Gathering and Games (2020/2021)

[Prof. Sky Alton]

Announcing Gathering and Games! This is the perfect opportunity to kick back, relax and have fun with other HOLers.

G and G sessions are an informal weekend get-together on IRC where we’ll play games and chat. The idea is for everyone to enjoy some time with other HOLers and get to know people they might not ordinarily have a chance to speak to. Professors, Students, Postgraduates, ghosts, Giant Squids: everyone is welcome! It doesn’t matter if you have experience with IRC or will be trying it out for the first time, come join us.

For more information on how to access IRC, please visit the HOL Chatrooms section of the Handbook.

Events will take place in the dedicated channel: #gamesroom. We’ll be doing our best to announce the dates here as early as possible. You can find explanations for our range of games via this link - we’ll keep adding to it and hope to keep the programme varied and exciting.

The next event will be on Saturday July 31st, 9 PM until 11 PM HOL-time. Please note, that's a different day and time to usual!

Please note that everyone will be expected to conform to all HOL rules and in particular the IRC guidelines at all times. The channel will be moderated for the duration of the event, after that we ask that you move back to #hol to continue chatting.

Hope to see you on the 31st!

[Prof. Sky Alton]

Remember we'll be in #gamesroom between 6 and 8 PM HOL-time tomorrow! If anyone has any particular requests for a game they'd like to play, please do drop me a message.

[Prof. Sky Alton]

We’re delighted to invite you back to the #gamesroom on Sunday the 13th of December, 6 PM to 8 PM HOL-time! Come join us for some fun and relaxation to stave off the winter chill.

Last month’s session had a great turnout. We kicked things off by playing Werewords, an exciting mixture of 20 Questions and social deduction skills. The villagers must guess a particular word using yes or no questions, while the seer and werewolf secretly attempt to help and hinder respectively. While it was a promising start for the villagers with a victory in the first round (with the seer successfully evading werewolf Prof. Sindor Aloyarc), the tide changed in the next two with Mia Fountain and Iverian Gnash securing wins for the lycanthropes.

Our second game was perennial favourite, Articulate. A Player must give clues to a character or thing from the Harry Potter series, with the first person to guess what it is gaining a point. Correct answers ranged from Hannah Abbot to ever-lasting Icicles and in the end the game ended on a tie between Sindor and Iverian on 9 points. Prof. Tarma Black scord 7, closely followed by Mia on 5, with Elle Johnson and Adaleine Shuster providing some excellent clues during their turns.

Looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible on the 13th!

[Prof. Sky Alton]

Remember we'll be in #gamesroom between 6 PM and 8 PM HOL-time tomorrow!

[Prof. Sky Alton]

Come and celebrate the end of this term and start of the next with us on Sunday January 31st! We'll be in #gamesroom between 6 and 8 PM HOL-time

Last session was a deduction special. We started off with Codenames, where both teams (this time Cody Lewis and Prof. Sindor Aloyarc on Orange and Prof. Scarlet Leslie-Lewis and Prof. Tarma Black on purple) scramble to identify their agents based on one word clues from their spymaster. It was a thrilling race (with several incidents of teams accidentally helping the enemy by revealing their agents by mistake) but it had an explosive ending as team Orange accidentally triggered the assassin square.

We rounded off the night with our backwards version of 20 questions. Scarlet was able to uncover her identity as a sugar quill within 8 questions; though Mimbulus mimbletonia proved more of a spiny challenge, Prof. Will Lestrange was equal to it and got there with 5 questions to spare.

Looking forward to seeing you on the 31st!

[Prof. Sky Alton]

Remember that we'll be in #gamesroom between 6 and 8 PM HOL-time tomorrow!

[Prof. Sky Alton]

We’ll be welcoming you back to the #gamesroom on Sunday February 28th, 6-8 PM HOL-time. Come and join us!

In honour of the cold weather last time, we began with a snowball fight. Everyone started out with 5 snowballs and 5 lives, with the person with the most lives at the end being declared the winner. Snowballs were whizzing in all directions and people were performing all sorts of acrobatic tricks to try and avoid them (I’m sure there was some illicit magic usage going on because the immutable laws of physics were certainly defied once or twice). Mia Fountain seemed to be living a charmed existence for a while as, try as they might, nobody could seem to land a hit on her. Unfortunately Mia’s luck ran out and it was Prof. Sindor Aloyarc and Prof. Tarma Black who were eventually crowned joint winners (each having 4 lives remaining). Thanks to Prof. Will Lestrange for being master of hits and misses and making the whole thing a lot more entertaining with his improvisations.

We rounded off the night with a game of Just One. It was a hugely successful round with Sindor, Kendra Givens and Iverian Gnash all guessing their words correctly from a very motley collection of clues indeed. Scarlett Drake was the standout player though as she distinguished herself during her first session by volunteering to go twice (guessing road from Avenue, winding, tar, boulevard and runner and diamond from Mine,, mineral, Hufflepuff, gem and carbon).

Stop by on the 28th for more fun!

[Prof. Sky Alton]

Remember that we have games tomorrow!

[Prof. Sky Alton]

We’ll be welcoming you back to the #gamesroom on Sunday, March 28th, 6-8 PM HOL-time. Hope to see you there!

We began February’s session with a visit to the tombs for a game of Curse-Breakers. Prof. Will Lestrange lead our brave adventurers on a very atmospheric trip through winding tunnels where many treasures were discovered and many threats faced. While one of the beautiful Parseltongue Rosetta Stones was safely recovered, I’m sad to say that Queen Cleopatra’s wand still lies in the dusty depths. The final treasure hauls were as follows: Prof. Tarma Black and Iverian Gnash on 3, Aurelia West on 7, Hannah Lovegood on 15 (doubly impressive as it was her first session) and Prof. Sindor Aloyarc on a sparkling 23 (so butterbeers on Sin…).

We relaxed a bit closer to home with a final round of Where Am I. It took almost the full 20 questions and guesses that seemed to encompass nearly every room in the castle but finally Ivey was discovered hiding in the prefects bathroom (by Aurelia).

See you on the 28th!

[Prof. Sky Alton]

Remember we have a session tomorrow between 6 PM and 8 PM HOL!

Important note: Daylight Savings Time starts in the UK at 1 A.M tomorrow (Sunday) morning so the session may not be at the time you expect. You can always check the current HOL time on the calendar page or use a tool like this to work it out (remember to set the date to the 28th!).

[Prof. Sky Alton]

We'll be welcoming you back to the #gamesroom on Sunday, May 2nd between 6 and 8 PM HOL-time!

Our last session saw us seek to solve a series of sticky situations in Spell it Out. Prof. Will Lestrange solved his roommates snoring by turning them into a bird, Kendra Givens avoided detention for being out of bounds with a sneaky Jelly-Legs Jinx, Hannah Lovegood defeated Peeves
with a well placed Summoning Charm, Kendra then won again by escaping a dull meeting by means of subjecting herself to the Tickling Charm and finally, Prof. Tarma Black exacted a little dental revenge with Densaugeo.

We rounded off the night with Who Am I (where we had to discover just which Weasley twin Tarma was masquerading as) and our backwards version of 20 questions (where Prof. Sindor Aloyarc battled to discover his identity as Fawkes the Phoenix).

Looking forward to seeing you on the 2nd!

[Prof. Sky Alton]

Remember we'll be in #gamesroom tomorrow between 6 and 8 PM HOL-time!

[Prof. Sky Alton]

We’ll be returning to the #gamesroom on Sunday 13 June, 6-8 PM HOL-time! Have a break from last minute homework blues and come join us for some fun.

Our session in May saw the Orange (Kendra Givens and Prof. Scarlet Leslie-Lewis, later joined by Mia Fountain) and Purple (Hannah Lovegood and Prof. Tarma Black) teams battling it out in Word on Diagon Alley. Both sides were so skilled at picking words to fit each category that it took a considerable time for anyone to claim any letters at all. Dragons, sunflowers, cellphones and happiness all had letters whizzing back and forward across the street so fast we had several complaints from The Ministry. The chaos continued throughout as I lost track of the letter N for a few frantic minutes and Prof. Tarma attempted some inefficient sabotage with an oboe. Eventually though, the Purple Team accomplished a power move with the word distributor that secured them enough letters to win the game.

We wound down with a brief game of perennial favourite, Who Am I. Will did a great job of playing everyone’s favourite commentator, Lee Jordan, but some clever questioning from the group allowed Mia to unmask him.

Join us on the 13th for another action-packed session!

[Prof. Sky Alton]

Remember we'll be in #gamesroom tomorrow between 6 and 8 PM HOL-time! See you there

[Prof. Sky Alton]

Usually we wouldn't organise G and G sessions over the summer but this is no ordinary summer. It's HOL's 20th anniversary and to celebrate, we're holding 2 bonus Gathering and Games events this month!

You can join us next week on Sunday 18th July at our usual time of 6 PM to 8 PM HOL. We're then mixing things up a bit in order to celebrate Harry Potter's birthday on Saturday 31st July, with a session between 9 PM and 11 PM HOL. Both events are in #gamesroom as usual. Hope to see you there!

Our June session was a great way to wrap up the school year. We started off by filling some rather unusual vacancies in Hogwarts Internship Program, with everyone desperately trying to fit the random attributes they'd been given into a job application (how does a sock collection come in handy if you're a quidditch coach? The answer may surprise you). We rounded things off with a grand game of fan favourite Articulate.

Join us on the 18th and/or the 31st for more fun like this!