Ric of The LBC
Elder Member
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2017
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Recap by Jim Aikens, SoCalASL President For Life . Posted with his permission.
Greetings All;
Well, West Coast Melee XXV is in the books. It was a historic benchmark for our Club, and our members came out and made the most of it. Our final attendance was 65, our highest since 9/11, and our 2nd highest of all time.
Let's start with the winners:
Champion: Chad Cummins
2nd Place: Eric Morton
3nd Place: Fred Timm
4th Place: Paul Simonsen
We filled an unprecedented four mini-tournaments on Friday, and added another four on Saturday:
Best of the Melee Packs: Eric Morton
7-0 Leaders: Fen Yan
War in the East: Jay Elwell
War in the West: Paul Simonsen
War Plan Orange: Ray Woloszyn
Deluxe: Ray Vincent
Club Med I: Tray Hammond
Club Med II: Dave Deresinski
Congratulations to all of our winners!
Typically, we run a total of 4 - 5 mini-tournaments between Friday and Saturday, and have never run more than 6. This year we filled and finished 8! Our Friday winners received their plaques on Saturday. Our Saturday winners will receive theirs next year.
Because of schedule conflicts with last year's hotel, we were forced once again to find a new venue (our 4th in 6 years). I have to say this year's venue, Best Western Heritage Inn, was one of the best locations we've ever had. Because they don't have a bar or restaurant, they were fine with us bringing in food and beverages. The hotel shares a parking lot with Mimi's Cafe, and is just across the street from The Habit, Jersey Mike's and Chipoltle, along with several other restaurants. Plus, they surprised us by serving breakfast every morning (which was not included in our original contract). The staff worked tirelessly to get us everything we needed; and did it in a cheerful manner. In short, the venue far exceeds our expectations. The meeting room was large enough to accommodate our over-size attendance and was very well lit. We really couldn't ask for more.
Lots of cool things went on during our four day event:
Don Petros brought two new boards and a couple scenarios to playtest for an upcoming MMP project. The 'Hazmo Guys', Chuck Hammond and Chad Cummins, were in attendance and brought a scenario to try. Speaking of Chuck, his son Tray joined us this year. And he made Dad a proud guy by winning the Club Med I mini-tournament! Tray is now living in Brea, he promised me we'd see him at some future Game Days.
Four of our attendees (John Pettit, Nick Isaacs, Steve Duboyce and Scott Gudmundson) launched a Dinant CG. We all enjoyed checking in on their progress from time to time throughout the event.
Since this was our 25th anniversary, we included a small gift to every attendee: a shot glass with our official SoCalASL logo. Trust me, many of those were put to work each night, as there were a number of bottles of excellent Scotch and Bourbon passed around in the evenings.
We ran playtests for the scenarios in our up-coming Melee Pack IV all day Thursday. We made excellent progress on several of them and were able to move a couple into the 'done' column.
West Coast Melee is a lot of work. Thankfully, we are blessed with a great bunch of guys, who happily donate their time to make sure everything gets done. And throughout the weekend I asked various members to help out with this or that, and in every case they stepped in without hesitation to help out. I want to thank all of you for your assistance and cooperation. Below are a few that really deserve a special thanks from me. In no particular order:
Dan Plachta: For taking on the project of ordering our new club ball caps. They were available for pick up or sale at the event. They are embroidered with our SoCalASL logo, and look really look sharp.
Dave Nicholas: For making himself available to mentor the 7-0's again this year. Dave also handled our sweet looking plaques and ran our Thursday playtests.
Chris Castallana: For walking in the door on Thursday and saying "Where do you need me boss?". He was my "I need a guy to do this right now" go-to guy throughout the weekend.
Eric Visnowski: For preparing all of the scenario choices for 5 of the mini-tournaments. I'll tell you from experience, that's a big job.
Fen Yan: For helping me with the scenarios for the Deluxe mini, including providing me with a printed analysis of all the possible choices.
Scott Thompson: For rounding up about $1,200 worth of prizes for our daily raffle. It was truly a herculean, time consuming task. Scott has ASL contacts around the world, and he twisted a lot of arms to get us some incredible donations.
Matt Cicero: Our Vice President and Treasurer, as always, was in the thick of it from the start. He handled the pre-registrations and signed in the attendees, tracked the money, ran the Club store, and was our primary contact with the hotel. He also spent a good amount of time sorting counters for Club's new 'loaner' sets in the previous months. Those sets came in handy. We bailed out at least a dozen games over the weekend.
Again, thank you all.
Our final room sweep on Sunday afternoon produced only one lost and found item: a small index card notebook, about 2/3 filled, probably used for work. Please DM me to reclaim it.
During our very short annual Club meeting, the membership voted to confirm me and our regional directors by voice vote. I want to recognize all of our Club Officers. These guys work behind the scenes, providing their wisdom, vision and good advice, throughout the year:
Matt Cicero, VP & Treasurer; Eric Visnowski, Special Events Coordinator; Blair Bellamy, New Player Development; Sean Geraghty, Webmaster; and Hank W., Scott Thompson and Dave Nicholas, our Regional Directors. Long-time Director Paul Simonsen now serves in an unofficial role as 'Special Adviser to the President'.
West Coast XXV will always have a special place in our collective memory. It felt like the first time since the pandemic that we had our membership back at full strength. Our record-breaking attendance this year was 50% higher than last year! We've already begun work on West Coast Melee XXVI, and it's going to be awesome!
On a personal note, I turned 65 on the first day of the event. I have to say, it was a great way to spend a birthday, with toasts and salutations, surrounded by so many good friends. WCM is one of the highlights of my year, and I had a blast.
Respectfully Submitted,
Jim Aikens
President, SoCalASL
Greetings All;
Well, West Coast Melee XXV is in the books. It was a historic benchmark for our Club, and our members came out and made the most of it. Our final attendance was 65, our highest since 9/11, and our 2nd highest of all time.
Let's start with the winners:
Champion: Chad Cummins
2nd Place: Eric Morton
3nd Place: Fred Timm
4th Place: Paul Simonsen
We filled an unprecedented four mini-tournaments on Friday, and added another four on Saturday:
Best of the Melee Packs: Eric Morton
7-0 Leaders: Fen Yan
War in the East: Jay Elwell
War in the West: Paul Simonsen
War Plan Orange: Ray Woloszyn
Deluxe: Ray Vincent
Club Med I: Tray Hammond
Club Med II: Dave Deresinski
Congratulations to all of our winners!
Typically, we run a total of 4 - 5 mini-tournaments between Friday and Saturday, and have never run more than 6. This year we filled and finished 8! Our Friday winners received their plaques on Saturday. Our Saturday winners will receive theirs next year.
Because of schedule conflicts with last year's hotel, we were forced once again to find a new venue (our 4th in 6 years). I have to say this year's venue, Best Western Heritage Inn, was one of the best locations we've ever had. Because they don't have a bar or restaurant, they were fine with us bringing in food and beverages. The hotel shares a parking lot with Mimi's Cafe, and is just across the street from The Habit, Jersey Mike's and Chipoltle, along with several other restaurants. Plus, they surprised us by serving breakfast every morning (which was not included in our original contract). The staff worked tirelessly to get us everything we needed; and did it in a cheerful manner. In short, the venue far exceeds our expectations. The meeting room was large enough to accommodate our over-size attendance and was very well lit. We really couldn't ask for more.
Lots of cool things went on during our four day event:
Don Petros brought two new boards and a couple scenarios to playtest for an upcoming MMP project. The 'Hazmo Guys', Chuck Hammond and Chad Cummins, were in attendance and brought a scenario to try. Speaking of Chuck, his son Tray joined us this year. And he made Dad a proud guy by winning the Club Med I mini-tournament! Tray is now living in Brea, he promised me we'd see him at some future Game Days.
Four of our attendees (John Pettit, Nick Isaacs, Steve Duboyce and Scott Gudmundson) launched a Dinant CG. We all enjoyed checking in on their progress from time to time throughout the event.
Since this was our 25th anniversary, we included a small gift to every attendee: a shot glass with our official SoCalASL logo. Trust me, many of those were put to work each night, as there were a number of bottles of excellent Scotch and Bourbon passed around in the evenings.
We ran playtests for the scenarios in our up-coming Melee Pack IV all day Thursday. We made excellent progress on several of them and were able to move a couple into the 'done' column.
West Coast Melee is a lot of work. Thankfully, we are blessed with a great bunch of guys, who happily donate their time to make sure everything gets done. And throughout the weekend I asked various members to help out with this or that, and in every case they stepped in without hesitation to help out. I want to thank all of you for your assistance and cooperation. Below are a few that really deserve a special thanks from me. In no particular order:
Dan Plachta: For taking on the project of ordering our new club ball caps. They were available for pick up or sale at the event. They are embroidered with our SoCalASL logo, and look really look sharp.
Dave Nicholas: For making himself available to mentor the 7-0's again this year. Dave also handled our sweet looking plaques and ran our Thursday playtests.
Chris Castallana: For walking in the door on Thursday and saying "Where do you need me boss?". He was my "I need a guy to do this right now" go-to guy throughout the weekend.
Eric Visnowski: For preparing all of the scenario choices for 5 of the mini-tournaments. I'll tell you from experience, that's a big job.
Fen Yan: For helping me with the scenarios for the Deluxe mini, including providing me with a printed analysis of all the possible choices.
Scott Thompson: For rounding up about $1,200 worth of prizes for our daily raffle. It was truly a herculean, time consuming task. Scott has ASL contacts around the world, and he twisted a lot of arms to get us some incredible donations.
Matt Cicero: Our Vice President and Treasurer, as always, was in the thick of it from the start. He handled the pre-registrations and signed in the attendees, tracked the money, ran the Club store, and was our primary contact with the hotel. He also spent a good amount of time sorting counters for Club's new 'loaner' sets in the previous months. Those sets came in handy. We bailed out at least a dozen games over the weekend.
Again, thank you all.
Our final room sweep on Sunday afternoon produced only one lost and found item: a small index card notebook, about 2/3 filled, probably used for work. Please DM me to reclaim it.
During our very short annual Club meeting, the membership voted to confirm me and our regional directors by voice vote. I want to recognize all of our Club Officers. These guys work behind the scenes, providing their wisdom, vision and good advice, throughout the year:
Matt Cicero, VP & Treasurer; Eric Visnowski, Special Events Coordinator; Blair Bellamy, New Player Development; Sean Geraghty, Webmaster; and Hank W., Scott Thompson and Dave Nicholas, our Regional Directors. Long-time Director Paul Simonsen now serves in an unofficial role as 'Special Adviser to the President'.
West Coast XXV will always have a special place in our collective memory. It felt like the first time since the pandemic that we had our membership back at full strength. Our record-breaking attendance this year was 50% higher than last year! We've already begun work on West Coast Melee XXVI, and it's going to be awesome!
On a personal note, I turned 65 on the first day of the event. I have to say, it was a great way to spend a birthday, with toasts and salutations, surrounded by so many good friends. WCM is one of the highlights of my year, and I had a blast.
Respectfully Submitted,
Jim Aikens
President, SoCalASL
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