Suddenly it's Summer!
May
Spring gave way to a tough month. The extended tax deadline made for real May-hem. With plans to move back to Denver, I hastily boxed up my go equipment refurbishing projects and put everything in a U-Haul. It would be a month before I got back to cleaning up new sets.
Over a year after quarantine began, I threw one last party for Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you!). We watched Rogue One, and a guest brought Wookie Cookies!
June
I loaded my Subaru onto a trailer and hitched that to the U-Haul, then left western Colorado for the 'Front Range.' Across the country in Ohio, our club gear was finally arriving from the manufacturer on pallets.
The lack of Vintage inventory may have been behind a spike in Custom Orders, but that was a nice distraction from apartment hunting. One highlight was this goban signed by Cho Chikun:
The Denver housing market is in the middle of a bubble; even when I did sign a lease on an apartment, the move-in date was still a month away. I opened a couple shipments of Vintage bowls and stones, refurbishing between other tasks like furniture shopping.
July
Finally it was time to move in. We still don't have art on the walls but it's a real step up from couch surfing. I began building my workshop in the garage, and my brother led the push on some amazing shelves.
We envision a workbench next, but the calendar brought the US Go Congress into view and my attention turned to that.
Normally the annual US Go Congress wraps up with a banquet and prize ceremony, a big feature of which is the auction of a go board to benefit the American Go Foundation. When Covid hit in 2020 and the in-person event was moved online, I still wanted to keep that tradition alive so I put a thick goban on eBay and sent the proceeds to the AGF afterward.
This year was set to be a Virtual event as well, which is a perfect fit for an online auction. In January I had participated in a charity auction for the shelter where I volunteer, and it seemed easy enough to set up. The fundraiser took shape through the Auctria website and I set a goal of $5000, which we ultimately reached!
Donations came in from a number of players, teachers, and go vendors. The biggest donation came from Stu Horowitz, who donated a huge chunk of his extensive go library, accounting for a third of the total proceeds. For the baduk.club donation I provided a nicer board than last year (cover photo), and included bowls and semi-precious stones.
New at Baduk.Club
When he isn't unpacking and repacking our club gear to get the pallets ready for the warehouse, Devin has been working away behind the scenes to bring new website features to life. For my own club, I'm really excited that the new Map has club management functionality, so that we can easily send out announcements to our members without having to collect contact info.
In addition, he continues to refine other tools, like Tournament pairing software that integrates with OGS. It made it a snap to help direct a 9x9 tournament to kick off the weeklong Go Congress!
Coming Soon
In addition to offering our own club and teaching gear, we are making preparations to open up our online store to other vendors.
We've been approached many times by other creators and go-gear sellers with neat items. It's been on our to-do list for a while, and we are almost ready. We do want to be the one-stop-shop for all the Go Gear you can think of so if you have something to sell please visit our Vendor Registration page!
With Gratitute
I am so thankful; for the hard work of Devin to build and expand what we offer, bringing features to our website and store; for my wonderful family and friends, who lent their time or spare rooms or power tools; for my partner Sarah who has kept me on task and helped me focus on doing what I love; and to the entire Go Community, for every person who welcomes others to the game and is a shining point of light in the darkness of uncertainty.
