[FSPA] Updates, and welcome back

[Joe Schober]

Hello, league pinball fans!  Sorry, this wound up being a long mail, hope I don't make too many of you fall asleep.  (Or if I do, save a copy for the next time you have insomnia!)

It's certainly been a crazy couple years.  The FSPA was all prepared to cruise triumphantly into our 25th Anniversary (!) with stronger than ever locations, games, and player base, and ... wham!  Stupid virus.  Of course, there have been all sorts of changes since we all last met, and I just wanted to run down some of the details...

CarPool has unfortunately been booted from its Fairfax location... quite a shame, as it was a great location, great staff, and steadily grew to have the most players of any FSPA league.  Its illustrious leader, Bob Johnson, was also booted from his own Fairfax location, and is now having fun in the sun down in Florida.  Many thanks for keeping that huge location running well, Bob!  There are rumors that CarPool may come back to life in a new, exciting location... we'll be waiting for more details on that.

VÜK has unfortunately been booted from its Bethesda location... that too was a great location, with surely the best pizza and ice cream in FSPA-land.  Thanks very much to Alex Jeffrey, Max Baskin, and John Locke for their efforts there.  I'm afraid I'm not aware of a replacement for VÜK itself, although its sister location lives on:

MOM's is alive and well in College Park, with a terrific lineup of (I believe) all organic-grocery themed pins.  You're not gonna find that anywhere else.  Rob Wintler-Cox and John Locke are keeping on as the torch-bearers there, now joined by Stephanie Traub... welcome to the crew, Steph, and thanks for helping.  In a shocking turn of events, MOM's league has jumped from Monday evenings to Wednesday evenings, so please make note of the new day.

We have a new location -- sort of a spiritual successor to CarPool -- at Mustang Sally Brewery in Chantilly, VA.  Many of you have visited there to play some beers and drink some games... wait a minute, strike that, reverse it.  MSB is just a few minutes down Rt. 50 from CarPool, so hopefully former CarPool players can find a new home at MSB for some Tuesday night league fun.  Edan Grossman and Rich Wickersham will be keeping things running smoothly.

Edan's new gig there left an opening at the venerable Lost Rhino in Ashburn, VA, which Bryan Henson has kindly offered to take over... thank you very much, Bryan!  Lost Rhino has a nice lineup of games, along with good food and beer, and the house root beer really is legit.  Lost Rhino is the place to be for Virginian league fans on Wednesday evenings.

Keeping with the "beer in Virginia" theme, Ocelot in Sterling, VA really got run through the ringer during COVID, but all's well that ends well: Matt Wycoff, Steve Kapinos, and the crew there are back to serve up some excellent pints and pinball during Monday night league play.

And up north in Frederick, MD, Spinners is also back with Thursday night pinball league action.  Sergio Johnson has decided to take a break from league administrivia (thanks for your great work over the years, Serg!), so Joe Said -- who runs the location -- will now also be running the league for this season... thanks for your help, Joe.

Last, but certainly not least, at the FSPA Association level: Stephanie Traub has offered to lend a hand with social media outreach.  And Deb Kapke Is, long overdue, officially claiming the title of FSPA artist and graphic designer, a role she has generously and skillfully performed for us for a long time, doing most of the designs for our logos, shirts, flyers, posters, and more.  Ladies, thank you both very much!

When you see any of these fine people, please give them a hug, buy them a beer, and thank them for volunteering their time and energy to help make FSPA the best league pinball anywhere!


All of our leagues have some changes for this season only:

- There will not be an end-of-season party for the Summer 2021 season.  League dues are reduced to $30 to compensate.

- The giveaway machine (Jungle Lord) remains on pause.  All the drawing tickets earned in the Fall 2019 and Spring 2020 seasons remain valid, and the current plan is to resume the giveaway cycle with one more season of ticket-earning in the Fall 2021 season, and then give the machine away to a lucky winner in early 2022... so it should wind up working like a normal machine giveaway, just stttrreeetttccchhheedd ouuuutttt over a couple years.

- No WPPR (IFPA) points will be earned for the Summer 2021 season because WPPR has not yet reactivated post-COVID.  Should that status change during our the Summer season, we'll figure out what's going on and update everyone.

- Leagues are only playing 8 regular-season weeks, instead of the usual 10.  Playoff week will follow the last regular-season week, as usual.

- There are no preplays this season.  Instead, each player's worst 2 weeks will be discarded when tallying your league point totals... this will show up as "Adjusted (Adj) Points" on the scoresheets.  What this means is that you take a 0 for a week you're absent, which will obviously be one of your worst weeks, so it'll be ignored in the standings (as long as you don't miss more than 2 weeks!).  This also means that players who attend every week will get to drop their worst 2 actual weeks of play, which is certainly a competitive advantage, so you'll still want to play every week of league live and in person if at all possible.

- The FSPA is not in the business of epidemiology, so we have no special guidance regarding COVID-19... but of course, please follow any guidance at your league location, stock up on Purell, and just as a personal request from me: if you haven't already gotten the vaccine, please get it ASAP if you can.  Let's not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.


Lots of changes all around, indeed.  Please make note of your favorite league(s) days and hours on fspazone.org <http://fspazone.org/> ... don't forget that each league has a public Google Calendar available for it, so you can subscribe to it in the Calendar app on your phone or computer, and always have the latest league schedule conveniently available.


I always get a little twitchy writing an update like this, especially with so many things going on... chances are good that I've inadvertently omitted someone or something... my apologies if I have done so, and please don't hesitate to tell me what I did wrong.   :D  

Finally, but perhaps most importantly: thanks, as always, to every one of you for being part of the FSPA.  None of this happens without players, and you all are the best.  If I or any of the people mentioned above can do anything to make your league experience better, please let us know.  Stay safe and healthy, and have a super fun Summer season.  Yay pinball!

--Joe

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.fspazone.org/pipermail/fspa/attachments/20210603/eb6b0cb1/attachment.htm>