Over the New Year holidays I went to Farmageddon for the first time. Farmageddon is an event held by a gamer buddy of mine, Umbra, where people from all over Canada and the US show up to play board games at Umbra's place. The name comes from the fact that about half of the games played were Agricola, a game about building a farm. It is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to do with my life when I was younger, and if I had enough money to actually own a place that could manage this sort of thing I would totally do it myself.
Unfortunately given that I live in Toronto and I don't have a house worth a couple million, that dream is not happening for now.
Fortunately I got to do it anyway, even without the ludicrously expensive house.
It felt a lot like the World Boardgaming Championships. Farmageddon isn't the same thing because it isn't at the same scale and isn't as focused on structured competitions but most of the people at the event were people I knew from WBC and the vibe was very much the same. We weren't competing for trophies though, just playing great games with people we like and trying to learn as much as possible from all the talent in the room.
The story of Farmageddon for me, in terms of raw winning, is 2nd. I got some 1sts, and some 3rds, and a few 4ths, but by and large I came 2nd. In that crowd I will take that record without any worry - I was learning a lot of games for the first time and we were playing a version of Agricola I had only glanced at once, so I certainly didn't rate to win a lot of games.
Winning wasn't really the goal though, the goal was learning, and I did a ton of that. I learned a bunch of new games and determined that I really need to own several of them. I got a lot better at the new version of Agricola too and that feels good.
The food was done in a way that was kind of hilarious. Umbra bought a truckload of food and the shelves were groaning with it all at the beginning of the week. People were welcome to just grab whatever they wanted and so people would randomly pull stuff out of fridges or out of pantries and fill themselves up when they needed. Also we did a bunch of cooking so that many meals were some giant thing put together for the group to share.
This led into one of my struggles during the week. It was clear that Burbling and Umbra were doing nearly all the kitchen work, and they weren't getting the help they needed. I get that people don't want to step into a kitchen they aren't familiar with, but the cooks shouldn't have to do all of the dishes from the previous meal to start cooking the new one unless they are getting paid... and they aren't, in this case. My response was to help cook a handful of meals and do all the dishes a similar number of times, but though I was disappointed that so few people were willing to help out in such a fashion I didn't try to push chores on anyone.
I wonder if me being a homemaker really changes my view on this. When I see a meal being prepped, I see those dishes. I know that *somebody* is washing those dishes, they aren't getting clean by magic. Maybe if you aren't the one who is always going to have to wash the dishes you kind of ignore that stuff... I don't know. What I do know is I absolutely cannot stand by and watch someone get buried under work that other people should be helping with. I know how I would feel if it were my house and I didn't get to play because I spent all day washing, so I assume other people feel the same way.
At the end of the day I settled for calling people out in a positive way on social media and asking for people to help out next year. I know how hard it is for big events to keep volunteers, and a critical thing to making this sort of stuff continue is making sure that people who help don't feel taken advantage of and that they see everyone pitching in.
Maybe next year I will really go for it and make a sign up sheet for chores. That way nobody can avoid realizing that there is shit to do and somebody's gotta do it. If I really want to hit people in the guilt I will just fill in Burbling's name for all the chores and then ask people if they want to cross her name off and add their own for something... or if they think she should just do it all and leave the sheet as it is. Depends on how passive aggressive I am feeling, I guess. I could put my own name on all the chores instead, but I think people would just leave my name on an awful lot of spots. The penalty for being a loudmouth with a penchant for shouting "BRING IT", I suppose.
All this said, Farmageddon was grand and I am looking at next year already because I want to be back there, doing that thing again. I want it to continue year after year, and the best way to do that is make sure that the people that make it happen feel appreciated and supported in the work they do. I want all this because Farmageddon felt like the Comfy Lounge at UW, or WBC - it felt like home; Doing stuff I love with people I adore.
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