Mind Candy

I will be representing Mind Candy at this year’s Women In Games Conference (being held between the 10th and 12th September at the University of Warwick, near Coventry) by hosting a panel called “Getting Down With The Kids”. My panel will explore the link between the growth of social gaming in the youth sector and greater opportunities for women in the games industry. I have enlisted three panelists; Rachel Bardill – Interactive Executive for CBBC and one of the brains behind Adventure Rock, Louise Ridgeway – long standing supervising animator at games development company Rare Ltd, and Toby Barnes – MD of Pixel Lab, a consultancy and production company to the video-game and digital content industries. The details of the conference can be found at the WIG conference website at http://www.womeningames.com.

In addition, both myself and our Community Director, Rebecca Newton have put forward panels for SXSW 2009. These panels can be viewed, and more importantly voted for, at the SXSW interactive panel picker at the links below. Help us out by checking out our panels and giving them a vote!

Playing To Learn – Educating Kids Through Gaming, Divinia Knowles
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/1335

Everything in Moderation, Socializing in Excess, Rebecca Newton
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/838

In their debut season Mind Candy FC has already claimed their first piece of silverware. After weeks of hard graft, great teamwork and steely resolve Mind Candy FC landed the Most Sporting Team 2008 which was unveiled to rapturous applause at the end of season drinks event in a wind-swept Battersea.

Although no one can say that MCFC played the beautiful game particularly well (we lost pretty much every match to be honest!), it just goes to show that it is the taking part that really does count. Saying that, we hope to be back next season, fitter, stronger and more skillful than ever and maybe with a few new signings (see how far the boss’s transfer kitty goes!) we could be pushing for promotion next time!

Mind Candy FC would like to thank the refs and organisers at The Elms for the past 10 weeks.

Team: Marty “The Foreign Legion” Batten, Ryan “Chopper” Conway, Ben “Ghost-faced Thriller” Geliher, Michael “Gazelle” Smith, Chris “Guns” Hoyes, Steve “The Tank” Pocklington.