Eye - 09 December 2011

Games night at the Quaker Centre showcased two new games by Quakers

Friendly frolics at Friends House

Counters clacked, paper crackled and dice were spilled. Was this really the Quaker Centre? Yes, it was their first ‘games evening’, an opportunity to experience two new Quaker games. The first was ‘Journey Home’, a board game designed by Andrew Connolly and Jennifer Kavanagh, based on her book ‘The O of Home’, which considers what the word ‘home’ means to people. The second was ‘Unable, Unwilling’, a card game that takes a light-hearted look at nominations, by Sally and Tom Nicholls. About a dozen people were scattered around three tables with much commenting and querying of instructions.

One player told Eye: ‘I enjoyed playing “Journey Home”. It entailed my group thinking what the values of our actions really are – do we benefit or detract from our family, environment, housing, inner peace or community if we do this or that?’

Another player pulled a character card that said he was a thief. When he pulled an event card saying he was off to build a school in Africa, there were questions as to whether he would really use the donations for the school. It raised questions about how our perceived character traits influence what other people think of us and of our actions. Other character traits such as being sensitive, being a home-lover, playing a musical instrument or being allergic to cats influenced reactions to the players. The discussion aspect was felt to be a very valuable addition to just throwing a die in moving forward in the game.

‘Having bought ‘Unable Unwilling’ at Yearly Meeting Gathering, it was great to learn how to play it’, said one participant. Another player felt it ‘was much more like hard work’ finding she was ‘quickly overloaded with four jobs – two of which I had very firmly declined… but my voice went completely unheard’. She felt that ‘it does give a sense of the enormous pressure Friends are under both in getting jobs filled and in deciding whether to accept or refuse to do a job! Some of the “feeble excuse” cards made us laugh. I can’t remember if business having to stop because cake had arrived was a feeble or a serious excuse – serious probably! There was a good deal of humour in it. And it did feel like having a mirror held up to the weird behaviour we sometimes exhibit as Quakers!’

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