CITY/REGION: San Francisco, CA
MEETUP PLACE: Opera Plaza Community Room, 601 Van Ness Ave (between Golden Gate and Turk) on the Mezzanine level
DATE: Saturday December 30, 2023
TIME: 2pm-5pm
MEETUP PLAN:
Celebrate the end of the year with a meetup, snacks and an optional white elephant gift exchange!
The meeting space has capacity for up to 50 people, and there is a small kitchen in the room, so feel free to bring some snacks or drinks to share! We will have the usual postcard exchange / free postcard table and will have a specially designed card for the meetup. The meetup location is easily accessible by public transportation and is about a 10 minute walk from Civic Center BART station or Van Ness MUNI underground station. The building has a public parking garage downstairs, although it might be full due to the nearby Nutcracker performances.
How to get to the meeting room: Go to the elevators located in the center of the plaza behind the fountain and directly in front of the movie theater (or the elevators on the P1 parking level). The meeting room is on level M, but if that button does not work (because sometimes it’s locked on weekends) then go to the security desk on the residence level (1) and tell them you’re there for the meetup and they will unlock the M button in the elevator. When you get out on level M, turn right and keep going around the corners until you get to the Community Room! You can’t miss it. It will be the big room with snacks and postcards!
The special meetup postcards will be available for $0.10 each and can be paid for ahead of time by Venmo or on the day of the event by cash or card. Please let me know ahead of time how many you want if you are planning to attend so that I can have them separated out and reserved.
Around 3:30 or 4pm, we will do the White Elephant game.
EDIT: apparently, I got the rules of this game totally wrong! Don’t worry - I printed out the correct rules and will be handing them out at the event! Here is what I printed out:
You don’t have to participate if you don’t want to, but if you do, here are the rules: bring a wrapped item (so that you can’t really tell what it is), which can be new or used, but in good enough shape that someone might want it. If you have to buy something, don’t go crazy! $10-$20 range item is fine. When you bring something, it goes into the pile. When it’s time to play, everyone who put a gift into the pile draws a number out of a hat. This determines the order of picking a gift. So, the person who picks #1 goes first, and they get to pick something out of the pile, and then they open it so everyone knows what it is. Then, the person with #2 goes next, etc. The catch is that a person is allowed to “steal” a gift from someone else when it’s their turn (which means they trade their gift to that person for THEIR gift), but any one gift can only be “stolen” 3 times. So, everyone can’t just keep stealing the one cool gift forever. The person who went first gets to go last, too, because it gives them a chance to “steal” a gift. Or they might just want to keep whatever they got. It’s a funny game… well, depending on what people bring… so bring something good or funny!
I’ll be back in the Bay visiting family in December, but the 30th is the day I fly back to NC. Have fun everyone!