Hello everyone!

Most of you have been around for a long time and know, that OpenCommunity has always supported charity – and we have always organized events to support charity fundraisers, like Community Weekends or even entire Community Weeks. We love fighting for a good cause and we are in fact quite experienced ourselves when it comes to organizing such events. Still, joining with Gamers Giving Back and participating in their charity events as one of the European hosts, seemed like a step up into a bigger world and we were quite excited about it. However...

...getting a glimpse behind the curtains doesn't always reveal what you expected and sometimes you have to realize that you don't like what you see. (I know that many of our commanders felt the same after joining one of our teams.) Partnering up with Gamers Giving Back has been in many respects an amazing experience, mostly because it feels great to be part of an event that spans more than one continent and because it feels like we can achieve so much more. It has also been incredibly frustrating, infuriating and disillusioning.

There are too many points of dissent between us and Gamers Giving Back to think that a cooperation between us could be anything but frustrating for both sides. Matters recently escalated, but because many of us have been looking forward to Pink Day in LA, we would normally have preferred to wait until after the event before ending our partnership. However, having the dubious pleasure of reading through some of the correspondence between @Lelling and some members of Gamers Giving Back, I don't see any other possible response but to part ways with Gamers Giving Back immediately. In my opinion their conduct was so far beyond the line, it was almost comical to read, and there is no way I could approve of us continuing to work with them while pretending all is sunshine (and Lelling continuing to work his ass off) – even just until after Pink Day – under the given circumstances.

How Lelling himself will react to this is (obviously) up to him, but as OpenCommunity we won't organize anything in cooperation with Gamers Giving Back anymore. We are still hoping to continue doing Tyria Pride, and otherwise would like to spend the rest of the year building friendships and enjoying ourselves.

If you have any questions or thoughts, join us on Saturday, September 21st at 18:00 CEST for our 6th Community Assembly. We'll be answering questions and hopefully will be able to have an open and constructive discussion about how to proceed from here. Separating from Gamers Giving Back doesn't mean we will stop doing other charity events, but it's just not on our radar right now. We want to make it absolutely clear that we're not trying to become a "competitor" of GGB (if such a thing exists in the world of charities), but we are curious about any ideas on what kind of activities or events we could do and what kind of causes you all would like us to support!

We hope to see you all on Saturday!