News

When we game in person, it is usually straightforward to adopt safety tools in play: placing a T-Card at the centre of the table, reading through a safety checklist together at session 0, et cetera. When gaming online, though, reading the room and having these mechanisms in place might take a little forethought.

For more info on game safety tools, look up this resource that we’ve got compiled on our Google Drive: http://geas.org.uk/tools

You can find a copy of the Geas T-Card here: http://geas.org.uk/tcard

We at Geas want everyone to be safe and have fun when playing their games. This is more so the case now, as games have moved on-line. These are some tips for GMs running games on-line on how to ensure game safety even in these changed environments. We hope you find this useful! Continue reading “Game Safety in On-Line Play”

Hey there adventurers,
Just a reminder that we’re holding a pub quiz this Saturday evening to celebrate the end of term. It’ll be held on Discord at 6pm on the 23rd May, you can join the quiz server via the link below:

https://discord.gg/hx6BGCf

So come join us for a bit of fun, banter and the chance to come away with a prize.

Keep rolling,
Sophie Hine
GEAS Secretary

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Hello adventurers!
As we’re moving into summer and the end of term, we thought it was time to update you on what’s happening within the society and how you can take part in summer games. Hopefully, we can provide a bit of fun as lockdown continues.

Quaransteams & Pub Quiz
Since the start of April, the committee have been uploading Quaranstreams to the GEAS Facebook page on Wednesdays. Our current and former Presidents, Robyn and Emily, have run a couple of livestreams together to give us all a bit of a light-hearted break from the current situation. Meanwhile, Vivek has interviewed members of the society and wider gaming community to produce a podcast exploring remote gaming and the history of GEAS. These are all available to enjoy on the Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/geasedinburgh.

To end off the summer term and in lieu of our usual social, we’ll be hosting a pub quiz on the 23rd May. The quiz will be run via Discord and will be TTRPG themed (obviously). More details will be released closer to the time, including team sign ups and possible prizes!

Summer Games
The society normally helps GMs find players for their games outside of term time with an end of term social; but owing to current circumstances this isn’t possible this year. Instead, we’ll helping GMs find players for their games online.

GMs will have until the 20th May to submit a game via this form: http://geas.org.uk/gmsub. Once we have a list of games, we’ll advertise them from the 23rd to 27th May, players will then be able to sign up for the games they’re interested in. We’ll be in touch with more details on allocations later on.

Keep on rolling,
Sophie Hine
GEAS Secretary

Dear Adventurers,

I am pleased to announce the results of the on-line ballot for our 2020 Annual General Meeting. Thank you to all our members who voted, and to all those who put themselves forward for Committee positions for next year. We appreciate the dedication and commitment our members show in the running of the Society, and the way this is reflected when they participate in our AGM.

The following are the results of the AGM ballot:

A. Motions for the General Meeting:

Motion 1: Carried. Advisory committee positions will need to be ratified annually from now on.
Motion 2: Carried. The Game Safety Policy has been adopted with immediate effect.
Motion 3: Carried. The Anti-Harassment Policy and Complaints Procedure have been updated.
Motion 4: Carried. The Constitution has been amended.
Motion 5: Carried. Conpulsion 2020 has been suspended.
Motion 6: Carried. The existing advisory positions have been ratified.

B. Office-Bearers for 2020-21:

President: Robyn Higgins
Secretary: Sophie Hine
Treasurer: Amy McMonagle
Events Organiser: Emma MacKay
Socials Coordinator: Stella Segar
Conpulsion Liaison: Charlie Kelly
Webmaster: Alan Jackson
Equality and Wellbeing Officer: Vivek Santayana
Legacy Advisor: Emily Booth

Congratulations to the newly elected office-bearers. We wish them a fruitful tenure.

We would also like to express our sincere and heartfelt gratitude to last year’s committee, especially the out-going members Logan, Angus, Jason, Calum, and Judith, for all their hard work and leadership in making the Society grow.

Detailed results of the ballot can be found at the updated link http://geas.org.uk/agm

I am also really pleased that our experiment of moving the AGM to an on-line ballot given Covid-19 has worked well. Meanwhile, we hope all our members are healthy and safe in these tumultuous times. Take care.

Of Geas, by Geas, and for Geas,
Vivek Santayana
Equality and Wellbeing Officer

Dear Adventurers,

This is a quick reminder that the on-line ballot for the AGM closes at 5 pm tomorrow (i.e. Sunday 29 March). The matters being voted on include the office-bearers for next year, as well as a number of matters like cancelling Conpulsion 2020, and changes to Geas policy and the Constitution.

Thank you to those of you who have already voted since the opening of the ballot. For those of you who haven’t yet gotten the chance to vote, this is your chance to have a say in the running of the Society.

The agenda for the AGM, including the full text of all motions, can be found at http://geas.org.uk/agm
The instructions for the on-line ballot, as well as the candidates’ statements for the office-bearer elections, can be found at http://geas.org.uk/election

And once you’ve finished reading the above, you can find the ballot at http://geas.org.uk/ballot

Owing to EUSA regulations, only student members are permitted to vote in our AGM ballot. This is why all members will need to authenticate with their University of Edinburgh Office365 log-in in order to vote in the ballot. If you have any trouble doing so, or if there are any problems with your ballot, please let us know.

In the Name of Geas and by the Will of the Dice,

Vivek Santayana

Equality and Wellbeing Officer

Dear Grand Adventurers,

Voting in the on-line ballot for our Annual General Meeting for 2020 is now open.

The ballot closes at 5 pm on Sunday, 29 March.

The agenda for the AGM, including the full text of motions being voted on, is available here: http://geas.org.uk/agm

The instructions for how to use the on-line ballot and the election statements of all candidates for committee positions can be found here: http://geas.org.uk/election

Once you have read the motions and statements, the on-line ballot can be accessed here: http://geas.org.uk/ballot

Please note that only student members are eligible to vote. We will be voting using a Microsoft Form on the University of Edinburgh’s Office365 system. You will need to authenticate by logging in to your university Office365 account. If you have any difficulties doing so, please let us know.

We would like to urge as many of you to vote as possible, as this would make sure that we make quorum and that the AGM is fair and representative of our membership.

Praises be upon Geas,

Vivek Santayana
Equality and Wellbeing Officer

Dear Grand Adventurers,

As per a previous email, we will be electing our office-bearers for next year via on-line ballot. This is a reminder for any of you considering running for a Committee position to nominate yourself by 5 pm tomorrow (Sunday 22 March). You can do so via email by sending us a brief statement on why you wish to run for a Committee position.

This is a fantastic opportunity for you to get involved with the running of the Society and to have a chance to shape the events that we run. If you are running for more than one position, please provide a separate statement for each post. Otherwise, we will use the same statement for both elections. Once we have all the nominations together, we will send out the election statements to our memberships and open the ballot.

We on the Geas Committee recognise that our Society is growing increasingly diverse, and we believe this to be a great strength. We want the leadership of the Society to better reflect the community that it serves. This is why we especially invite women, non-binary and gender non-conforming folx, BAME folx, LGBTQ+ folx, and/or people identifying as D/disabled to consider putting themselves forward for a Committee position, as we believe your experiences and insights would be invaluable in directing which way the Society goes and making it more inclusive for all members.

Note: You must be a matriculated student during the forthcoming academic year in order to be elected for the core Committee positions (i.e. the ones that are not advisory positions). In contrast, you do not need to be a student to hold an advisory position.

Best wishes,

Vivek Santayana
Equality and Wellbeing Officer

Hello fine members of GEAS,

I am writing this today to inform all of you that as of today we are cancelling all of our remaining events this semester. Due to the health risk posed by continuing to run a mass gathering we have decided that the safest course of action is to stop our events. This is not to say that if you are in a game that it must end, though we advise you at least consider switching to an online medium, however our room bookings and official GEAS oversight of sessions will no longer be available.

Furthermore, we have been informed that there has been a potential case of Covid-19, or Coronavirus, among the membership of GEAS who attended the Sunday afternoon sessions in David Donachie’s game. While the individual in question has not been present at the most recent few sessions it is possible that they may have possibly made contact with other members of the society while potentially carrying the virus or they may have passed it on to others who have been to recent events. Given that this is a possibility, we advise all of you to be cautious and to be aware of the symptoms of the disease. The most common of these are a cough, high fever, and shortness of breath.

If you feel you have exhibited any of the above symptoms, the Government’s current advice is to self isolate and avoid any non-essential social contact. More information can be found on the NHS’s guidance on Covid-19 here: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19

If you need more information on Covid-19 or more information on what to do if you are showing symptoms or have potentially interacted with someone who has been infected then the number for the Covid helpline is: 0800 028 2816

We wish all of you the best moving forward in this term, and the best of luck in dealing with the difficult situations that this epidemic has placed upon us.

For the Glory of GEAS, and its safety.
Society Secretary,
Logan C. Anderson.

I have bad, but probably not unexpected news. Last night, our Committee voted, without opposition to cancel Conpulsion Flame. This was an incredibly difficult decision to make as many of us have put a great deal of time, effort and, in some cases, money into preparing for this convention and it hurts us all deeply to see something that we have spent so much time and effort working on go up in flames. Personally, Conpulsion has been a steady constant that’s helped me through one of the most difficult years of my life and to see all the time and love that I and our Committee have put into it come to this is very difficult.

All attendees who have already bought their tickets should expect refunds as soon as possible.

Why we’re shutting down the con should probably not be hard to guess. The outbreak of Covid-19 has drastically changed the social landscape of pretty much the entire world and it alone has given us a number of reasons to cancel the con. There is, of course, is the ethical argument, that we simply cannot justify running a convention during this health crisis. With most of the world’s scientists and governments advising social isolation, we simply could not have it on our conscience if our convention were to lead to an increase in the spread of the virus (as well as the potential deaths that this could lead to).

As if ethics weren’t enough, there are also a number of practical reasons for cancelling the convention. The legal situation surrounding the running of Conpulsion is highly unclear and there is no certainty that the convention will even be legal in three weeks time. Further, the University of Edinburgh has closed down all face-to-face classes and cancelled most exams. We feel that its student association, which manages this year’s venue, will not be far behind in closing down, which would leave us stranded without a venue and therefore unable to run the con. Further to that even, we have already had a steady stream of GMs, guests and traders cancelling their attendance of this year’s convention. If the rate that they have been dropping out were to remain stable (which is unlikely, as realistically it would actually increase), we would be left with so little in the way of events that Conpulsion would hardly qualify as a convention at all.

I hope you can all understand why we feel that we had no other choice than to cancel.

With that said, there are now many people who deserve thanks whom I will not now have the chance to recognise in a more conventional way.

My committee: Angus McEwing, Josh Shanks, Angus Barr, Calum Freeman, Vivek Santayana, Ben McCallum, Aiden Hurst, Sophie Hine, Harvey Newman, Yves Hurley, Oktay Sen, Finn Chisholm, Zain Khawar and Stella Segar.

I would also like to thank the GEAS committee, especially the wonderful GEAS president Emily Booth who has done a very good job listening to me rant on top of all the things she’s done in her official capacity.

I would like to thank Kate Evans, Richard Denning and all the wonderful people at the UK Game Expo. They took a young, inexperienced little con director under their wing and taught him a great deal about con directing. They really didn’t have to be so kind and generous, but they were.

I would also like to thank Dave Wright, for being similarly patient and helpful. I’d also like to apologise for his promotional material not making it into our program, so I’ll say here that you should all go to Tabletop Scotland, and the UK Games Expo as well of course! Both events are truly great.

Talking of the program, I would like to thank Jon Hodgson, who on top of just being a lovely human (and deserving winner of last year’s Banquo award) offered to complete our program for us this year.

I would like to thank Fiona Campbell, who had offered to again run Conpulsion’s Bring and Buy.

I would like to thank Cameron Cairney for all the advice (and a wonderful hot chocolate).

I would like to thank Angus Barker, for the iconic flame logo.

I would like to thank Caitlin Fooks, for the front flyer design (as well as for a great deal of personal support).

I would like to thank all of the wonderful guests, GMs, traders, guests, demo-ers and blueshirts for signing up and offering their time and effort to help make Conpulsion what it could have been.

But last of all, I would like to thank all of you, for your support and belief in us through this process. It breaks my heart to let you all down.

It has been an absolute honour to be the Director of Conpulsion 2020: the con that never was.

Milo van Mesdag

Conpulsion 2020 Director

P.S. Watch this space. I can’t make any promises, but while Conpulsion may have been cancelled, there’s a chance that those roleplayers amongst you might still get the chance to get some gaming in, just not in the way you might expect. More to come…

GEAS would like to thank Milo for his strong leadership in this difficult time.