Game Submissions Are Open

Hail and well met, adventurers!

As a follow up to yesterday’s email, we now have forms available online for GMs to submit their games for the Welcome Week one shots and this semester’s campaigns.

Welcome Week

The one shot event will be taking place on Saturday the 19th September from 6pm till 10pm, they will be hosted online on the GEAS Discord server which can be found at:
http://geas.org.uk/discord

Games can be submitted until 6pm on the 18th September at:
http://geas.org.uk/freshers

September Pitches
This year’s pitches will also be held on the GEAS Discord server, with games running to the normal schedule:

  • Wednesday games from 6pm till 10pm, starting on the 23rd September.
  • Sunday afternoon games from 1pm till 5pm, starting on the 27th September.
  • Sunday evening games from 6pm till 10pm, also starting on the 27th September.

Games for these sessions can be submitted below, with submissions closing 24 hours before that pitch is due to start:
http://geas.org.uk/pitches

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us on our Discord or via this email address.

May the dice be with you,
Sophie Hine
GEAS Secretary

Start of Term Events and Membership Fee Ballot Results

Greetings, adventurers!
We’ve got a big update for you today, including ballot results and the all-important dates for GEAS returning in the new term. A summary has been included at the bottom for a quick overview, but please refer back to the main body for more details.

Moving to Discord
Over the summer the committee have been preparing to move GEAS entirely online for the upcoming semester, as the university has advised all societies to host their events online whenever social distancing guidelines can’t be met. This means that for the foreseeable future all GEAS events will be held on our Discord server, which can be accessed at: http://geas.org.uk/discord

Discord does require for you to have an account; a basic account is free and all you need to join our server. We have several service bots running to help moderate the server and two dice bots to make sure you can always keep playing. Vivek put together some fantastic resources on the server, explaining how to game safely online and make the most of the resources available.

Welcome Week Events
Members of the committee will be appearing on GEASLive, the society’s Twitch channel, for a night of gaming and shenanigans. You can find us all at 6pm on the 15th September, at the link: https://www.twitch.tv/geaslive

Our traditional Welcome Week one shots will be taking place on the 19th September, running from 6pm till 10pm. This will be hosted on the Discord server and will run in much the same manner that you can expect from the term time campaigns. We’re asking any GMs interested in running a one shot to register their game with us 24 hours in advance, so that the server moderators have time to prepare the game channels. More information on how to do this will come out closer to Welcome Week.

Game Pitches
Our regular weekly sessions will begin at 6pm on the 23rd September for Wednesday games, 1pm on the 27th September for Sunday afternoon games, followed by 6pm evening pitches. GMs will need to submit their games to the committee 24 hours in advance of when they are to be pitched, to allow server moderators to set up the correct channels and grant GMs the right permissions.

We’re currently working on a detailed explanation on how the pitches will be handled on the night, which will be released in the coming weeks, but please rest assured that a lot of effort has gone into preserving the spirit of the event. GMs will be able to pitch their game via video chat if they’re comfortable doing so. New members will then get first pick as usual, with returning members filling the remaining spaces.

Start of Term Social
We’ll also be hosting our first social of the year on the GEAS Discord server on the 26th September from 7pm onwards. This will be run in a similar format to our online social earlier this summer, with a main channel for voice chat and ‘breakout rooms’ available for smaller groups to hang out in. This will be a great chance to catch up with those you haven’t seen over the summer and to meet some incoming members.

Ballot Results
Thank you to everyone who participated at such short notice in our on-line ballot to reduce our membership fees. We appreciate the support from our members in helping us run the Society, and the way this is reflected in the strong turnout for the ballot.

The ballot to reduce the membership fees for the forthcoming academic year has been carried. Full details of the results can be found at the following link: http://geas.org.uk/fees
The membership fees in the forthcoming academic year for both students and non-students will be as follows:

First Semester: £0
Second Semester: £1.50
Full Year: £1.50

Committee will now write to EUSA to request that the membership fees are updated in the Societies Portal. Once this has been updated, we will let our members know when they should start buying their membership. Please remember to check on the Announcements channel on our Discord for further updates (http://geas.org.uk/discord).

Even though there is no fee for membership in the first semester, we still need members to ‘buy’ membership from the EUSA portal so they can be registered as our members. This is to ensure EUSA has a record of our membership numbers, so that they can take this into account when allocating us venues for the subsequent semester.

Summary

  • We have a Discord and that’s where we’re running for now. Please assume all events are being hosted there, unless explicitly told otherwise. Link to join: http://geas.org.uk/discord
  • A Committee Liveplay is going to be happening at 6pm on the 15th September. Come for the comedy, stay for the chaos. Link: https://www.twitch.tv/geaslive
  • Welcome Week one shots are at 6pm on the 19th September. We’d sure love to have some new players, so bring your friends and spread the word.
  • Campaign pitches will be at 6pm on the 23rd September for Wednesday sessions, with Sunday pitches on the 27th September; starting at 1pm for afternoon sessions and 6pm for evening ones.
  • The start of term social will be held on the 26th September at 7pm. Not as intimate as a pub social, but a chance to catch up with folks and get some of that social interaction we’ve all been craving.
  • The society voted in favour of lowering this year’s membership fees. The first semester is effectively free, but please make sure you register for the society by ‘buying’ your membership via the EUSA portal. This is key to getting rooms for next semester.

If you have any questions about the move online or anything else, please reach out to us at geas.committee or at our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/geasedinburgh/

For the glory of GEAS,
The GEAS Committee

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Membership Fees and RPG System Reviews

Hey there adventurers!

I hope you’re all enjoying the summer and any games you’re playing. I’ve got a quick reminder for you and an opportunity to get involved in a new project the committee has planned.

Reducing Membership Fees

We currently have a ballot running to reduce membership fees for the 2020-21 academic year, with voting closing this coming Monday at 5pm. As GEAS is moving online for the first semester and won’t have any venues, we felt it would be fair to our members to lower membership fees.

The proposed memberships fees for both student and non-student members are:

Full year: £1.50

Semester 1: £0

Semester 2: £1.50

As our membership fees are set in the GEAS constitution, we require the proposal to be voted on and to achieve a two-thirds majority at a General Meeting. This is being carried out in the same manner as the AGM we held earlier in the year, with all paid student members for the 2019-20 year able to cast their vote via the University of Edinburgh’s Office365 portal. You can access the ballot using your UoE email account at the following link: http://geas.org.uk/fees

The ballot will remain open till 5pm on 24th August.

Call for RPG System Reviews

As GEAS is moving online for the new semester, we’re putting together a newsletter to help inspire your gaming and ease the transition into this new style of play.

Online gaming brings its own challenges and not all systems survive the change of platform, so we’re looking for short reviews of RPG systems you’ve enjoyed playing online. Whether it’s a well-loved classic, a new system, or a little-known gem, we’d love to hear about your experience.

Submissions can be sent to the committee via email at geas.committee or through our Facebook page at , either as a private message or as a comment on this post. Please keep your reviews to less than 100 words and let us know how you would like to be credited, e.g. with your full name or anonymously. Unfortunately, we can’t guarantee your review will be published but all submissions will be considered for inclusion.

The deadline for system reviews is 1st September at 6pm.

Stay well and keep rolling,

Sophie Hine

GEAS Secretary

Reducing Membership Fees, On-Line Ballot

Greetings Adventurers!

(Link to on-line ballot on reducing membership fees: http://geas.org.uk/fees)

As you are already aware, Geas is going to be moving on-line for semester 1 in the forthcoming academic year. We understand that this will significantly affect our members’ experience of the society. Considering we won’t have any venues for the first semester, we felt it would be fair for our members if we reduced the membership fees for the forthcoming year.

For the 2020-21 academic year, we are proposing to reduce the membership fees for both student and non-student members to the following:

Full year: £1.50
Semester 1: £0
Semester 2: £1.50.

Because our membership fees are set in the Geas Constitution, we will require the proposal to be ratified by a two-thirds majority at a General Meeting. As most of our members are away during the summer, we are conducting this via an on-line ballot as we did for our AGM a few months ago. All paid student members for the 2019-20 academic year (i.e. any student who was a paid member last year) will be able to vote in the ballot. We regret that, owing to EUSA’s regulations, non-student members will not be able to vote in this ballot.

The ballot will be conducted using the University of Edinburgh’s Office365 portal, and you will be able to log in via your University email account. You can access the ballot at the following link: http://geas.org.uk/fees

The deadline for votes to be cast is 5 pm on 24 August 2020, to comply with the requirement to give two weeks’ notice for an EGM.

As membership dues might be subject to change, we request all members to hold off on buying their membership for the forthcoming year until September. If you have any questions or have any difficulties accessing the ballot, please feel free to get in touch with us.

We appreciate your time and support in helping us run the Society. We look forward to seeing you all (virtually) in the new semester!

We hope you are all well and looking after yourselves and your loved ones.

For Geas, and for Glory,
The Geas Committee