Report from the SP Annual Meeting 2014

Due to a busy first and SecondLife I have not been able to post a report from the Annual Meeting of Second Pride earlier, but here are a summary of my impressions.

For the minutes from the meeting and a full running transcript, please visit Second Pride; Second Pride Annual Meeting Minutes July 19, 2014.

Marge Beaumont, Karl Kalchek, Sutry, Petr Hastings-Vanbeeck, Kharissa Indigo & Baz Ceawlin

We started off with the department reports.

Chair - Petr thanked all that had volunteered their time and done a great job for Second Pride. He also reminded us all that the organization relies on volunteerism.

Treasurer - Marge gave us a summary of the financial status, in short all is well and the finances are in good order. (As a personal observation let me say that I believe that Marge may have been in contact with Esme Capelo concerning her presentation, as you see from the example below she used cute cats.) 

Community Relations - Karl informed us that the membership had increased with 25% over the year. He also reminded us that we should be proud of this year was an increasing diversity of the vendors, sponsors, and performers who were part of Second Pride Festival this year. There were many new sponsors and many sponsors who returned after leaving Second Pride for one reason or another over the years.

Security - Sutry reported that there had only been a few griefers that had been swiftly dealt with by the excellent volunteers on the security committee. 

Events - Khar informed us that working with the sponsors created some new and different ideas in this area, by combining main stage events with other stages and settings throughout the entire festival grounds highlighting each unique area. We also had our first King and Queen pageant, 57 DJ’s, a live band, a rock concert and some very talented live singers. This year having an interactive website and a Festival Guide with detailed information about the vendors and events was very helpful, as well as having the DJ’s register online. Having less stages then last year and list of availability of DJ’s on line made it much easier and faster to make the schedule. Kharissa concluded by leaving a short list of suggestions to the coming board.

IT - Baz told us that the Event survey had received about 45 responses from festival attendees. The vast majority or the responses have been Good to Excellent. The breakdown was:
Excellent 48%
Good 34%
Neutral 9%
Poor 5%
Terrible 5%
There were many constructive comments and suggestions made.. the survey will be summarized and passed on to next years board.
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Next we moved on to the question of proposed recipients of donations. A committee has been formed to decide criteria for worthy recipients of donations from Second Pride. The committee will make recommendations to the full board. A method to garner input from the community on where the money should ultimately be dispersed will be made soon.

The meeting next covered the election time table and procedures, among others

• Election procedures will be posted the Second Pride website on July 19th
• Candidate declarations will be accepted from July 31st through midnight SLT August 14th, per the by laws.
• Voting will commence at 00:01 AM September 1st and remain open through midnight September 4th.
• You must have joined the Second Pride Festival Group by midnight July 31st to be able to vote for your candidates.
• Members of the Second Pride Group will need to visit an election kiosk on the Second Pride sim.
• The election kiosk will provide access to an online voting ballot where members can vote for candidates of their choice.
• You MUST be a member of the Second Pride Festival in-world group before midnight July 31st to be eligible to vote. Joining of the Second Pride Group will be closed for the entire election period, July 31st through September 6th.
• Protections have been put in place to block voter fraud through the use of Alt accounts. If you are in a situation were multiple users in your household will be voting from the same device or internet connection, you must inform the election committee prior to voting.

Four proposals for changes in the by-laws were made, in attempts to remedy known problems.

The meeting then stood for one minute of silence in memory of the victims of Flight MH-17, which included over 100 AIDS researchers en route to a conference in Australia. (Picture above)

A call for volunteers to an election committee was made. If you are interested in participating and fulfill the requirements (see the minutes) send a notecard to Karl Kalchek.

Next meeting will be on Saturday August 2nd at 11 AM SLT.

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All in all it was an unusually long and intense meeting with many interesting subjects. The meeting was conducted in an orderly fashion under the excellent guidance of our chairperson.

Tomais Saves Zeus

After having attended a wonderful masqued ball at Dimi and Mark Tarantello's Venetian palazzo yesterday, I felt like being alone with my husband for a bit of heavy breathing. Little did I know...

When we arrived at our summer house we changed into appropriate attire, i.e. buttnaked, and decided that we would go out into the woods to play. As we arrived at the camping site my ever alert Tomais noticed that something was wrong and pointed it out to me.

The strait between the Zeus sim and our summer home was completely covered by globular prims that had been rezzed by a griefer - and kept on rezzing. The huge spherical prims went far up into the sky and deep down into the ground, covering most of the strait and much of the Zeus sim.

As Tomais started searching for the source of the attack (which was later located to a corner of the Zeus sim that was empty and listed as for rent), I pointed out to him that he was naked and would need to put something on before going over to handle the emergency.

My valiant and fearless superhero went right into the middle of the mess created by the griefer and located the source and also came up with a working solution on how to solve it.

The solution in this case, after it had turned out that Tomais despite having managerial rights could not return the objects belonging to the hacked account, was for someone to rent the parcel and with owner rights return the prims and disallow building.

Later when I talked with Tomais' brother Nikolai, he asked me if Tomais was wearing one of his superhero outfits while performing the heroic deed. I had to confess that he had not.

I made a mental note - as the superhero's official sidekick - to be more specific in my instructions in the future. Instead of just reminding him to get dressed I had to tell him to wear his Superman, Batman or any of the many other superhero outfits in his Inventory.

Solace Island Goes Out with a Bang

It is sometimes said that "All good things must come to an end, the bad ones just go on forever". I always hated that expression and I do not believe it is true. However, some good things do sometimes come to an end and if that happens it is, in my not so humble opinion, better if it goes out with a bang and not a whimper.

Solace Island has, since it was first established as a Swedish stronghold in SecondLife in the early days, been an institution that for a very long time was only paralleled by the Swedish Embassy sims through the avatars that inhabited the place more than anything else. In later years another Swedish stronghold has grown up around Iendi Laville and her Yadkin sims.

The Swedish Embassy - alas - went out with a whimper through a bureaucratic decision and without any closing ceremonies whatsoever. Not so with Solace Island, the inhabitants would never allow that.

Yesterday Apmel Goosson, Kandinsky Beaumont and Millimina Salamander invited us all over to say goodbye to Solace Island with a huge bang. They were assisted in this by the performance artist Ms. SaveMe Oh, who made it a mission of mercy to see to it that it did not go unnoticed. She may have a heart after all, although I know many among the cultural elitists in SecondLife who would adamantly deny it.

When I first landed on the sim yesterday my graphic card was assaulted by an attack of white penises and other rubbish which made me think "Has the woman finally crossed the line into complete and utter madness?". As it turned out it was a griefer-attack by some pathetic soul who wanted to get back on the venerable and admittedly obnoxious Ms. Oh, but without her refinement.

Once the griefer had been dealt with those of us who were there had a wonderful time. SaveMe Oh put up a tremendous show and had us in the audience running from a white box to a black boxes through rows of onlooking donkeys (black box) or sheep (white box). If you happen to see an extremely manly shape hanging by one ankle under three balloons in the pictures below, that's me!

 

Thank you for the party dear family and friends Millimina, Apmel and Kandinsky.

I have been informed that you have made plans for a new home, but if there should be a delay in moving in please know that I would always be happy to offer a temporary home for the refugees from Solace Island on Southern Charm. I could always knock up a trailer park at the location where the barn is, if you do not want to sleep in the comfortable barn itself.