Twas the Montreal holiday gathering night...

by Jason Della Rocca (December 2001)

Given it was the Montreal Chapter's first Holiday gathering we thought it would be fun to hand out "presents". So, we mooched some fun prizes and raffled them off to everyone in attendance. Of course, the sponsored Xbox (big thanks to Eric Schumacher at NxN) and PlayStation 2 (big thanks to Bryan Milne at SoftImage) were the main draw, but we also gave out:

• several copies of Tennis Maters Series from Microids
• one copy of the Game Developer Magazine back-issue CD-ROM
• some IGDA t-shirts
• some Game Developer Magazine t-shirts
• some NxN Alienbrain t-shirts
• some NxN baseball caps
• three copies of Creating Weaponry and Accessories in 3D from Morgan Kaufmann Publishers
  
• a cool Gamasutra metallic notepad
• some Airborne Entertainment golf balls and gag wire-cutters
• a bunch of SoftImage Manta posters

...by the end, I think everyone walked away with something! Thanks to everyone who donated something for the draw.

Before the prize drawing took place, we ran another activity aptly named "Open Mic". For about a half-hour, the microphone was open for anyone to grab and make a quick announcement. Some mentioned how they were looking for work, others quickly discussed a project they were working on or a service that they provide. While it was a challenge to keep everyone's attention for the duration of the Open Mic period, the overall feedback on this activity has been strong - with several people stating how they were approached by other chapter attendees right after their announcement. Perfect, that's exactly why we are doing the Open Mic, and we plan to have an Open Mic period at everyone chapter gathering (except the nights with formal sit-down presentations). Kudos to those brave enough to grab the mic and I hope more do so in the future!

Other than the prizes and Open Pic it was chapter business as usual (ie, drinking free beer and socializing with fellow developers). All told, there were about 120 people who showed up.

Happy Holidays and see you all next month!

Big thanks to our sponsors for the December gathering:

• NxN Software
• SoftImage
• Wave Generation
• Alliance NumeriQC

December gathering - Pictography

...here are some shots I took during the December gathering of the Montreal Chapter. (all persons are identified from left to right)

Su Skerl (Microids), Isabelle Marazzani (NAD Centre), Shawn LeBlanc (Matrox), Greg James (Matrox) and Ken Trueman (Quazal) chat it up.

David Lipes (Wave Generation) was hoarding a huge strip of beer tickets, seemingly having great effect on Mauricio Oyarzun (Insane Logics) and Michael Elman (Wave Generation).

Yvan Ouellet (LOR TECH), Isaac Larnder (SIGGRAPH Montreal), Gareth Morgan (SoftImage) and Bryan Milne (SoftImage) hoard the dip and olives...

Ben Mattes and Max from Airborne Entertainment revel in the recent release of their mobile game Enternal Hero.

...bar side shot...

Membership has its benefits: IGDA members Jean-Francois William and Valerie Henaire with the PlayStation 2 and Xbox prizes they won in the night's raffle. Don't forget, if you'd like a free console as well, all you need to do is score enough points in the IGDA Membership Referral Program!

Raphael Durand-Groulx and the Evillusion team show off their work-in-progress project.