News and photos

Issue No 50:
15 October 2008

Welcome to our fiftieth PartyChitChat.

Here is our news:

• I am having a long stay in Chicago. I'm hoping it will inspire me to write some new mysteries set in the US.
• I finished new small standard versions of the mystery set in Hawaii. It is called "Hawaiian Lunacy". So now along with the play format for 12 to 16 guests, there is a bundle of small standard versions for 8, 9 (5f4m), 10, 11 (6f5m), 12 and 13 to 16 guests.
• We have two of our mystery party games available on CDs: "Celebrity Celebrations" and "Who Killed Santa?". The CDs contain the same files as the normal kits you download from our website – so host's guide, invitations and clue files. But they contain the small standard versions for 8 to 16 guests and the meet and mingle version for 17 to 30. They each cost $39.95 US plus postage. To order these, within the US phone 707 994 5067 Mon–Fri 12 Noon–2:00pm Pacific Standard Time. Each of these CDs would make a great birthday or Xmas gift!

• In the coming months we are going to be looking at some of our kits and seeing if we can make them more educational with the help of an educational psychologist Dr Scott Terry (see The Ardent Center for details). We will be integrating executive function skills into some of our kits and creating more school versions. Please let us know if you would like to be informed when these new versions are ready by emailing info@merrimysteries.com.

In this issue, we have articles about:

• Our photo competition winners
• Our decoration competition.

Our photo competition winners

We have had a number of entrants and winners this month. The winners are:

• Moneen (Mo) Wuthrich (Canada)
• Kimberly and Michael Menssen (USA).
• Alana Cook (USA)

We are commencing a new competition with a closing date of 15 November 2008 (see photos.htm for details).

Decoration competition

Unfortunately this time we did not receive any entrants in our competition.

We are commencing a new competition with a closing date of 15 November 2008 (see decor.htm for details).

Here is Moneen (Mo) Wuthrich's photo from her "Celebrity Celebrations" party:

Moneen sent in this feedback about her party:

"Hi,

We did the Celebrity Murder Mystery with a group in our church. We had around 60 participants and I was exceedingly grateful for the directions that you provided! We had people ranging from grade 5 all the way to adult and had our younger kids as servers. Because there were so many people and I was handling the food, I didn’t take a character but served as “butler” and host for the evening instead. That worked out great because I was able to watch, take pictures, and keep the flow going as well as keep the food coming! We all had just a blast! It was incredible to see the lengths people went to, to dress up. Everyone had so much [fun] that one of our adults told me that she and I will be planning another one just for the adults. Currently my younger daughter (a server at the party) is going to have a mystery for her birthday party – we look forward to finding out “Who Stole the Cookies”. Will let you know."

Here is Kimberly Menssen's photo from her "Celebrity Celebrations " party:

Kimberly sent in this feedback about her party:

"Hello! I purchased Celebrity Celebrations and used it for a Halloween dinner party this past year. At the time, my husband and I had just moved to Charlottesville, Virginia for law school. This mystery dinner party kit was a perfect way to meet other law students and to start a lot of great friendships. The couples had such a good time that we plan on hosting a mystery dinner party this Halloween and next year as well. What a great tradition . . . we can't wait for the fun!"

Here is Alana Cook's photo from her "The Search For The Truth" party:

Alana sent in this feedback about her party:

"We did this party a couple of years ago as a Halloween event for our students and it was a BLAST. I’m looking through all of the new parties and seeing what one we would like to do this year. It was so much fun and I can’t wait to see how the kids will dress up this year. They went all out for the “Search for Truth” party so I know they won’t disappoint this year! Thanks for the great organization of the kits and giving us everything we need to put on a great party!"