VCOW: An announcement

Yesterday, Tim Gow – who is the other COW coordinator – posted the following announcement on his blog:

VIRTUAL CONFERENCE OF WARGAMERS

What is it?

When is it?

Where is it?

What will it cost me?
The Conference of Wargamers is an extraordinary event. There can be very, very few, if any, conferences which charge a fee for entrance and then expect delegates to provide the entire program and write up the proceedings. Yet each year COW is a triumph of good will and collective endeavour over standard consumer practice. Each year, as the call goes out for sessions and the members of WD provide, and we all have a jolly good time at Knuston. Then your Editor eagerly awaits, and eventually receives, enough reports for 9 issues of The Nugget.

For obvious reasons this year is not the same. We must assume that we will not be meeting at Knuston this year and plan accordingly. We can however take this as an opportunity to develop our wargames and the way we engage with conflict simulation. Following a discussion with a handful of members, we have taken the decision to offer an alternative to COW – Virtual Conference of Wargamers (VCOW).

VCOW will take place over same weekend as physical COW, that is the weekend of the 10th to the 12th July. It will begin on Friday evening with two Plenary lectures, and there will be blocks of sessions over the Saturday and Sunday. These sessions will be a mixture of lectures, discussions and games, and attendees will be able to sign up to a range of different activities over the course of the VCOW. Sadly, you’ll have to provide your own food, but other than that, we hope to recreate the COW experience as far as possible for all attendees. We also hope that VCOW will provide us with some innovative new types of games and allow us all to explore the benefits and limitations of the virtual medium.

Details of sessions available are on the VCOW blog and will be updated as more information becomes available.

Attendance at VCOW is open to the following:

• Current members of WD
• Anyone who has been a member of WD in the past two years
• Guests invited by WD members

The cost to attend is a mere £5 – the Paypal link can be found on the VCOW blog.

Numbers will be limited, so book now to avoid disappointment.

If you have questions about VCOW please contact me or leave a comment on this post.