North Wales' Just Dance for Alzheimer's UK Party! 11/01/2020

we switched the room round this time - the main screen was the left one, and the freeplay one was on the right. The "admin" table was therefore in the middle of the room next to the partition screen. This also allowed the ARUK banner to be above the table.

There was plenty of cake, and a lot of Smarties!
The first 10 to claim them, grabbed a free wristband, and the smarties were there in a big jar for people to guess the number.

At least there was plenty of dancing to counteract the cake though!

This was the first exclusive charity event NNW had done. We joined with Ubisoft in their campaign to raise money for Alzheimer's Research UK.

We split the Just Dance 2020 list we made at the Christmas event into two lists. The A list was the "party" tunes, and the B List was the "memes/old classics" tunes. The few who'd gone for the sponsored dance could pick either of them or dance both if they wished.
The schedule made sure there was chance to recover in between each list. (each list was 30 minutes long, and were pretty tiring!)
There were 7 dancers who did both lists :)

Here is a selection of some of the dances we did:

^ Rasputin

 ^ Blue Da Ba Dee

  ^ Don't Stop Me Now

 ^ Dragostea Din Tei

The B List:

     ^ Beep Beep I'm a Sheep

^ Cotton Eyed Joe

 ^ Ghostbusters

 ^ skibidi

and finally... Baby Shark!

There was a lot of freeplay too - We saw a good session on Must Dash Amigos and Heave Ho on the big screen. On the other big screen we saw the usual Smash setup, but also some RingFit adventure, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (this year's league theme by the way!) and Mario Maker 2.
There was also some tabletop mario kart, Tetris, Overcooked, Zelda and others.

We ended the day by revealing the number of smarties in the jar, 774, a lot were in disbelief that so many could fit in. Yes, Jen did count them all one by one :P Dale was the only one close to the number with a guess in the early 700s...!
We had a group photo, as this wasn't a mini meet, it was a special charity event - with balloons and banners!

And then the party went on for a bit longer...!

The total made from the event (sponsor money, cake sale and sweets jar) was £133.61. Well done guys!
The JustGiving page will be live until the end of February, so there's still plenty of time to donate and help us reach our total :)
tinyurl.com/JustGivingNNW


additional photo/video credits to Dylan and Emma (and Chloe for the group photo)

Christmas Done Differently! 07/12/19

We got in a little bit late, but we got set up including full size keyboard! Some of the members wanted to have a go this time, which was nice until Jen realised she'd forgotten the pedal...

The tie breaker for the trophies was between John and Chris - guaranteed trophy but who was 2nd or 3rd?

We started a little late due to the pedal, but we just about got our result before "lunch" as promised!
They had to do a speedrun on SNES online's Super Mario World. It was about the first person to get to Ghost House I and complete it. Chris did it, although it was the second attempt as John accidentally reset his level!

It was a bit more of a relaxed event this time, and we wanted to get Just Dance 2020 out - In January NNW will be doing its first ever (own) Charity event, in aid of Alzheimer's UK, in conjunction with Ubisoft and NPUK!

We will be doing a sponsored dance, a cake sale and a Guess How Many Sweets competition, with all proceeds going to the charity!
(We tasked people with picking songs for the playlists - List A "memes" and List B "party" - We'll be refining them ready for the event.)
In the mean time please get sharing and donate to our JustGiving page from the link here: https://tinyurl.com/JustGivingNNW


We had a break for lunch, then we got started with the big Quiz!
Like last year, we had the option to enter as a pair or solo. The prize was a big £40 of eShop if solo, but the pair split it £20 each.
Everyone gave themselves a team name and most were in pairs. There were 45 questions. 5 of which were music, 10 about amiibo, 10 eyes, and the rest were multiple choice.
It was "Quiz Done Differently" after all!

The music round only had 5 pieces this time, but we'd done those differently too. How? Here's the full video:

(credit to Rhodri. 1. Sad Tetris, 2. Song of Storms backwards 3. Brewster's Roost in the minor key 4. Dr. Mario (Fever) with some notes missing 5. Portal- Still Alive.

Dylan went through the answers while Jen marked the papers. There was also various freeplay happening, and a corner of people watching an important football match... (Smash was the main feature for the secondary big screen though.)

Just Dance was back on too! Quite a few did a session with that, trying out various songs! It looked like great fun, and hopefully we can create a flash mob idea in January ;) (P.S you don't even have to be able to dance, it's all for the fun!)

Finally, we got to the trophy presentation. James had the 1st place, Chris had 2nd and John took 3rd. This year all the trophies were 3 different shapes.

We did our usual trophy winners photo, plus the one where 1st place has to stand on a chair because they're too short compared to the others! 

The Quiz winners were Rizzo's Rangers (Cat & Chris) with Missing George and Ringo (John and Paul) not far behind! 

Since the raffle was all wrapped up (just to be different) it was more like a lucky dip! We had a 10 second rule (not that we counted) just to stop people dithering...

The raffle was great fun! John made a beeline for what ended up being two of the more "joke" prizes. Rhodri was made up with his giant green shell plush and Cat found the hidden eShop credit! 

and of course...

We finished with our full group photo!

Join us on Saturday 11th January for our big Just Dance Charity event! 

Ring of Galar! 16/11/19

We had a bit of a surprise when we went to the venue this time. We usually work around the Mindfulness centre, but this time there was "another" Mindfulness group sat in the middle of the room, and it felt slightly awkward when we had to warn them there would be 30 Nintendo fans appearing in 45 minutes whether they stayed or moved!

Thankfully they found another room, so all was sorted, so thanks to the leader for being able to find a solution :) 

We did hit around the 30 mark for attendees too, so it was a busy day for us! 

The raffle was Pokemon themed, and we had the special B-A-B Psyduck to win!

(We also threw in the Standees at the end as people wanted them :) )

Thanks to Nintendo UK, we had some Switch Lites on display so people could try out Sword and Shield even if they didn't own them. 

We also had a free poster and magazine for everyone who attended!

(Anyone who missed out can still catch them at our next event!)

The day started off with people trying our Ring Fit Adventure to get a feel for it ready for the tournament. On the second screen was the new Pokémon Game.

we got started properly just after 11.30, first on the list was "Tricky Towers Done Differently" For this it was simply in black and white instead of colour, so wasn't too ridiculous as we've seen earlier in the year! 

It was also a special birthday for one of our regulars, so we had some cake!

Also a whole bottle of ketchup for one butty?!

People were also playing their own things whilst waiting for their turn on Tricky Towers.

People tried out the Switch lites for both the console feel, and to try out the game. Some even set up some trades..!

Throughout the day someone kept changing the cake round... at one point it said party bap... but then it ended up as "a Trap"...

The Ring Fit tournament was after the league round, and we had just over 20 signups. 

Everyone had to play the first three mini games: Crate Crasher, Gluting Gallery and Squat Goals. 

The top 8 then played the next 3 mini games: 

Robo Wrecker, Squattery Pottery & Bank Balance.

Round 2 of the league was next: Luigi's Mansion 3. The difference was NO DIFFERENCE! Last official game of the season, and because it only came out a short while ago, we thought we'd use the local mode as hardly anyone had had chance to try it. 

We used the coin floating mode:

There were some unfortunate teams that lost all or most of their coins at the last second... ouch! 

George won the session, but it was also the final session for everyone, so we now know who's got this year's trophies. James has won 1st place, BUT John and Chris have to fight it out as they're currently joint 2nd...the final tie breaker will take place at our next event! 

People had a go at some of the other modes while admin sorted out the logistics for the final of the Ring Fit Tournament. 

The final consisted of 6 set exercises, and finished with two mini games to get a final score. Were the first 6 to tire them out first? Not on purpose, Jen just forgot that doing 8 exercises would lead to no score to note :P Still, 6 and 2 worked quite well, and well done to the last 4 who put their best efforts in!

Dan came 2nd and John ended up winning the tournament, so well done to them!

Credit to Chris and Drn too of course!

Some other freeplay stuff carried on throughout, and while we were sorting the raffle, some of the group wanted to do the ring con challenge in the other room.

(He got the record of 120!)

We did the raffle, and then the group photos as usual.

One with the standees...

The whole group (well, the ones that were left)

AND ..

Squid League 2 happened through August to October, and our team North Wales 1 won the tournament, to take victory over previous champions Manchester. The trophies finally arrived which meant they could come and collect them! Well done Ducklings/NW1! 

(And thanks to Sobble for collecting Tim's on his behalf ;) )

The next event is only just over 2 weeks away on Saturday 7th December, there are a LOT of Christmas Raffle prizes to win, a big Quiz and more, so don't miss out!