The Ugandan Village Boardgame Convention

I came back from Koro last Sunday and had a lovely surprise of a package from the USA, containing two boardgames - Forbidden Island and Mole Rats in Space, another co-operative game from Matt Leacock, designed for children in Uganda.  Most people will know that Matt designed both games and also designed the incredibly popular Pandemic.  He was very generous to send both items and last night we tried Forbidden Island for the first time and played it several times with different groups.  Even I played in the last game, where we had quite a bit of luck, yet still nearly lost!

Matt sent it for the Convention but it arrived the day after I left, so we will have to save it for the next one!  Beckham is the near one on the left, who came up with the idea of the Board Game Convention.  Patrick is at the back on the left, who ran Caverns of Koro and has been so instrumental in encouraging roleplaying in Ugand amongst young people.  Lastly, Cosmas at the front on the right is our fast-learning junior boardgamer, who is a whizz on 7 Wonders and Cosmic Encounter.  Yes that's me at the back on the right.

Other news is not so good and we have a problem we have to solve urgently.  The Ugandan Revenue Authority have in their wisdom valued our container good much higher than predicted and in fact they gave us a "second hand penalty charge", because our goods were mostly second hand, which I guess is usual, to raise extra revenue.  As a charity, who has tried to raise the money to send this container for three years, it is not very helpful.  The nub of it is that we need to find a further £1250 and I am trying all angles to reach this target.  If you are still feeling generous towards us, then I have set up a Go Fund Me page and I hope that some will help us finish this chapter by enabling this final journey of the container to take place.

Go Fund Me Link - https://www.gofundme.com/fdf68q64

Many thanks for making the Convention happen.  The kids - Beckham, Arnold, Patrick and Joseph - have really benefited from the experience of running the event and those attending have been hassling us to come and play games with us again in Koro.  Getting the container there is a good step towards achieving a regular boardgames club in Koro, as it contains so many boardgames, that were donated to us, plus many from my own collection that I am donating to the project.