An event I love: Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu Board Game Nights

Every time I walk into Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu’s board game and net­work­ing evening, it feels like com­ing home. Locat­ed in the heart of the city cen­ter, the atmos­phere is gen­uine­ly warm and won­der­ful­ly relaxed.

The tables are filled with game boards, steam­ing mugs of drinks, and slices of blue­ber­ry pie – which, by the way, has been a huge hit. The cheer­ful buzz of con­ver­sa­tion fills the entire space, accom­pa­nied by the clat­ter of dice and the rustling of play­ing cards.

Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu’s (IH Oulu) month­ly event at Business­Asema is not just about gam­ing. Game night is a meet­ing place where peo­ple of all ages, from chil­dren to adults, come togeth­er to learn, share, and net­work.

Most recent­ly, in Octo­ber, IH Oulu orga­nized an event with a north­ern lights theme. We got to hear the best tips for spot­ting and pho­tograph­ing the North­ern Lights. I did­n’t know before that North­ern Lights enthu­si­asts have com­piled a map online show­ing the best places to view the North­ern Lights in the Oulu region.

The games and dis­cus­sions sur­round­ing them are con­duct­ed in Eng­lish and Finnish, and some­times in oth­er lan­guages as well. Lan­guage skills improve with­out you even notic­ing. Alias and Scrab­ble are often played in Finnish, while oth­er games are usu­al­ly played in Eng­lish.

Some­times one of the vis­i­tors brings their own games, and then we get to try some­thing com­plete­ly new. IH Oulu has asked for feed­back from game night vis­i­tors and recent­ly pur­chased new games based on their requests. The col­lec­tion cur­rent­ly includes over 20 dif­fer­ent games.

As an employ­ee, it is a spe­cial moment for me if I get to play even one round of my favorite games, Yatzy or Blokus, dur­ing the evening. I am delight­ed when I get to learn the rules of a com­plete­ly new game and test my skills at it. At these events, I some­times com­plete­ly for­get that I’m at work. Could there be a more enjoy­able job?

Three hours always seem to fly by way too fast. I’ve often noticed that after the event ends and the doors close at 8 p.m., vis­i­tors still exchange con­tact infor­ma­tion and maybe plan where to go next.

It has been a great plea­sure to see and hear that many peo­ple have made new friends at IH Oulu’s game nights. I myself have met peo­ple there who I can now call my friends. Most recent­ly, I was par­tic­u­lar­ly touched by a hug from a famil­iar five-year-old play­er.

The event con­sis­tent­ly receives excel­lent feed­back, which moti­vates us to con­tin­ue orga­niz­ing these events for the third year now. Each evening brings new encoun­ters, inter­est­ing sto­ries, and learn­ing expe­ri­ences.

If you haven’t been yet, I high­ly rec­om­mend attend­ing IH Oulu’s free game night at Business­Asema – you might learn some­thing excit­ing, find a new favorite game, or even make a friend.

Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu’s next game night will be held on Mon­day, Novem­ber 17, at the famil­iar loca­tion of Tech­nop­o­lis Ydinkeskus­ta, at Sepänkatu 20. Due to cater­ing, advance reg­is­tra­tion is required for the event. The best way to stay informed about upcom­ing events is to fol­low IH Oulu’s social media chan­nels (FB, IG, and LinkedIn) and web­site ihoulu.fi.

Annakaisa Vääränie­mi is work­ing as a Mar­ket­ing and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er at Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu.