. Once Belfort was complete there wasn’t a whole lot of time left for the Marathon. Somehow the day was nearly over and all we had time for was a quicky game of 7 Wonders to bring us home after a full day/night of gaming.

When it was all said and done we had raised OVER $7,000 for the Turner Syndrome Society!!! I simply cannot believe how much we raised, how much fun we had, and how receptive everyone was to the event. Not only that, the best sign of the day was that, at

8am, no one was talking about how tired they were. EVERYONE was talking about how much fun they had and how they simply could not wait to get back to being in the event next year!

So there you have it. Sorry I have been a bit slack on the blog lately but it’s not without good cause. With any luck I will be able to get these 7 or so movie reviews I have to get  to done soon, and my usual rants about this and that should continue again soon. But until then please check out some of the great sponsors of the event, check out the site for more of the info about the event (www.gamersforcures.com) and of course check out our gracious hosts The Gamers Armory.

–Geekjock