Jubilympics! - LOTNA Review of 2012

by Caz Rudd and David Lee

2012 was an eventful year, The Diamond Jubilee, The Olympics but most importantly it was the year that The Avengers Assembled!

As well as our bi-monthly meetings with fun quizzes, Doctor Who watching and general sci-fi geekery other things we did regularly were trips out and about to do shoots for the LOTNA calendar, checked out films at the BFI and the Prince Charles Cinema, laughed on Geek Night Outs and collected autographs at conventions.

And there were a few other things we did too…

January

The year started quietly, not much in January apart from the first of our monthly visits to Science Museum Lates for SCIENCE!

February

February started with snow and a large group of LOTNA peeps travelling to Wales for the SFX Weekender. Back in London for a couple more conventions, Picocon , which included the destruction of some very dodgy merchandise and meeting the great Stan Lee at the London Super Comic Con. The book club book was The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin, Films we saw included Chronicle and The Muppets

March

In March we celebrated our 14th Anniversary

April

April's book was Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. Several of us took part in the Sci-Fi London Costume Parade. But the main event was our biggest ever cinema outing to see the film of the year - Avengers Assemble… LOTNA ASSEMBLE!

May

May teased us with a sunny weekend something we didn't really see again till the end of July. But we had plenty to keep us out of the rain! The Sci-Fi London Festival had many good films including the MST3K all-nighter and Trek Nation. The LOTNA team were the winners of the pub quiz! Another film we saw that month was Iron Sky. Mark and Mark ran an excellent freeform game set in the Firefly universe, Trouble at Twin Palms. Wanna know what a freeform game is? Well as it happens Kelly is running one next year so why not sign up and find out.

June

June was a rather active month we went to see Prometheus at the IMAX - ask Ed about that one! The book club read was Mogworld by Yahtzee Croshaw of Zero Punctuation fame. We travelled down to Bromley to see the excellent Hitchhiker's Radio Play at the Churchill Theatre and the Genesis sci-fi group paid us a visit.

July

In July we had our usual stand at the London Film and Comic Con another successful LOTNA promotion with over 1600 leaflets given out. Some of us went to the British Museum too, to look at some stuff

August

In August we returned to The Avengers, only a £1 at the Prince Charles Cinema for members. At the pub we discussed Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson and held a World of Warcraft LAN Party where there was much ass kicked! Anne, Gail Brian and Ash walked the 38 bus route in aid of Maggie's cancer charity

September

In September we changed our pub nite dates and met on the 3rd and 5th Saturdays because of some other event happening in London that month! There was the first meeting of the board game club and we went to see Dredd. Tony raised over £1000 for Guide Dogs on his cross channel swim.

October

More fund raising in October as Duncan did the Memory Walk 2012 raising money for Alzheimer's Society.The beginning of the end of the world? Several LOTNA members went on the World Zombie Day walk where they feasted on brains. Another fun time was had at the annual Klingon Banquet. This month's book was the Sci-Fi classic Ringworld by Larry Niven. The month ended in great style with our fantastic Halloween Party, loads of spooky treats to eat and some brilliant costumes.

November

Thanks to Gianni we started November hosting a concert by Marian Call, in fact I don't think he's received enough praise! All the power in the verse couldn't stop us enjoying an excellent Firefly lasertag Game. We attended our second Den of Geek Movie Quiz of the year and read Anno Dracula by Kim Newman. A few of our members decided to home their survival skills by going to 2.8hours game later, where they had to survive a dread Zombie outbreak. Loads of items were auctioned off on the night of the LOTNA Auction. The Sci-Fi London Festival went East with another MSTK all-nighter and the LOTNA team came second in the pub quiz

December

In December we are once again held our Christmas party, with a visit from our friend Santa and the results of this year's LOTNA awards - No surprise what film of the year was, though there's been some controversy over Doctor Who being the worst show of the year! The final film outing of the year was a return to Middle Earth to see The Hobbit.

Hopefully the Mayans were wrong and this won't be the last ever LOTNA event and we'll be back next year for even more fun and celebrating the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.

A big thank you to everyone who has organised events, activities and calendar shoots this year.

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