Welcome Aboard
Howdy, ladies and menfolk. On behalf of my entire crew, I’d like to welcome y’all to a new era of the Rivers and Bridges Brigade of the Pennsylvania Browncoats. If you’re reading this, that means you already found our shiny new website, which Brian Diederich and his associate Marina Weis have worked very hard for almost a year now to conjure for us after our previous site fell right out of the sky.
I don’t think I’m exaggeratin’ at all when I say that this new website adds a certain respectability to our fan group that we might have been lacking to some degree in years past. Sure, we have long had a reputation among Browncoats of being somewhat of a ragtag little band that punches above our weight-- our Can’t Stop the Serenity screenings rival any in the world-- but when you see a website as shiny as this, you tend to think of the truly massive Browncoats groups like the California Browncoats and the Utah Browncoats, who are officially registered non-profit organizations. Believe me when I tell you as the cap’n, this website makes me feel more’n a little pressure to up my game so our brigade can live up to its new online image. I also gotta admit that I’m all manner of excited for the challenge.
Let’s take a moment to talk about what we Pittsburgh Browncoats do best: Can’t Stop the Serenity. We are the only city in the world that has held a live screening every year since the beginning, and we have no intention of stopping in 2024. The 19th annual CSTS Pittsburgh charity shindig will happen on August 10 at the Grand Theatre in Elizabeth, PA. The doors will open at 6pm for the usual fun, games and misbehavin’ we’re known for, and we’ll screen the Big Damn Movie around 7:30pm. All proceeds from the event will benefit Joni & Friends (which we chose this year in memory of Firefly costume designer Shawna Trpcic, whom we lost last year and for whom it was a charity of choice) and the Veterans Leadership Program of Western PA. CSTS Pittsburgh has its own dedicated page on this site, where you can find everything you need to know about the event, including how to get tickets and/or donate. This year’s shindig is made possible by our sponsors Geek Frontiers, Jump Cut Theater and MazurPGH, LLC, to whom we are all kinds of grateful. We purposely timed the official announcement of the event to coincide with the debut of this site, so I am happy to declare that tickets are on sale now! We hope to see you there.
CSTS Pittsburgh won’t be the only Browncoats shindig happening this year though. For the third time in its history, the Browncoat Ball returns to our fine commonwealth, with Browncoat Ball Bethlehem taking place this fall from October 25-27. If you’ve never attended a Browncoat Ball, it is a truly special event, and it’s even shinier when it’s happening in our corner of the ‘verse. If you conjure you might be interested in attending, or even just want to learn a little bit more about what the Browncoat Ball is, then this website has you covered. Just head on over to the Links page, where you’ll find a link to the official Browncoat Ball site among the various PA Browncoats sites that are listed.
But if you’re among them that can’t make it to the Browncoat Ball, that doesn’t mean there won’t be any shindigs for you this fall. 2024 is a calendar year in which the original airdates of the eleven episodes of Firefly that first aired on Fox will fall on Fridays, just like they did back in 2002. With that bein’ the case, the cap’n (a.k.a. this guy) will be dusting off his DVD recordings of the original Fox broadcasts of those episodes (complete with their original commercials) so our brigade can have watch parties on the anniversaries of their air dates. Watch for information as to how you can RSVP to attend those shindigs in the months to come.
And I can assure you, we’re not done there. We will do our level best to keep you abreast of all the happenings in the ‘verse that a Browncoat would want to know about. You’ll be able to find that information on the Shindigs page of our site, which includes a calendar of events that we’ll be updating regularly.
In the meantime, feel free to have a look around. This site has layers and layers of pretty. Brian and Marina did all the work, so I got no right whatsoever to be proud of it, but I still gotta tell ya-- it’s gorram hard not to be. I sure hope you feel the same way.
So, whether you’ve been with our brigade from the beginning or you’re a fresh recruit who’s just now tryin’ on that coat of a brownish color, let me be the first to say welcome aboard our new site as it breaks atmo for the first time. We hope you enjoy sailin’ with us.
Keep flyin’,
Cap’n Chris