Running a neighborhood game day
Neighborhoods are a built-in community. If you live in an area with at least a few houses within a half mile, you probably have neighbors who might be seeking to play games together.
This past weekend was one a three-and-a-half day weekend for the elementary schools in my area. One of those strange, non-holiday sets. Figuring that most folks in my neighborhood wouldn’t be travelling – spring break will happen in just two weeks – I decided to experiment with “play community building.”
Basically, I wanted to see a few of the following things:
- Can I help my local families in a time of minor need?
- Do the families in my area desire this sort of activity?
- Can I run something on this minor scale with kids and adults?
Getting the word out
First things first, when you’re working to start or build a community, you need a way to talk to your community. Previously, I’d spread word about a family board game night for my local library by discussing it at the bus stop. While that hadn’t yielded any new attendees to the event, it did give me a few bits of knowledge about the families around me (there was a distinctive worry about how the kids would respond to losing in public… a topic for another post).
In this case, since I wanted to reach more folks in my neighborhood, I used the neighborhood Facebook group. This is also where sites like NextDoor also will work (though I’m not sure about the privacy settings on NextDoor).
I posted on Saturday afternoon that the following Monday, we’d host the event in our front yard. The weather was going to be one of the first beautiful days of spring, so extra incentive there. Upon the advice of my wife and partner-in-crime, I added a photo of a selection of our hefty board game collection (“Photos will make folks pay more attention”).
Most of the parents I know in the neighborhood responded with a “like” but nothing else. A few other more community-oriented older folks in the neighborhood also gave the friendly thumbs-up.
Social groups aren’t the only way to spread the word. There were a few families that I knew weren’t a part of the group, so I sent texts to each of them inviting them individually. In our social-media age, we forget that 1-to-1 communications can be even more effective.
What games should we have?
I knew we’d have a wide range of skills and ages, so we needed to plan for that with our game selection. Luckily, our collection leans toward family-oriented games, though I definitely wanted some surprises in the mix.
We brought out about 30. Here are a few insights into what was most successful.
- A game called GibGab was a big hit with most of the kids huddled around it for about 30-40 minutes.
- Shut the Box (4-player edition) caught the attention of 5 of the kids and there was a solid group that came back to it multiple times.
- Pusheen’s Purrfect Pick managed about half a game, still overall successful.
- A strange, tabletop Pickleball game was a fairly big hit that crossed age ranges and included the kids self-organizing a small tournament.
- Three kids managed a full game of SushiGo which honestly surprised me
- Guess Who? - a classic - got some play, as well.
These games had a few things in common that led to their overall success. Most of them were fairly short and didn’t require a lot of explanation. SushiGo was probably the most complex that got any real play, and that was surprising to me.
One family brought two games, which was awesome to see. We also had one of our older neighbors bring over a Jenga-like game. She and her husband were both very excited that the event was happening, and we heard that echoed by a few other adults in the neighborhood.
Odds and ends
Non-game needs: We did want to make sure everyone could hang out, so we also bought some flavored sparkling waters, water bottles, and juice boxes so that everyone could have drinks and put them in a cooler with some ice (probably should have gotten the BIG bag, but it was enough). Perhaps in the future, snacks would have made sense, although a neighbor did bring some over when her daughter asked if she could pick stuff for the group.
Gotta have chairs!: We set up a few tables and literally emptied our house of chairs and had just enough.
Not just board games: About midway through, most of the kids opted to have short races. While definitely not boardgames, it was an important moment to let them self-organize and have some solid physical play activities. My son also suggested a little “ball helicopter” toy he’d gotten for Christmas which they self-organized into a massive game of “keepy uppy.” When that battery died, they dove right back into the games we had available.
Family vs. Kids play: I would have loved to see more “family play” happen, but on a day when the kids weren’t in school, but most adults didn’t have the day off, it was inevitable that we’d have more kids than adults and that the kids would play with each other. The adults we did have over enjoyed Shut the Box quite a bit, as well as just hanging out with a bit of “shared neighborhood parenting” to keep an eye on everyone (also definitely it’s own form of play). In the future, we’ll work on a time for more neighbors and adults to take part.
Prepared to teach: If you look to run your own mini-community play day, know that chances are good, you’ll be looked to for teaching the games. I personally love teaching games, but it’s not for everyone. Also, having multiple adults who know a lot of the games is very helpful.
A successful trial
Overall, it was an incredibly successful day. Many of the kids were suggesting that it become a “tradition” and were hoping we’d do it again. One told me we had an awesome game collection (she probably played more of the different games than any other kid).
It was also a great opportunity suggest games to the other families. I even have let one of them borrow one of our games that our son has partially “aged out” of.
We’ll definitely need to run this again, and it gives me great hope for the idea of helping families play.