But for us Browncoats, the 2013 CSTS season has now begun!  Odile and I spoke with Matt from the Beeston Browncoats in Nottingham and Kerry from the brand, spanking, new London Browncoats about their CSTS events happening this year.

You can follow both on Twitter, @LDNBrowncoats and @BeestBrownCoats, to find out more of their upcoming CSTS events and you can always peruse http://www.cantstoptheserenity.com for all links to all CSTS events this year.

Don’t forget, we are also having our affiliate in Birmingham but there is limited space.  If you want to join us on 13 July (I keep telling Odile that we’re really celebrating Harrison Ford’s and Patrick Stewart’s birthdays!), email us at sendingawave@gmail.com.

As always, we hope you will enjoy the show and if you do, you can leave comments here or on our Facebook page or Twitter.

You can find our podcast on itunes, here is a direct link to our page.

If you use iTunes as your podcatcher, please leave us a review.

Of course you can also download the show directly from here!

Odile and Wendy

Welcome home, Commander

After a year off we have decided that we really should have a Sending a Wave – CSTS meet up!

This will take place in Birmingham on the 13th of July.

The plan so far:

You turn up early afternoon

We have some food… BBQ or Tajine depending on the weather

We geek out on whatever we will feel like geeking out on.

We may (or not) watch something…

In the evening there is talk of going to a fabulous little North African place for food and belly dancing (watching AND dancing if you so want)

We will have a jar where you can drop a bit of money for us to send to Equality Now of course.

So, if this sounds good to you and you are free on the 13th of July, send us an email and we will get back to you!

Read you soon!

Odile and Wendy

Wendy

With our April show, we officially hit three digits – 100 shows!  As you can imagine Odile and myself are very proud.

But, of course, we want to thank you, our listeners for continuing to download.

For this show, naturally we pat ourselves on the back a bit and discuss the Jayne hat cease and desist orders which were recently served on members of Etsy.

Join us in May!

Wendy

Espionage Cosmetics

You find Browncoats in the most unexpected places and two US companies are attempting to follow the Captain’s instruction “to make the signal go further” in a most unique – and fashionable – way.

Two cosmetic companies, Sweet Libertine and Espionage, have launched their very own “Firefly”/”Serenity” inspired ranges.  Readers who have attended the Emerald City convention earlier this year, will have seen Espionage’s table in the Dealer’s Room.

Sweet Libertine have titled their range “Can’t Take The Sky From Me” and for those of us who are ethically-minded, many of their colour ranges are fully vegan.  You can find the “Browncoats” range (and I think the group are topped with their own dinky Jayne hat) at Espionage Cosmetics.

Sweet Libertine

Wendy

I had a fantastic time at Pyrkon 2013 in Poznan, Poland.  It was my first time to the country, and I want to thank fellow Browncoats: Jakub Cwiek, Marek Okroj, Patricia Sorensen and Pati for looking after me, translating, the vodka and being such wonderful hosts!

This year, Pyrkon nearly doubled its attendance numbers to just under 12,000 which made it Europe’s largest convention.  The Browncoats of Poland are swelling their numbers and I am pleased to say that I took part in one of the “Firefly” panels, was able to screen some footage from CSTS and I have been informed that fans from Wroclaw have contacted CSTS about holding an event.  Job done!

The convention itself reminded me of DragonCon. It has been organised into separate tracks/themes, but there is a lack of TV SF because my hosts tell me that it is a genre that isn’t regularly aired on Polish TV, but it is readily available on DVD.  The fun differences were the enterprising fans who set up a mini-kitchen (yes, you did read that correctly) in the dealer’s room and were making sandwiches and selling pizzas, etc, there was also a SF/fantasy/Anime themed cupcake table – oh, you’ll see the photos once you’ve read this …  I HAD to try the “In Space No One Can Hear You Munch” cake complete with a fondant icing chest-burster which was absolutely delicious!  The convention also turned one of the exhibition halls into a con dormitory as Poznan doesn’t have enough hotel accommodation and what there is is too expensive for a number of the attendees.  Tabletop gaming, fantasy card games and LARP are huge in Poland so everywhere you looked, there was a game/scenario running throughout the length of the con.

It was a fabulous experience and one that I can thoroughly recommend.  The video that I have included is a Pyrkon tradition and it gives a brilliant snapshot of some of the attendees/costumes  that the con offers.  Just one thing, it was -15 outside the centre:

Now some photos:

waiting in line

scratch built Millennium Falcon

Mandalorians

shy Cthulu

Dealer’s Room Kitchen

cupcakes!!!

gaming

steampunk across nations

Masquerade

Harley Quinn cosplay

Welcome to our March show and, I’ll warn you now it’s another long one …

The reason why it’s so long is the delightful chat with Denise Gary from Kids Need to Read and Cindy, the organizer of 2013′s Browncoat Ball to talk about the official Nathan Fillion birthday fundraiser and what’s the latest with the Browncoat Ball and we discuss some finer points of English grammar to boot!  If you still have yet to show your support for both cause (Kids Need to Read) and event (the Browncoat Ball), you can visit the KNTR website, here, where you can follow the banner to show your support to The Captain and the Browncoat Ball website, here.

Wendy was also lucky enough to attend the performance of “Much Ado About Nothing” at the Jameson Dublin Film Festival earlier this month and she gives her verdict (psst: it’s a thumbs up!)

Hope you join us again in April – the one where we officially hit three figures …

As always, we hope you will enjoy the show and if you do, you can leave comments here or on our Facebook page or Twitter.

You can find our podcast on itunes, here is a direct link to our page.

If you use iTunes as your podcatcher, please leave us a review.

Of course you can also download the show directly from here!

Odile and Wendy

After such a bumper January, Odile and I just decided to ease back and catch up on news from around the fandom and have a little rant …

So where to start?!  These notes are not likely to follow the show order (you have been warned):

The Browncoat Ball – for all their ticketing details, please go to their website, www.browncoatball.com

Mikey Mason tour details: www.mikeymason.com and you can download a track or two and watch videos.

Marian Call: www.mariancall.com and follow the link on the home page to purchase the “Something Fierce” live album.

For ALL information about Can’t Stop The Serenity including where the events are and how you can become involved, go to their website, www.cantstoptheserenity.com

Details of how to celebrate Nathan Fillion’s birthday next month by donating to Kids Need To Read, please go to their website, www.kidsneedtoread.org, and follow the banner links.  Go on, show the Captain some fan love, you know you want to …

I’d post website links for both the Jameson Dublin Film Festival and Glasgow Film Festival, but the screenings for “Much Ado About Nothing” are sold out – sorry!

You can hear Odile on the lastest episodes of  The Shonky Lab and Highway To Mars podcasts on iTunes OR their websites are www.shonkylab.co.uk and www.highwaytomars.com.  And you can also download the latest The Question Podcast asking “what is a real fan?” from iTunes or their website, www.thequestionpodcast.com

Join us for our March show in … um … March.

Wendy

As always, we hope you will enjoy the show and if you do, you can leave comments here or on our Facebook page or Twitter.

You can find our podcast on itunes, here is a direct link to our page.

If you use iTunes as your podcatcher, please leave us a review.

Of course you can also download the show directly from here!

Odile