I hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July holiday.  Having seen the list of games played at the July 4th meeting, it looks like we had a good turnout!

Please accept my apologies for the late June newsletter.  My intention is to have future issues published by the end of the month, reviewing events and games played during the month and a list of upcoming events.  I do intend to have another issue out at the end of July.

After putting it off for a few months, I finally sat down and wrote up a review of the Puerto Rico tournament held back in March.  Also included is a list of the games played at the Oxford Valley Mall meetings in June.  I hope you enjoy this issue!  By all means, suggestions, comments, and especially article submissions are all welcome.  Let me know what I can do to make this newsletter work best for our club members.

One final note: the Ticket To Ride tourney originally scheduled for June 20th will be taking place at this Saturday's meeting.  Please email me if you have any questions.

See you then!

-Ken

Vote for America’s Favorite Game Store!
Please visit http://www.goodman-games.com and cast your vote for America’s Favorite Game Store!  Goodman Games is offering the winning store $5 in products per vote (up to $1,000) to give away!  Pelgrane Press and Profantasy Software are also throwing in some products.  Get your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers – everyone you know, to vote.  Hurry – voting ends at midnight on July 15th!

EPGS Elects New Officers
At the June 6th meeting, EPGS elected its officers for the 18 month term that will end in December 2010.  As there was only one person running for each position, the election was very quick and no one had to worry about how to count hanging chads.  Your club officers are:

President: Keith Layton

Treasurer: Rick Cambron

Newsletter Editor: Ken Horan

Publicity Director: Dave Bohnenberger

Webmaster: Steve Fitchett

Steve Fitchett is the only officer to retain his role from the pervious 18 month term.  Keith Layton, who had been the club’s publicity director, now moves onto the role of president. Here’s to hoping for a great term!

The Games We Played - June 2009
Two card games, Tichu and Race for the Galaxy, were the games played the most often this past month with six and five plays respectively.  Five games tied for third place with three plays each.  The most notable of these are Axis and Allies and Le Harve, as these are games that take quite a bit of time to play.

Easily the most intriguing game played this past month was Power Grid - Pennsylvania.  This is not a misprint; EPGS member John Kerr has taken the time to design a map of the Keystone state and at the June 24th meeting he got a chance to playtest it.  John reported there was a log jam with the power plants in the middle of the game but that he has ideas on how to deal with this.  There were some other interesting twists in this new variant, and I'm sure there will be more chances to playtest John's map in the near future.

Click here to see the complete list of games played.

Puerto Rico Tournament Results
At the March 7th club meeting, 16 players met in a Puerto Rico tournament.  When the shipping and building was all said and done, Ken Horan was the winner.  He was also the director of this tournament and swears this is just a coincidence.  Ken’s tournament report can be read by clicking here.

Ticket To Ride Tournament Delayed
The Ticket To Ride tournament scheduled for June 20th has been postponed until July 18th.  Many of the people that wanted to play were unable to make it to the club and as a result there was only four people who had signed up.  The four contestants graciously declined an automatic trip to the "final" round in favor of the possibility of having a larger turnout next month.

Upcoming Events

July/August Oxford Valley Mall Meeting Dates:

August Games Keep Meeting Date:

August 3-9: 2009 World Boardgaming Championships at the Lancaster Host Hotel in Lancaster, PA. For more information, visit the Boardgame Players Association website at http://www
.boardgamers.org/.

Speaking of WBC, Keith Layton is collecting information regarding EPGS teams for this year's competition.  Keith notes that he needs to have all team information submitted to him by July 20th in order to submit it to the WBC staff in a timely fashion. Keith can be contacted at keithl4170@comcast.net.