2024 Year in Review
2024 is getting ready to stack the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights and lock the door behind it as it leaves. Looking back, I think we can say it’s been a pretty shiny year for the PA Browncoats’ Rivers and Bridges Brigade…
In June we underwent a soft rebrand with the launch of this shiny new website along with a new Facebook page, thanks largely to the efforts of Brian Diederich. And in August, for the 19th consecutive year, we held a Can’t Stop the Serenity charity screening here in the Steel City, this time at the Grand Theatre in Elizabeth, PA. That shindig raised $635.00 for Joni & Friends and the Veterans Leadership Program of Western PA, bringing CSTS Pittsburgh’s all-time total funds raised for local and worldwide charities to over $18,000. This year we dedicated our event to the memory of Firefly costume designer Shawna Trpcic, whom we lost unexpectedly in October of 2023.
On September 20 (“Unification Day”) we embarked on another re-watch of recordings of the original Fox broadcasts (complete with commercials) of the eleven Firefly episodes that originally aired back in 2002, each on the exact Friday date on which it was originally shown, at the exact time of its original broadcast. Over what was exactly a four-month span (from September 20 to December 20), fourteen different Browncoats attended watch parties at the cap’n’s house, including some Browncoats who were attending their first brigade event of any kind. Even on the final night, we still had Browncoats who were attending their first watch party of the year. And in case you were wonderin’, the two most popular episodes, at least in terms of attendance, were “The Train Job” on September 20 and “Objects in Space” on December 13.
There were also Browncoats from our brigade in attendance at the Browncoat Ball in Bethlehem, PA in late October. 2024 marked the third time that nationwide shindig took place on Pennsylvania soil, and if the Rivers and Bridges Brigade of the PA Browncoats has anything to say about it, you can bet dollars to donuts that it won’t be the last!
Yessir, I think it’s pretty plain to see we’re still flyin’. Maybe other bigger sci-fi fan organizations might look at us and say it ain’t much, but I’d say it’s enough, and we ain’t even close to bein’ done yet. Something BIG is bein’ conjured for 2025, and some of the Browncoats of our brigade are in on it. I almost can’t wait to tell you all about it, but the official announcement is coming at the Shiny New Year shindig in Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve, so until then we’ll just have to be content to blow out the candles and put 2024 to bed, knowing we can all dream of even shinier happenings for Browncoats in 2025.
On behalf of the crew of CSTS Pittsburgh and the Rivers and Bridges Brigade of the PA Browncoats, I wish you all a shiny New Year.
Keep flyin’,
Chris