As I announced in the June gathering, I will be stepping down as the Lead Chapter Coordinator for IGDA Finland at the end of the month. But as all activities for this season are already done, in practice my successor Sonja Kangas is already acting in that role in preparing for the next season. The main reason for this decision was that I've noticed I just don't have the time and energy to put into IGDA activities as I used to. That's largely due to my day job keeping me super busy in trying to wake Alan. :) And now that we've announced the launch window, I'll be even busier in the future.

But part of the reason is that the time is right. 4 years is a long time doing something like this voluntarily after a full day of work at the office. I also have a great successor that is more than capable of taking our chapter even further. She's already been part of the coordinator group for 2 years so she knows the chapter activities inside & out. I am confident the transition will go super smoothly. So congrats Sonja, new IGDA Finland Lead Chapter Coordinator!

It has been fun and eventful 4 years that I've been acting as the Lead Chapter Coordinator. Over those years, we've hosted 52 events that served over 5800 people, switched gathering venues twice, had our first sponsored events, our first presentation events, introduced drink discounts, redesigned our logo twice, redesigned our website twice over & added a lot of features to it, etc. We've also enjoyed great international recognition as one of the most active and succesful chapters, even receiving an MVP award in spring 2007 from the main body of IGDA.

But most proud I am of the fact that I've managed to grow IGDA Finland team from 1 coordinator and the advisory board into a team of 6 coordinators, loads of volunteers and the advisory board. This enables us to do so much more as a chapter than any one man or woman ever could alone. It also makes it easy for me to move on, confident that there are others to carry on the work. This has also been the key factor why we have been able to grow every single year: bigger attendance averages as well as more and better events and activities.

But I am not fully done with IGDA Finland just yet! I will be joining the advisory board and as Lasse Seppänen steps down from the advisory board, I've promised to take over as the Advisory Board Chair. That's just a fancy way of saying I will now be one of the guys giving annoying advice instead of one of they guys trying to follow their advice. :)

I still believe very strongly in everything IGDA Finland stands for and will support it in the future as well, just from a more passive role, that's all. I wish the new coordinator team best of luck! And to the rest of you: So Long and Thanks for all the Fish! (And the PS3 + games!)

Signing off,

Jay