CVGS Picnic Highlights

The Chula Vista Genealogical Society has a Picnic at the local Elks Lodge for our August meeting. Some years we have a book auction and some years we play some sort of game or participation activity.

After eating lunch, having our gift exchange (bring one, get one) and our door prize award (today it was the book Unpuzzling Your Past by Emily Anne Croom, donated by Shirley), we played a well-known game.

The game "Wheel of Genealogy Fortune" is based on the TV Wheel of Fortune, only different. There are a means to get points (we used two dice rather than a wheel), some rules like Wheel of Fortune on TV, used points rather than dollars, some word puzzles on posters, an MC - Pat Sajak (played by your humble blogger), Vanna White (played by Crystal) to write letters on the posters, a scorekeeper (played by my Angel Linda), several teams of players, etc.

The word puzzles were genealogy related - in categories like "Genealogy society," "Book and Author," "Topic and Speaker," "Society Officer," "Tag Line," "Genealogy Blog," "Genealogy Web Site," etc.

Three teams of two people were chosen for each game, and they took turns rolling the dice, guessing letters, and solving the puzzles. This is harder than it looks. Here are the six puzzles we used, with the letters R S T L N E already added (just like the final Wheel puzzles!). Can you guess what they are (I used slashes (/) to separate words above since Blogger won't take more than one space.)?

1. Society: N E _ / _ _ R _ / _ E N E _ L _ _ _ _ _ L / _ N _ / _ _ _ _ R _ _ _ _ _ _ L / S _ _ _ E T _

2. Book and Author: E _ _ _ E N _ E / _ _ / E L _ _ _ _ E T _ / S _ _ _ N _ _ L L S

3. Topic and Speaker: T _ E / _ _ _ _ _ / _ _ / R _ _ T S _ E _ / _ _ / _ L _ N / _ _ N E S

4. Society Officer: _ R _ _ R _ _ / _ _ _ _ R _ E R S _ N / _ _ N N _ E / _ T T _ N _ E R

5. Tag Line: _'_ / N _ T / S T _ _ _ / _'_ / _ N _ E S T R _ L L _ / _ _ _ L L _ N _ E _

6. Genealogy Blog: E _ S T _ _ N'S / _ N L _ N E / _ E N E _ L _ _ _ / N E _ S L E T T E R

In the game, we didn't give them any letters. There were two Bankrupts (getting snake-eyes on the dice) just before puzzle solutions, which were painful to watch. Each game solved three puzzles, and we played for about an hour.

Of the 25 people in attendance, 12 people participated as contestants, and 3 others as the staff - "Pat," "Vanna" and "Angel." Shirley and Virginia won the first game, and Martha and Barbara won the second game. All contestants got past issues of Family Tree Magazine for their participation. The winners get their names in the newsletter (and the blog).

This worked out pretty well - "Vanna" and "Angel" performed their jobs skillfully and joyfully. Everybody had fun, and most came away with a respect for what the contestants on the real Wheel of Fortune go through.

Before the meeting started, over lunch, and after the game, there were small huddles of people discussing their current research problems and successes, and enjoying getting to know each other better. We had several recent new members in attendance, and several spouses attended. It was fun!