September Gathering - After Action Report

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September gathering is behind us now and i can conclude that the air getting colder must be a factor in bringing more people in as the fall progresses. The season has started with two very good gatherings now. Evening started pretty slow but later on people rushed in and sometime 22.00 the bar-side was even a bit crowded. A sight for sore eyes indeed! In total there were 107 attendees and 25 new faces.

For photos CLICK HERE

People also seemed to stay on quite late. Last coordinators were seen leaving at 3-am. Again we saw a good representation of Sumea & Mr.Goodliving. From other game companies at least Rovio, Housemarque, Frozenbyte, Ironstar Helsinki, Remedy and Bugbear were all represented.

Some attendees came all the way from Tampere, including people from Nokia and from Aukio Group, which was recently acquired by Universomo. There was also a representative from PhysX Ageia who had come all the way from Sweden and was hanging with Frozenbyte crew. New students from aRTO PELKO 2 (Game development education) were largely present at the gathering. There was also people from old aRTO PELKO class present.

There seemed to be less WiFi action as before, very few people had brought their PSP's or DS's. A rare sight to see was a laptop user trying to convert code to run in a Macintosh machine!

-Miikka

August Gathering - After Action Report

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The August Gathering was a nice and mellow 'welcome back' from summer vacation. The evening started slow but later turned into a full house with the party continuing until well after midnight. In the end, there were a total of 105 attendees with 25 new comers and 7 guests. Among the attendees was a good sized group from Nokia and a new volunteer.

For photos CLICK HERE

Most of the evening was spent swapping stories about summer vacations, boggling over the unusual amounts of sunshine and playing DS lite. The games of choice were Mario Kart DS and Tetris DS. A few people took some time away from the chatting to try out their luck at the poker table.

The volunteers at the door had a fun night catching up, welcoming familiar faces and playing Munchkin. We also had the pleasure of greeting quite a few foreign visitors including a native of Japan and a few guests of Remedy from Microsoft Game Studios.

All in all, it was a great night for chatting, gaming and socializing! Thank you all for coming.

-Liz

IGDA Finland Organizational Changes

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Those of you with the keenest eye for detail might have noticed a change in some signatures on this forum, namely those of IGDA Finland actives like myself. The reason for this is that at our end of season meeting this summer, we decided to change the way we have organized the growing number of people who volunteer their precious time into making IGDA Finland possible. Those of you who have recently joined might not be able to put the changes that have happened in a fairly short time period into perspective. From a group of 4 industry veterans running IGDA Finland at the start of 2005, we had grown the size of the group to 7 in an effort to get more things accomplished by the start of 2005-2006 season.

This group was further grown by recruiting all of the great people in our volunteers group. Most of the volunteers are still students or looking for their first break to the industry. Some have secured their first industry positions, either before or during their volunteer efforts. So at the end of the season IGDA Finland actives consisted of two groups: Chapter Team of 7 industry representatives and Volunteer group consisting of 15 people.

This has grown the direct communications links for the main chapter coordinator (me) and prevented effective coordination enough to stall most projects we are undertaking. Therefore the group known in the past as IGDA Finland Chapter Team decided in their end of season meeting in June to re-organize the chapter organization.

In the future, we will break this into three groups: Advisory Board, Chapter Coordinators & Volunteers. This new structure is based on a structure used by many IGDA chapters around the world. This split to advisory board & chapter coordinators does not represent a major change, but more it's about clarifying how we are already working in practice.

* ADVISORY BOARD *

Most of current Chapter Team members will be moving to the Advisory Board. This better reflect the hands-off, advisory role that most of them fill already. One of the founders of IGDA Finland and the previous chapter coordinator Lasse Seppänen will be coordinating the Advisory Board.

* CHAPTER COORDINATORS *

I will remain as the main chapter coordinator, running the every day activities. I will answer to the advisory board and call on their combined experience to help guide IGDA Finland in the future. Two of the most active volunteers have accepted to carry more work and reponsibilities and will become chapter coordinators.

Miikka Luotio will become the new Webmaster. He will be moderating the forums and updating the website. Right now he is in the process of designing our improved website, v3.0, which will be launched later in the fall.

Liz Lehtonen will become Head Volunteer. She has already been responsible for the welcoming staff at events, which is the biggest on-going job for the volunteers. In the future she has the overall responsibility of organizing how the volunteer group works.

My congrats and thanks to Miikka & Liz! Their increased contribution will greatly help develop the chapter further.

* VOLUNTEERS *

The group of volunteers will stay pretty much the same (except for Miikka & Liz who now become chapter coordinators). We are always open for more volunteers, those who are interested should find Liz at the Gatherings.

The exact listing of people in each group will be published when the new website becomes online. But basically, the volunteers stay the same and former Chapter Team Members either become Chapter Coordinators (like myself) or join the Advisory Board (like Lasse). If you're interested hearing more about all of this, you can either post your comments here in this thread or come and talk to me or Lasse at the future Gatherings!

I want to again thank everybody who contributes their time for our cause. Your efforts are very much appreciated!

Cheers, Jay