Summing Up 2022

**Post revised 31 December 2022 due to incorrectly categorised game**

This is a few days earlier than normal, but due to circumstances I have played my last wargame of the year, and I am unlikely to do anything of significance before the end of December, so here's my end of year summary.

I started these in 2017, and it is true to say a lot has happened since then. My list of games played is slightly shorter than last year, but still looks pretty good:

59 games is more than one a week, so that's an achievement, but represents a bit of a drop on last year's 76. That has arisen for a number of reasons. I predicted a slight drop last year, as the world opened up post-COVID and I went back to other ways of passing my time. There's a slight reduction in periods played, dropping to 15 after 16 last year, and also in rules used which falls to about 22. I'm not sure exactly how many, as we played several of Jon F's homegrown sets of rules and I didn't keep track of  how many variants we used. I'm still my favourite rules author, using my rules for 22 of the games I ran or played in, but that is down from last year in both terms of numbers and sets.

As the graph shows, I also had a real drop in the number of games I personally ran ("Run %age"), falling below 50% for the first time ever. I predicted that this would fall, as Jon, Richard L and I now share Tuesday night games mostly evenly between us. My lack of industry on that front is reflected in the fact that I only managed to get one set of rules to market this year, that being "It Rolls for Ivan". These have also not sold as well as I'd hoped, partly as I haven't pushed them as hard as I should have done, but also because Bill at TMP seems to be unable to put up a simple advert despite repeated promptings over several months so I have a banner ad that doesn't even mention them. The main fault, however, lies with me and my publicity efforts. I had hoped to get my early 18th century rules "From Pike to Bayonet" out, but they have languished a bit, only being given one outing in the year.

The reasons for the shortfall are simple, I think. As I had hoped Mrs T and I did squeeze in a couple of foreign trips, and we also did quite a few mini-breaks around and about England. However, I have to admit that my taking over as Chair of the Northamptonshire Battlefields Society has consumed much more time than I expected. This has been attended by a number of frustrations as well as being quite satisfying from time to time. As of now the Society seems to be on a stable footing, but I haven't delivered on my main project for the year, and whilst it is nice to have people congratulate me on the great job I'm doing, I have a sneaking suspicion that's mainly because no one else wants to do the job instead. I am also finding that running an organisation that relies on volunteers brings its own challenges. Many people are willing to help, but they're "only volunteers" so you get nowhere by shouting at people when things aren't done (by the way, the Government's drive to get the retired community back to paid jobs will kill the heritage industry - we have two major sites in the county that rely upon 100-200 volunteers EACH to keep them running).

So whilst I have succeeded in a number of areas, I haven't managed to produce any more history books. I was expecting to be editing the next Society publication in the last few months, and getting it out there, but the author is now over three months behind on delivering the manuscript and I get the feeling it will be another two or three months before that sees the light of day. 

On the painting front, it has been a fairly dry year, with, I think, less than 200 figures emerging from the desk, and the completion of no new armies. I have added to my WSS collection with the bulk of my production, and started on my Ottomans, as well as adding bits and pieces to my RCW and SCW armies, and there's a lot of boxes now queuing up to be dealt with.

Anyway, next year beckons, and whether my wargaming numbers will improve at all is seriously open to doubt, as I think we need to do some catching up on our overseas travel, and the Society still represents a major call on my time. However, as the only person keeping count is me, I'm sure that won't cause the world any great angst.

So I'll just sign off for now by wishing a Happy 2023 to all of you out there.  Best of luck in all your endeavours and hopefully we will all see a more peaceful world and by the end of July a decisive Ashes win.