Meet Report: Meet #1, Saturday 3rd February 2024

By Maz

As Bexi and I waited for the bus into the city, we still weren’t quite sure what to expect for the first Yorkicorns meet. We knew that some people had begun their journeys hours earlier, but the questions of “how many people would come?” and “would it be fun?” still lingered.

Around 10am, Bexi and I arrived at the agreed meeting point; Costa Coffee on platform 9 of York railway station and got a coffee and breakfast bap. To our surprise, the seating around the coffee shop wasn’t set up, and thus we were without a place to sit down and chill out for the pre-meet! Not long later, Aurora (with a huge Izzy plush poking out their rucksack), Librase and Katie arrived. We looked around, but with some cancelled and delayed services, the seating on the platforms and the waiting room were occupied. By 10.30am, with no seat forthcoming, Bexi, Librase and Katie resolved to set off early to secure the table at the pub, while Aurora and I continued trainspotting, on the off-chance another pony-person might appear.

At 11am, Aurora and I set off for The Postern Gate, a Wetherspoons pub just to the south of the city centre. Along the way we spotted sculptures in the York Ice Trail, including a piece called “Throne of Kings,” sponsored by Storage King. It wasn’t long until we arrived and discovered the advance party had secured a group of tables in the prime position: the far corner.

PiratPeter, Nekky, Solar Wave and Nick all joined us at the pub, and it wasn’t long until our table was full of pony plushies and we were talking about ponies, meets and conventions. Some played video games, others drew. We compared where the nine attendees had travelled from: only three from York itself, while the others came from as far as Carlisle (100 miles as the crow flies), Leicester (90 miles), Lancaster (70 miles), Nottingham (70 miles), and Manchester (65 miles) – some valiant efforts!

There was a constant stream of food and drinks delivered to our table courtesy of the Wetherspoons app (although we were only informed by a staff member toward the end of the meet that we had misread our table’s number as “9” instead of “6”). As a gift to attendees, I had printed small stickers saying “I went to Yorkicorns #1”, and to tease Bexi, I also printed small stickers that said “I met Bexi at Yorkicorns #1”, which were both well received and now feature on a phone, tablet and laptop.

An important task for attendees of Yorkicorns #1 was to design the mascot. With York’s huge history, there was a lot to draw upon. The consensus trended towards a yak with a unicorn horn (or “yakicorn”, if you will), wearing a helmet, reminiscent of typical Viking imagery. Names such as Astrid, Alruna were suggested, although the most popular seemed to be Björk (like York). PiratPeter applied himself and we quickly had a sketch of Björk the York yakicorn. A second mascot named “Freya” was also agreed upon.

Before we knew it, it was 3pm and the scheduled end of the meet. Two had to leave to begin their journeys home, while Bexi treated the rest of us to a guided tour of the city centre, with a stop to get bubble tea, a particularly amusing stop to admire a statue at the stonemasons’ workshop at York Minster, and a walk along the Shambles, before saying goodbye for now.

Thank you for everyone for coming along, I had a great time and from the messages in the Discord server, it looks like you all did too! I look forward to the next one on Saturday 2nd March!