Awesome Volunteers, March Newsletter and Limited Edition Scenic Bases, SVDM

Just a quick hitter here -

Our March Newsletter released earlier; e-mail novaopen@gmail.com if you want to be added to the newsletter ...

March Newsletter

So, in addition to helping us prepare 240 sideboards, over 100 6x4 and 4x4 tables, hundreds of pieces of terrain, and more, our Volunteer staff has also been putting in extra time doing some pretty amazing side things and key things that inherently go under the radar.

The NOVA is run behind the scenes by an executive committee comprised of three incredibly impressive gals - Laurie, Sam, and Sue. Between them they handle almost every critical organizational task of the NOVA, from making sure our terrain builds happen to producing awesome newsletters, to heading up some of our terrain build projects like the DC Monument project for the Narrative (LED-lit recreations of iconic DC monuments).  Marketing, leadership, organizing, structuring, discussing, formulating, budgeting, acquiring, ordering ... everything. They do it, they make it happen, and we wouldn't succeed without 'em.

Our website is kept going and up to speed, and constantly improved by the hard work of Kevin K. It's come leaps and bounds since its initial presentation.

We also have people like Bob Likins working to create awesome things like our limited edition scenic bases, or Jon Pryts spearheading an actual ... well, that's a secret for another week or so, but it'll have you rolling on the floor laughing.

None of our volunteers are thanked enough, or thanked publicly enough. It's one of many things I as an overall exec for the NOVA need to consistently do a better job of acknowledging, and consider this my paltry public first start.

These bases tie into the DC narrative event, and a lot more will be coming out about that.

Make sure you reserve your hotel rooms and your GT tickets ASAP - they are selling at an ever increasing rate, and are both likely to run out before everyone who wants to attend gets on ticket purchasing. If you're not sure about tickets yet, but are fairly certain you want to attend, make sure you reserve your hotel rooms NOW - you'll earn more raffle tickets toward $1,000 cash if you DO stay, and you can cancel your reservations if you wind up not staying.

Remember - over 40% of registrations so far are NEW to the NOVA Open; these people are inherently taking the spots of GT attendees who are slacking on picking up tickets but still plan to ... don't miss out!

Saint Valentine's Day Massacre

The SVDM is a long-running Pennsylvania GT run by Mike Clark of Showcase Comics. As mentioned last year in January, Mike is one of those long-standing outstanding guys in the hobby, always running excellent events and always improving his offering.

Several of the NOVA volunteers / crew attended the event, and I was proud of Eric for taking 1st Overall with his Necrons (and scoring a perfect 100/100 battle points), and Andrew taking 2nd Overall (thanks both to his excellent gaming skills ... a multi-GT winner ... and his awesome hobby skills). I take a small bit of pride in the fact that our local crew now has 4 distinct GT winners in Andrew, Eric, Tony and myself. Everyone keeps getting better all the time, while also scoring excellent in sportsmanship and constantly improving in appearance scores.

Sometimes it is lost in translation how much I appreciate (at least personally) the wide variety of excellent events that are out there in our hobby. Running a tournament or convention is largely fueled by the passion of the organizers and volunteers, and a lot of that passion derives from the freedom to do things the way you think is best to do them. This is why the NOVA runs the way it does, why the SVDM does, why WargamesCon and AdeptiCon do, or the Bay Area, or DaBoyz. All of them are top notch events run by top notch people, and this is in large part due to the independence of them, and the unique nature of each event's formats, styles, and personalities.

I just wanted to add this little for the record that while I talk about NOVA all the time, it's really that ... passion for your event that truly makes it great ... far more than format, metrics, or fancy big name attendees. Make sure when the SVDM comes around next year, you all head on up (or down, or over, or whatever), and give it a shot - Mike himself makes a pretty mean offering of home-brew food to go along with it I hear ... just one more unique flavor to another great event in our country.