Here’s the latest news from the Weasels.
It Takes Two More to Tango
Around 1 a.m. last week at the Red Lion, a couple of hours after Game No. 229 had ended, someone got the bright idea to open another game there for this Thursday. We now have five players. Two more and the game is on. Who’s in?
Power to the People’s Champion
Speaking of Game No. 229, in his first outing since winning the Royale in October, Josh Heffernan, the self-proclaimed People’s Champion, ran away with the board top. Playing Italy, Heffernan spent the first two game-years in a boxer’s stance, patiently waiting for an opportunity to strike. When he finally threw a punch at France in Spring 1903, the blow was so perfectly timed that he walked unopposed into both Marseilles and Spain in the Fall.
By game’s end, the people were lining up to give their champion an even larger board top. Check out the game summary and final center counts at the website.
Brawl My Children
We’ve updated the standings in the 2014 Bar Room Brawl Series through last week’s game. With the board top, Heffernan has vaulted from last all the way up to third place.
Upcoming Games
- Dec. 19 at the Red Lion in Lincoln Square, starting at 6.30 p.m. until no later than 11. Have five.
- Dec. 28 at Matt Sundstrom’s home in Glenview, starting at 11 a.m. Full. Standbys welcome.
- Jan. 11 at Matt Kade’s home in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, starting at 11 a.m. Have six.
- Jan. 19 at Dan Burgess’ home in Downers Grove, starting at 11 a.m. Have three.
Sign up for games at the website, on Meetup, or by emailing your faithful War Weasel (which is now Dan Burgess, danburgess67@gmail.com).
Where Are They Now?
At some point during last week’s game, I noted that Matt Sundstrom and I were both vets of the club’s first campaign back in 2005-06 and that three others — Keith Ammann, Heffernan and Matt Kade — all had joined the club last year. That seemed to speak well of our retention efforts, but I made a mental note to check the database to see how last season’s 60 players were distributed among the seasons. Then I refocused my attention on guiding my Turkey to a third-place finish.
Earlier this evening, I had a chance to query the database. I found that one-third of Season 1’s players (nine of 27) played in at least one league game last year. (And four others played at Weasel Moot.) That was pretty encouraging. But I was discouraged to learn that we struck out with the class of Season 2. Worse, of those 25 players, we only hear from three: Jeremiah Peterson, John Susoreny and Michael Martinez. The others have either moved away or moved on.
The Season Three folks did marginally better. Chris Davis and Chris Paxhia — two of that season’s 36 new players — played a game each.
The numbers get better from there. Five of 33 players from Season 4 joined us for at least one game; six of 28 from Season 5; 4 of 28 from Season 6; and nine of 49 from Season 7.) The rest — a total of 25 players — were new recruits last year.
So, these numbers tell me that we’ve done a good job of recruiting new players, but, aside from that first class of players, we need to be a lot better about retaining them. The good news is we’re off to a decent start with last year’s class. Eight of those 25 have already played with us this year.
Election Results
Thank you to those of you who voted in the DipCon Society’s election for the at-large positions on the Administrative Committee. Christian Pedone of Philadelphia and I won the seats. If you’d like to know what that means and/or what the DipCon Society is, you can find the society’s charter here.
Dues
We hope to send out our annual e-appeal for 2014 dues in the next month or two. In the meantime, you can use the PayPal link we set up for 2013 to pay your 2014 dues. We’re still charging $25, $10 if you’re a student. Ten people have already paid their dues.
That’s all for this week.
Jim
