Last night my company sponsored a "Family Fun Bingo Night" for the National Newspaper Association Annual Convention, a development for which I can thank COVID.
Now, if I told you that I had been looking forward to giving up a Friday evening, to host a virtual social gathering for a bunch of convention goers, I would be straight up lying to you. I was doing it because it was an opportunity to get our company name out there, and nothing more. And I anticipated that no more than a handful of people would show up.
But, lo and behold, there were near 50 people who turned out, and you know what, by the end of the night, no one wanted it to end, least of all me.
The NNA convention is a yearly celebration of small newspaper owners across the country. A couple hundred people annually travel from coast to coast to attend the convention, learn from educational seminars, share "war" stories with their newspaper brethren and congratulate those who won awards in organizations contest. It is a highlight of many small newspaper owners' year. But, of course, the convention wasn't held in person this year, and so it was made a virtual convention.
The NNA staff used a virtual convention platform and the altered event was played out over Zoom for three days. But, as you can imagine, much of the joy and the thrill of gathering in person with people you have common interests with was gone. And, so after two full days of this sterile environment, with low attendance at a lot of the sessions, I was not looking forward to the Bingo night, an event that my company was sponsoring and that I was emceeing.
And then something magical happened.
Me and a few of the NNA staff were the first to join, and as the start of the event ticked closer, a person would join the Zoom session here and there. And then another. And then another. ... And eventually there were 48 at our peak. And it included other newspaper vendor people such as myself, newspaper owners and their children and even grandchildren. And so there were likely far more than just the number of active Zoom participants.
And while the evening began in awkward fashion, with the NNA director and myself leading most of the banter, it wasn't long before others joined in, and the kids started having fun. And before long the whole thing had turned into an unexpected, joyous party in which everyone was having a blast. ... Most of all me.
I had never called a Bingo game before, but I had so much fun doing it that the NNA director and I are working on setting up another Bingo night to bring together the organization's members who are so desperate for community, much like all of us are looking for right now.
The event was a good lesson for me that sometimes our most fond memories come from unexpected events. I never would have bet that playing a hokey game, with a bunch of newspaper owners whom I didn't know, on a Friday night Zoom session, would turn out to be fun. ... But frankly, the whole thing turned out to be more fun than a barrel of monkeys. ... And I cannot wait for the next one!
Comments