Game Day EK

02/03/2024

Dave here. I have an announcement to make, and it's a big one, so bear with me...

Game Day started in 2014 as an idea based on a coffee table conversation. Erin and I thought we could maybe raise $1000 for Extra Life by having 100 people show up to play some video games. We called our friend Jeff Johnson to help us out.

As many of you are aware, it blew our expectation away. People were asking for more, so we did more. Game Day became an annual event, and we started hosting smaller events. Before long, others were contacting us to host events for them. We've raised over $20,000 for the Alberta Children's Hospital Foundation over the years.

It's been 10 years now. It has been both an honour and a pleasure to see our volunteers grow from high school kids to adults with families of their own. That said, Jeff retired to the Council of Elders years ago, and now it's time for Erin and I to join him.

I'll remain involved with Game Day in some capacity as long as I'm able. It's a passion of mine that will never die. But it's time for younger blood to take the reins to organize the event.

Any of our volunteers, or anyone else interested, please message the page or myself personally (Dave Miller).

Thank you for your support over all these years, and I hope you'll continue to support Game Day for many years to come, with fresh leadership with new ideas.

01/16/2024

Time to sign up for the year! Join team "Game Day EK" to help us reach our team fundraising goal! (you can raise funds individually for the CMN hospital of your choice and it still counts!)

Drumroll please... 🥁 The new Extra Life design for our 2024 decal and t-shirt for Platinum Extra Lifers is ready to be unlocked! 🌟 We're beyond thrilled to unveil this year's artwork that embodies the spirit of gaming for a cause. 🎮💙

Get your hands on one of these incentives capturing the essence of our shared mission to make a difference through gaming by signing up for Platinum and raising funds today. Learn more: http://cmnh.co/0nn

10/10/2023

Unfortunately, this year's event won't be happening due to organizational issues. We are looking forward to a fresh start in the new year and can't wait to see what 2024 and beyond hold!

01/29/2023

Game Day EK 2023 is expected to happen this October. We've got volunteers lining up. We've got sponsors to contact. We've got a lot to do in the next 8 months. Tell your friends. Tell your family. Tell your neighbour's dog. We're back.

01/06/2023

This year marks the return of Game Day. After a 3 year hiatus, that means getting started early. Looking to find out which of our past volunteers are on board for October.

07/12/2021

Use your predictive text to finish the sentence: I can't wait for the next Game Day because _____

06/29/2021

Ok. It's been a while. That's my bad. Ironic that I should remember in the middle of a record heat wave.

We've been running game day for a long time. Like, came up with a wild idea over coffee in summer of 2014, and I feel like I still don't really know what I'm doing, though after 7 years, I can safely call myself a professional.

We have come up with some wild ideas. Many we tried, some we didn't. Some just weren't realistic. Some didn't work. Some did. Others shouldn't have worked AT ALL, but they did. Others yet, fell through at the last minute. But we don't panic, we pivot.

One thing I NEVER questioned, though, is whether or not this community would stand behind us. Erin & I would walk into a business, and while we got many "no's" in our first few years, we've had quite a few businesses sponsor us since day one without question.

05/25/2021

Sorry for dropping the ball on the posts everyone! I promise, we have more coming up. I will get them ready before bed so they are ready to post. BUT! BUT! IT'S UPON US!

The first official GDEK Fundraiser, courtesy of Domino's Pizza Cranbrook. This weekend, when you order a pizza (don't forget to use the coupon code), $5 from each pizza will be donated to the Alberta Children's Hospital Foundation!

We want to raise $2500 this weekend, and we know this amazing community has always rallied behind our cause, largely because almost everyone has been affected by the amazing work they do. I know personally, this is a personal crusade of mine because without them, I probably wouldn't be a Dad today. So let's keep them busy and move at least 500 pizzas this weekend! (There's nearly 30k of us, 500 is nothing)

~Dave

05/12/2021

We've spent about a week now looking back at where we came from (and trust me, the stories are ENDLESS. The organizing team could fill the time until our next Game Day just telling ridiculous stories), but let's take a quick look at where we're headed.

Soonly (it's a thing, tell your friends), the organizers will get together to talk about the future. Probably over zoom, because we realized even before the pandemic how much easier meetings are when we don't have to figure out when we can all be in the same room.

With the vaccine rollout, we're hoping people take this seriously enough that we *might* be able to host a Small Game Day event this year. Chances are low, but I'm an optimist, and would like to think we'll be able to have a trial run this year.

If all goes well, 2022 will see what the next face of Game Day looks like. Our last post showed that we have the ability to adapt, and you have always been an amazingly supportive community.

BUT, before we get to the future, let's look at where we are today. We are blessed to have such an amazing community in Cranbrook, of both people and sponsors.

We were recently contacted by Sierra from one of our longest-standing sponsors, Domino's Pizza Cranbrook, offering an amazing fundraising opportunity. So, tell your friends, family, your cousin's neighbor's dog, basically just everyone, that at the end of the month, we have our first chance to raise some real money for the children's hospital since 2019.

With $5 being donated from every pizza, they only need to sell 500 pizzas over a WEEKEND for us to raise $2500 for the kids at the Alberta Children's Hospital. I KNOW, *KNOW*, from everything we've done in the past, that 500 pizzas is NOTHING to you guys. I'm going to eat 2 myself.
Don't worry about Brielle & the amazing staff, I've apologized in advance, and I've been told they're ready for it.

So share the HECK out of this post, share our story, get this as visible as possible. And thank you for your support, from 2014 into the foreseeable future.

05/11/2021

Yeah, I took a couple days off. I'm the boss. I get to do that. At least, that's the story we're going with.

Let's jump in the wayback machine. One of the fun things we get to do as organizers is deal with all kinds of red tape and governing bodies. We've toed the line sometimes, but this story comes from after Game Day 2.

We were waiting for our raffle & 50/50 licenses to be approved, and suddenly got a phone call saying we weren't allowed to run them. I had of course asked why not, as the form was the same for 3 years running, and had been approved twice. (it turns out government people don't like when you do that) The guy LOST IT. Told me that not only should the other two have never been approved, but if we were running any 'illegal' (yup) "games of chance", our event would be immediately shut down and, as organizers, Dave, Erin & Jeff, who had signed the license application, would be facing some pretty hefty fines.

So, for those of you that attended our early events and remember us suddenly changing the format of the event (somewhat drastically) for Game Day 3, while it worked out in the end, because our event raised SIGNIFICANTLY more than before, most of it was done VERY carefully, and over the course of about a month.

I even had the personal experience of showing an agent from the BC Gaming Commission around our event. They actually sent someone to potentially shut us down. But we're better than that. We're still here, aren't we?

05/09/2021

Here at Game Day, we're no strangers to the media.

We've been featured countless times now, Dave & Erin doing annual radio interviews, write-ups in the Daily Townsman, E-Know, even the Alberta Children's Hospital Foundation newsletter. Jeff was on an Extra Life panel at Calgary Expo, and we've done interviews for, and been featured on Shaw TV multiple times.

If you look through the page, you'll also see that Dave goes live multiple times from every event to keep anyone who follows the page updated on our events and fundraising.

But that's all right now. Back in 2014, at our first event, which we never in our wildest dreams thought we would be calling "our first event" 7 years later, James Farnan made history by showing up with his camera.

Looking back at the conversation we had about it, he showcased Extra Life Game Day in a light that even those of us whose souls were put into making it the best it could be, never expected.

Enjoy this piece of history.
Thank you, James.

Gamers united in Cranbrook for the second annual "Extra Life Game Day", a gaming marathon in support of the Children's Miracle Network...

05/07/2021

So, here's a neat Game Day fact. Over the years, we gradually got more and more (and more, and more) sponsors for our event. And those sponsors saw our event growing, and doing good things, and started donating more and better things.

I LITERALLY could not list every sponsor in a single post, even if I could remember them all (we've got lists, and spreadsheets, and lists... Nobody has been left out), because there's been so many it would exceed Facebook's character limit.

I know that sounds outrageous, but when you take into consideration that every person who has acted in an organizer role in our history, along with many of our volunteers, and dozens of community members all count in that list before we even start on the local businesses (of which there are DOZENS), and expand from there, we've had a lot of stuff. Often we spend entire weeks just figuring out how to allocate the donations.

One thing that has remained consistent, and anyone who has attended Game Day can tell you, is that $10 for a day of gaming is a great value. Since around Game Day 5, we've had so much stuff, we've offered about $10-15 in FREE STUFF as you come in the door. Nevermind the literal thousands of dollars of prizes, auction items, and more that are available throughout the day. We really hope to continue this trend when we pick back up in the future.

Pro tip from Dave & Erin? The secret is to talk about Star Wars.

05/05/2021

Time for another blast from the past. Before he retired as an organizer and joined the Council of Elders in what was a very emotional moment for a lot of us (being a founding organizer of Game Day), Jeff Johnson always had a thing for drawing out floor plans.

Anyone familiar with Game Day knows that we've been pretty consistent over the years, and our annual event has always been held at the Eagles Hall. But no matter where we were, no matter the size of our setup, Jeff drew it out.

Now, this is the first time anyone outside the organizing team has seen these. For that matter, some organizers have never seen them (Sorry, Jeff). The best part of that is the reason. Jeff and I would rehash these multiple times, and things would almost always get thrown together at the last minute in whatever way fit best.

05/03/2021

While we likely won't be seeing a proper Game Day event until 2022, let's have a look at where we came from before we look where we're going.

Lots more coming up. Watch our page and check out our stories to test your Game Day knowledge!

05/28/2020

It is with a heavy heart that I make this announcement (many of you probably knew it was coming), but the Game Day EK Organizing Committee has decided to postpone the inaugural GDEK event until 2021.

Game Day has always been about two things: building community, and looking after the most vulnerable of our population, the kids.

That said, we realized that with a limit on gatherings of 50 people, and last year's volunteer team making up half that, combined with an average attendance across our 6 years of over 275 guests, the logistics of Game Day don't fit within a Covid-19 timeline.

Shared controllers, multiplayer experiences, board games, and exciting tournaments are all at the heart of what we have built. When we come back, it might look different than it has in the past. We all have adjustments to make.

But it all boils down to the very simple thought shared over a conversation between organizers one day. "Hosting this event right now is at best, socially irresponsible, and at worst, the antithesis of everything we stand for"

We are currently looking at what a digital event might look like, and are still considering options for the community to connect across a shared platform to play games together.

Thank you for your understanding, and we look forward to seeing you all at Game Day EK in the future

-Dave

03/25/2020

Hey Game Day EK Community!

We wanted to give you all an update regarding our event planning for 2020! With the current climate around COVID-19 we have made the decision to cancel/postpone any mini events for the foreseeable future. We have a ton of ideas that we are so excited to share with you all once the danger has passed, but until then we will be not be hosting any in person charity initiatives.
With that being said, we still want to encourage everyone to socialize, hang out and maybe even raise some money together (virtually of course!). Our Discord server is open for all members of the community https://discord.gg/XYYgeJP, so if you're looking for people to play games with this is the perfect opportunity! Also, if you're interested, you can join our Extra Life fundraising team and stream games during your downtime - any money raised will go towards our 2020 year end goal of $10,000.00! https://www.extra-life.org/team/GameDayEK

Stay safe and healthy friends!

GDEK Organizer Committee

Check out the Game Day EK community on Discord - hang out with 29 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.