Gamers give over £14,000 and defeat Hellfire Henry at national convention

We are hugely grateful to Tabletop Scotland, the country’s premier annual board game convention, for choosing us as its charity partner for this year’s event at the Royal Highland Centre in Edinburgh.

Over the weekend, members of our fundraising team, event organisers, volunteers and thousands of board game enthusiasts raised over £14,000.

The convention was an opportunity to increase awareness amongst a vast audience that would otherwise have been impossible without Tabletop Scotland’s support. With this in mind, the Fundraising Team chose to swap the more traditional charity stall approach for a fun, interactive mission tailormade for the gaming community.

The result was Donations & Dragons, an immersive, fantasy-themed fundraising experience featuring our giant dragon, Hellfire Henry, elemental potion making and (enchanted) tablet-based games so players could execute donation-powered attacks to help defeat Henry.

There was also a legendary backstory all about the dastardly dragon, written by Scottish Huntington’s Association Youth Ambassador Khya Graham. Everyone who visited the stall left with an ‘adventurer’s guide’ which included Khya’s story, information about the charity, and ways to “quest for a cause” to help players continue fundraising for Scottish Huntington’s Association beyond the convention.

Gemma Powell, Senior Fundraising Officer said, “I am so proud of the team’s creativity, hard work and determination to make the most of this opportunity. We worked together to come up with ideas, design all the graphics and stall elements, and, crucially, make sure our messaging was not lost in the fantasy.

“A special thank you goes to volunteer George Park who donated his time to develop our wonderful web app featuring the game and Henry’s health bar screen which was on display throughout the weekend.

“A number of people visited the stall to tell us about their experiences of Huntington’s disease and how amazed and pleased they were to see the effort we were making on behalf of the community.

“The Tabletop Scotland organisers were an enormous support and went above and beyond to raise extra money on our behalf at bring and buy and tombola stalls and we had a brilliant response from hundreds of gamers who got involved, helped defeat Hellfire Henry and gave so generously.”

For Tabletop Scotland, the 2026 event beat all records for attendance and money raised for its chosen charity.
Tabletop Scotland’s Gemma Harper said: “It was an absolute honour to have Scottish Huntington’s Association as our charity partner for Tabletop Scotland 2026. Your team was very easy to work with throughout the year – we gave Scottish Huntington’s Association the space, tables and power and your team did the rest! Everyone was friendly, welcoming and appreciative throughout the weekend, and it was an absolute joy to work with you all.

“I’m grateful that we were able to help raise not only an amazing amount of money for the charity but also awareness. I spoke to a lot of our attendees, volunteers and exhibitors who were learning about Huntington’s for the first time, while I also found out more about the disease than I had known before. And everyone was raving about the brilliant Hellfire Henry!”