Meeting in the Era of Coronavirus

Well, we pulled it off–our socially distanced Guardian 34th Anniversary meeting! Here are tips for holding a club meeting while staying safe:

• Use a 1-in-10 bleach and water solution to wipe down surfaces likely to be touched; wipe down eating areas and restrooms after each use
• Space seating so no guests sit side-by-side (if using a couch, place an object on the middle seat to force separation)
• Provide designated eating areas spaced even farther apart
• Remove cloth towels and hang a roll of paper towels in their place
• Have hand soap and sanitizer in the bathrooms, and additional hand sanitizer in other rooms in use
• Encourage the use of masks and have extras to provide if needed
• Plan for guests to bring their own food/drink, no potluck

Of course, these are general suggestions that can be adjusted as needed. We did share  Jammie Dodgers, by taking them out of their original packaging using salad tongs and placing them on individual napkins.

We watched old Who (Mythmakers videos with Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen), new sort-of Who (Reeltime Pictures video staring Sil), and the Late Late Show with James Corden and his guests Jodie Whitaker and David Tennant. There was also lively conversation, a brief business meeting, and a trivia contest with prizes. The contest was even run by show of hands to save contestants from having  to touch pencil and paper. (The pen with our sign-in book was sanitized after each use.) The trivia contest–The Pandemic Edition–will be presented in my next blog post.

We ran out of time before getting to my planned no-contact party game, the Doctor Who version of “Going on a Picnic.” If you are unfamiliar with the game, the first person says, “I’m going on a picnic with the Doctor and am taking …” followed by something or someone from Doctor Who with a name beginning with the letter A. The next person must say, “I’m going on a picnic with the Doctor and taking [the previously named object/character starting with A] and [something that starts with B].” The game continues around the group until the letter Z is reached. Can you think of Doctor Who characters or objects for all 26 letters? Our club did years ago, when there was only Classic Who to reference–challenge made!

 

 

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Guardians of Gallifrey Anniversary!

This Saturday’s June Anniversary event will be shorter than previous years, but will still be full of Doctor Who fan fun. Lord President Arthur Dykeman has several surprise video selections lined up, with lots of items (old and new) that have never been shown at a GoG meeting. While the usual carny-style games will not be present, there will be a DW-themed party game. Expect a trivia contest and door prizes.

To be safe in this time of COVID we’ll be following The Doctor’s advice, so plan to social distance, wear a mask if you must be close, and bring your own food and drink (no potluck this year). We may attempt to add a virtual element to the meeting, so stay tuned.

Of course, the meeting is still at my home which means–PHOTO OPS! The Exploding TARDIS wall, the Classic Console Room, Daleks, and the Delegate from Alpha Centauri will be available. As always, costumes are encouraged and cosplayers welcome.

Set your space/time coordinates for noon to 6pm Saturday, June 27, at 170 Broadmoor Ave, Lake Mary, Florida, to join with other Doctor Who fans–two meters apart–in celebrating 34 years of the Guardians of Gallifrey!

Stay safe and listen to your Doctor,

Julia

For more details, check us out on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/GuardiansOfGallifrey/

Would be excess GG news, but…

…everything I sent to the Editor made it into the newsletter! In lieu of posting (non-existent) excess news, I’ve chosen several articles from the Gallifrey Guardian that  provide fans with stuff to do at home, to continue to encourage social distancing:

As many people currently are keeping in touch online, the BBC has provided a selection of over 100 empty set images from the BBC Archive for fans to use as their background image in video conferencing applications. The list includes TARDIS console room sets from Doctor Who: two variations from The Masque of Mandragora, one each circa 1980 and 1983, and two angles of 2019’s set. To access them, go to the science fiction portion of the archive at https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/empty_sets_science_fiction/zhj7mfr

Emily Cook of DWM organized a live-Tweet watch-along of An Adventure in Space and Time on May 23rd. It was preceded by a special presentation of a new short adventure called Doctors Assemble! featuring Doctors One through Thirteen, plus the War Doctor. David Bradley voiced the First Doctor, with the other Doctors portrayed by a team of nine voice impressionists. The visual element of the webcast appears as a “group chat” and consists of CGI shots of the Doctor’s TARDIS, with pictures on the scanner. You can access the video on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=886&v=26UFq8RGVOs&feature=emb_title

The TARDIS Fandom website has fantastic lists explaining all the references in the video, and lots of other Doctor Who stuff, too—worth checking out! https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Doctors_Assemble!_(webcast)

The Homemade Who project launched last month was extended to the end of May, to give more fans the opportunity to recreate their favorite moments from Doctor Who, using whatever they could find in their house. Entries were sent in from England, Australia, France, Luxembourg, Argentina, Wales, Germany, Italy, the Philippines, the USA, and New Zealand! A compilation video featuring every clip sent in so far can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYgLkAY9jiQ or you can watch all the complete clips on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homemade.who/

Doctor Who sightings

My librarian daughter recently watched Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, a documentary by Matt Wolf. Stokes recorded television 24 hours a day for 30 years on 70,000 VHS tapes, which will now be digitized by the Internet Archive and provided online. The cover/poster for the documentary includes a still of Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor! The documentary premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and will be shown on PBS’ Independent Lens program June 15.

Last weekend I watched a YouTube video about ten locations around the world featuring strange anomalies (sorry, I couldn’t find it again so don’t have the exact name). A brief shot of David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor—looking amazed–was inserted after showing the Stone Forest in China!

If you are still looking for ways to pass the time, check out this website for Doctor Who fans:
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Doctor_Who_Wiki

Stay safe.