GrangeCon1 2007

Lt to Rt: Steph, Jill, Cat, Nate, ?, Jason, Bret, Paul, Bill, Marisa,Roger, Pat

GrangeCon 1 was held the weekend of July 7, 2007 at The Eden Resort in Lancaster, PA. Eden Resort has all the amenities you would expect of an upscale hotel – minus the price. There is an indoor pool with hot tub, exercise room, sauna and an outdoor pool. Food is available in three locations within the hotel: the casual Garfield’s, the dressier Arthur’s, and the bar. Additional sources of food are just a short walk away. There was no programming (well, mostly no programming). No registration fee. But we did have badges

Accommodations

Bill and I had adjoining suites: he had a King which had one King bed and a double sleeper sofa; I had a Queen which had 3 queen beds and a double sleeper sofa. In the best con tradition the queen suite was packed to the gills! Both rooms had a refrigerator and a microwave and a balcony overlooking the outdoor pool. Every room had a large wall mounted flat screen TV with hook ups for lap top or video equipment.

These two rooms were the “official” con rooms. They served as con suite and function rooms. There was a computer or a game console hooked up to both living room TVs.

Standing: Jason Sitting Rt: Roger

Nate & Steph

Food

Friday night we all descended on Quips, http://www.quipspub.com/, an English style pub in downtown Lancaster, for dinner. They managed to fit us all in despite there being something like 15 of us!

Saturday night we opted for Garfield’s, Eden Resort’s casual dining experience.

In the suites we had a sheet cake in honor of GrangeCon, a cake in the shape of a castle, and assorted chocolates and munchies. This would be a sort of mini version of a con suite. Everyone chipped in contributed to the communal food.

Fun & Games

    • Book Group in a Hot Tub – sounded like a good idea but it was a bit noisy and you couldn’t refer to the book for fear of getting it sopping wet! We managed and are not so daunted that we won’t try it again!

    • Name That Tune – Bill put together short clips from SF movie scores, both recent and classic. He had a great deal more confidence in our ability than was warranted! He would begin with a somewhat obscure clip and if no one got it he would move to successively more obvious clips. Some required verbal hints as well!

    • SF Trivia – was a game which was projected on the flatsceen wall mounted TV and Bret, who had provided it, orchestrated it. It was a great deal of rowdy fun and Pat ONeil shone as the resident trivia king. Is that something one wants to boast of? Hmmm.

  • Invasion of the Daleks – Bret brought his radio controlled Daleks and we played with them in the hall. Unfortunately they ran on the same frequency so we could not have Dalek races.

This was an opportunity for fans to gather, chat, relax, play. IT WAS A SMASHING SUCCESS ! ! ! In fact, many of the attendees are already talking about next year's GrangeCon.