Meeting 8 April 2024

New Rookie + New WT game debut

Here’s our newest rookie Peter Mason – he likes to be called Pete. He fitted right in with the general mayhem of cut-throat business empires and Sydney-Hobart yacht racing, and managed to accumulate 10 competition points at his very first meet. Welcome Pete!
We wish the departing Steve all the best – he started a new job and decided it was going to be too difficult to make it to meetings.

Tonight’s meet was hosted by El Prez who wasn’t in good form due to recovering from a virus attack which put him in hospital in the previous few days. The main game Brisk Bizz seemed to be more vicious than previously with a large number of attendances at the bankruptcy court. I believe that might have been due to the sudden onset of maximum inflation early in the game when Wayne drew a Challenge card that put inflation at a factor of 5 – the worst setting. Tara won the Bizz convincingly with Genelle in 2nd place, and Nicole came 3rd, just beating rookie Pete by less than 1%.

The backup was a new Wayne game based on a yacht race inspired by him watching the 2023 Sydney-Hobart on TV. It is a very simple toss-the-die-and-move game which was generally well received, although it needs a more solid cardboard backing. There were a couple of comments about excessive penalty squares, but it will be added to the roster. Genelle won it with El Prez second, and Pete 3rd – getting his first taste of competition points.

The competition ladder has developed 3 groupings of players – Tara, Genelle and Nicole at the top in a 40-point grouping, then a 50-point gap followed by a 35-point grouping of Rob, Louise and Matt. Then Wayne and Pete – don’t worry Pete, it is highly unlikely that you’ll get the Wooden Spoon because the constitution has Rule 7.5, the rookie protection rule, look it up.
There was some discussion about who should be the current holder of the Wooden Spoon since the resignation of Steve who would have been the current Spooner. There is no club rule that covers this situation, but it seems to me unfair to award it to the 2nd last placegetter – it probably should simply be left un-assigned until the next presentation night. If there are differing opinions on this we should put it to a vote at the next meeting.

Where did Brisk Bizz come from?

This game dates from 1987 – as may be obvious from some of the outdated companies and logos used. It was offered for sale to staff members of the companies whose logos appear in the game. At that time I worked at the Overseas Telecommunications Commission which had adopted the corporate name OTC Limited with the relatively new logo as appears in the game (this was about 5 years before OTC was swallowed up by Telecom to become Telstra). I bought it for I think about $25 which was reasonably cheap. I’ve never seen it for sale anywhere in a shop, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it only ever sold to the staff of the companies that permitted their logos to be used in the game. It remains a popular SBGA choice 37 years later.