The Gamers United club on the Citrus campus has been hosting game nights for all CF students, this opportunity needs to be taken advantage of. These game nights have been happening once a month since January, and while numbers have been increasing, there are still students that haven’t heard of this event. Alyssa Shinaberry has been president of the Gamers United club since 2019 and has been in charge of these game nights.  

 “We will always try to have fun events for students to forget about stressors of life and connect with their peers”, said Shinaberry. Game nights involve both board games and electronic ones. The top winners are presented with prizes at the end of the night. Other fun events held by CF include trivia nights, like the one discussed in this article: thepatriotpresscf.com/trivia. 

In an NYU article on stress, it is stated that “55% of students, nationally, claimed their biggest stressor to be academic in nature.” As college students, we know it is easy to get stressed out, these game nights offer relief from that stress in a fun, entertainable way. We need to begin attending school events in general, and these game nights are the perfect events to start with.  

At the last game night event, twenty people showed up, which is the highest number this semester. The goal of these nights is to get as many people as possible to show up, which is why we need to go. Out of the twenty people, two went home with a newly released game, one got a game accessory, and another one won an older, yet still new, game.  

Sometimes prize winners trade games with each other until they each have ones they like, so you never know what you’ll end up with.  

In an effort to get more people to join, Gamers United has been advertising around the campus. They started by putting up flyers, which weren’t received as well as they had hoped. They then began putting up game-related memes around the school. They got a much better response out of these eye-catching memes, which is what led to the higher numbers.  

Next semester, the Gamers United club will be hosting many more game nights, and it’s important that we attend them. There are many clubs connected to CF, and these game nights allow us to do club-like activities without the pressure of joining one. These game nights should become a regular event to attend.   

CF students that attend the Ocala campus may find more reasons not to attend the game nights, but Citrus students should find a way to involve themselves if possible. Other events like Club Rush, available here, thepatriotpresscf.com/clubrush, are present at more than one campus. 

The main problem Shinaberry sees right now is funding. The Student Ambassadors Program has been funding the prizes and food served at these game nights. The club is working on getting their own funding, but without more members, that is unlikely to happen.  

We can help fund these events simply by showing up, in doing so we are expressing our interest and the school board will see these events as worthy of more funding.  

As CF students, it is our duty to get involved in school activities and help our fellow students and by attending game nights regularly, would be a fun way to make that happen. Without the proper funding, the game nights will still be likely to happen, but the prize giveaways may be limited. 

Shinaberry said, “With prizes or not, the games will go on.”