The Chilbo Road Press

In Attendance: Kristine Kristan, McDaniel Sixpence, Gem Blue, Rachel Corleone, Alleara Snoodle, Corcosman Voom, Zedd Zeplin, Chibi Lexenstar, Polenth Yue, Maddog Easterling, Tara Yeats, Rubaiyat Shatner, Malburns Writer, Josain Zsun

First Time Attendees (please friend!): McDaniel Sixpence, Rubaiyat Shatner

Chilbo Annex Placement & Content Finalized – Sim Liaisons Needed!

Based on previous discussions, Kristine Kristan and Chibi Lexenstar developed a model Chilbo Annex building that will serve as outreach posts in the sims of Greater Chilbo.   The first Chilbo Community Annex location was placed in the Mindulle sim located at:  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mindulle/116/64/118

The first model Chilbo Community Annex in the Mindulle sim.

Inside the Annex, we’ve placed content suggested by the community, including the Community Directories, freebies, texture packs, the Chilbo Resident Welcome Kit, calendars, posters, and more.  Visit the Annex to pick up a copy of any goodies you might have missed!  The space also features comfortable seating for a chat, and shelving to hold sim servers and other functional objects that can be housed in the Annex facilities.

Fleep Tuque and Memorial Dae discuss the meaning of Chilbo
in the Mindulle Annex.

Barring any last minute changes to the structure or the content, the rest of the Chilbo Annex locations will be placed in host sims around Greater Chilbo over the coming weeks (see the map upstairs in the Chilbo Town Hall for other proposed locations).  Gem Blue, Zedd Zeplin, and Chibi Lexenstar are going to work on locating a reasonable spot for an Annex in the Soyeonpyeongdo sim, and we decided to keep the historical structure in Madhupak, with some minor changes to the doors to make the space more friendly and welcoming.

Maddog Easterling has volunteered to serve as the steward for the Kuwol Annex – but more volunteers are needed!  If you’d be willing to help keep the Chilbo Annex in your sim up-to-date and be an ambassador to folks in the local neighborhood, please sign up on the volunteer form!  It’s a great way to support the Chilbo Community and meet more folks in the area.

Incorporating Feedback from the Annual Land & Resident Census

A current proposal would limit the use of the subsidized newbie starter homes to
one calendar year to encourage more investment in the community.

Based on the data and comments from the Annual Land & Resident Census, we discussed several potential changes to more closely reflect the goals and needs of the community.  Some of the proposed changes include:

• To limit the use of the starter home/offices subsidized by the Chilbo Community to one calendar year. This would encourage folks who decide Chilbo is a good fit to invest in the community by buying land nearby or renting from other community members, while freeing up the newbie starter homes for new members.   In order for this to work, though, we need to provide an effective and easy way for people to transition from the starter homes to .. tier donors?  land owners?  rentals from other members?  This isn’t yet clear.  Thoughts about good ways to communicate this information or facilitate transitions?

• To encourage greater use of the Chilbo group chat feature. The majority of respondents to the Census indicated that they knew some Chilbo members, but not many or not well.  We want to encourage greater “network effects” among community members, and utilizing the group chat is a free and easy way to talk more amongst ourselves.  For those who find the group chat distracting, closing the group IM tab/window will eliminate the chat, and it can be re-opened at any time during the login session to get back into the discussion.

• To reduce group notices and consolidate “event announcements” to a weekly summary. Some felt that group notices were coming too frequently, so we’re trying to find the right balance between keeping folks informed about what’s going on and not spamming everyone with unnecessary reminders.   Though this in some way conflicts with other feedback from the Census that people want more reminders.    We’ll keep trying different combinations until we strike just the right amount!

• To encourage more discussion events, art events, commercial activity, and non-profit organizations in the community. Feedback from the Census indicated that people would like to see more of these types of events and spaces, so Committee Chairs and Members should perhaps focus on ways we might increase this kind of content.  We have many great spaces in the community for holding events, let’s use them!

Have thoughts or input about these proposed changes?  We’ll discuss next steps at the May 15th Town Hall, be sure to attend!

Linden Lab’s New Mainland and Machinima/Snapshots Policies

As part of the new Terms of Service (which everyone should read!), Linden Lab also announced new policies covering the Mainland, and governing the creation of Machinima/Snapshots on the grid.  We didn’t find anything particularly controversial about the Mainland policies, but discussed how the Chilbo Community should handle permissions about making machinima or taking pictures on community land.   The proposal:

• Chilbo Community land should have a blanket “Machinima/Snapshots allowed” policy. Private landowners can set their own preferences in land description, but we encourage openness where possible.

Everyone thought this was an agreeable approach, but we wanted to give those who couldn’t attend the meeting an opportunity to weigh in.  Unless objections are voiced at the next Town Hall meeting, we’ll probably begin updating the descriptions in the “About Land” settings for community property giving blanket permission to film and take snapshots on public lands owned by the CCBP group, and leave it up to private landowners how they want to handle things on their own property.

Chilbo Summer Fair 2010

Chilbo Summer Fair Grounds in 2008

The Chilbo Summer Fair is intended to be a celebration not just of the Chilbo Community, but also other communities in Second Life.  Previous iterations of the fair included workshops, panel discussions, events, fair rides, and lots more.  It’s basically a community-wide celebration of our residents, our projects, and all the things we love about Second Life!

With the European MetaMeets conference taking place in May, and the Second Life Community Convention taking place in August, we decided that July would be a good month to hold the Fair.    Exact dates and duration (do we do it over a weekend?  Run it for a whole week like last time) are still up in the air, and we decided it would be best to hold a separate planning meeting for those who are interested in participating.  Ideally, everyone in the community would contribute at least one event, build, or activity, and we’d like to invite our friends, neighbors, and groups from across the grid to participate too!

Save the Date!
Chilbo Summer Fair 2010
Planning Meeting
Saturday, April 24, 2010
@ 11AM SLT
Chilbo Town Hall

Please join us next Saturday to plan a terrific celebration of Chilbo!

Second Life Community Convention 2010 – Boston, in August!

Fleep Tuque announced that she has accepted a position on the Board of Directors of the organization that runs the Second Life Community Convention, a real life meet-up of Second Life residents.   Though we’re still negotiating details regarding venue and dates, the SLCC this year will definitely take place in Boston, and probably the weekend of August 6th – 8th.  More details coming soon, and Fleep invited any Chilbo residents who want to help with SLCC either in Boston or the in-world conference to let her know as soon as possible.  More info to come soon!

Community Partnership Updates

In keeping with this year’s theme of “Building Community Partnerships”, we have a number of partnership initiatives getting off the ground with other groups on the grid.  Updates on our current partnership projects include:

New Citizens Incorporated (NCI)

NCI InfoHub under construction on Route 10 in Chilbo sim.

Chilbo resident Tomkin Euler was unable to attend the Town Hall on Saturday, but he sent an update regarding the InfoHubs being installed on Route 10 in Chilbo, and Route 9 in Madhupak sims.  Much progress has been made on the Madhupak InfoNode, and construction has begun in Chilbo as well.  He’s working with Winry Carver and Jason Arun at NCI for the construction, and asks folks to please stop by and have a look.   Be sure to send any questions, comments, or feedback to Tomkin!

Metanomics

The Chilbo Community is now listed as an official Event Partner at the
Metanomics Event Partner landing hub.

Things seem to be going well with the weekly Metanomics broadcast from the Malburns MetaHub in Chilbo (SL) and on Reaction Grid, though we’ve had some technical difficulties on the Chilbo sim in Reaction Grid.  Malburns Writer reported that things have been a little unstable over there, but the broadcast from Reaction Grid went much more smoothly this week.  Tara Yeats is going to follow up with the Metanomics team to see about getting the Chilbo logo included on their website and at the main Metanomics landing spot.  Thanks Mal and Tara!  [Update:  It took Fleep so long to write this post that the Metanomics Event Partner hub has already been updated with a LM to Chilbo!]

East River Community

Overhead view of the East River Community on the Mainland.
Inset:  ERC Community Manager Jilly Kikuchiyo and Fleep Tuque discussing partnerships.

We’ve had some previous discussions with Indigo Mertel of the East River Community, which is also located on the Mainland, but have not yet established if a partnership of some sort would be beneficial to our communities or what form it might take.   Fleep Tuque has been a bit overwhelmed lately and asked if any volunteers might be willing to take up the conversation and see where it leads.  If interested, please let Fleep know!

Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS)

The City of Neufreistadt, a member of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators.

Fleep Tuque had an interesting conversation with Claude Desmoulins of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators regarding community governance models in the wake of the Governance in Virtual Worlds conference.  They tossed about the idea of hosting some kind of discussion or forum about self-governance, or perhaps a workshop about community building.  Rubaiyat Shatner mentioned that he has been a member of CDS for years and said he might be able to help facilitate the conversation, though he’s pretty busy too.  You can visit the town of Neufreistadt or visit the CDS website to learn more.  We’ll follow up with Claude and see where the conversation takes us.

Edloe

Fleep Tuque visiting the lush and lovely lands of Edloe.

Kristine Kristan volunteered to strike up a conversation with Crap Mariner about ways that our two communities might partner to host events or otherwise provide connections or benefits to our respective memberships.  Edloe is not on the Mainland, but it’s part of a creative and active community archipelago.  Kristine will report back and let us know how the conversation goes.

Relay for Life

Chilbo residents Alleara Snoodle and Kristine Kristan have placed
kiosks for RFL Team Passionate Redheads around the Chilbo Community.

Chilbo residents Alleara Snoodle and Kristine Kristan are both members of the Passionate Redheads team, and they are working on plans to host a benefit for Relay for Life in Chilbo.  The event is likely to be a concert of some sort, but they’re working out if it might be possible to host the charity event in conjunction with the Chilbo Summer Fair, if the timing works out.  More to come when we figure out the dates for the Fair.

Junky & Abandoned Parcels in Madhupak Sim

Creative camouflaging of a junked up, abandoned parcel in Madhupak sim.

Kristine Kristan raised the issue of several junky and abandoned plots on Madhupak.   There are several plots that are clearly abandoned First Land spaces, though some of them are not fully surrounded by Chilbo Community land, so we can petition to have them cleaned up but then they go to auction.  We decided to look at the top 2 or 3 really egregious parcels and figure out what approach would be best for getting them cleaned up.  Another issue is that the community group is currently maxed out at tier, so we’d either need to sell some outlying land or get more tier donors to cover any additional land acquisitions.  Fleep Tuque said that there are several chunks of land in surrounding sims that are currently owned by the CCBP group that could definitely go to interested community members, so if anyone is looking to move out of a starter home, please see Fleep – we have lots of options!

New “Real Estate” Listing in the Chilbo Road Press

Many Chilbo residents offer properties for rent or sale to fellow Chilbo members,
like this cute cottage rental in the Mangyeong sim from Tara Yeats.

Speaking of land, Zedd Zeplin and others suggested that it would be good to have a way to communicate with each other about land for sale or rent to or by other Chilbo Community members.  Many folks in the community have landholdings they’d be willing to sell to community members, or are starting new rental areas to help provide more options for folks who want more space/prims than the Chilbo Community starter homes provide, but there aren’t currently good mechanisms to communicate what’s for sale or available for rent.  Our current methods are kind of a hodge podge of word-of-mouth and a few kiosks in the Town Hall.

Fleep Tuque suggested that we might repurpose or add a page to the Chilbo Wiki to serve this function, but not sure that’s the best route since it would require folks to do a little work to format the entries in a visually appealing way.  We’re playing around with ideas, but if anyone has suggestions, please speak up!

Other & Announcements

The Kyonu sim south of Soyeonpyeongdo is marred by campers, abandoned
First Land plots, and large prim screens (that aren’t even phantom!)..

Zedd Zeplin and Maggie Larimore are expanding their land clean-up efforts into the Kyonu sim.   Kyonu is just south of Soyeonpyeongdo sim, and it will be a challenging case, with lots of abandoned First Land, camper spots, and huge prim screens.  Everyone wishes them lots of luck. 

Valentino’s Cards, Gifts, & Flowers shop to have a new entrance built in Madhupak sim,

Valentino Tendaze will be creating a new entrance to his Valentino’s Cards, Gifts, & Flowers shop in Madhupak, on the parcel of land that Josain Zsun picked up for the community some time ago.

Meeting was adjourned.  Next Chilbo Town Hall meeting is scheduled for May 8, 2010 @ 11 AM SLT.  Transcripts available in the Town Hall.

In Attendance: Fleep Tuque, Tara Yeats,  Malburns Writer, Kristine Kristan, Rachel Corleone, Corcosman Voom, Alleara Snoodle, Monarchy Republic, Bobo Bolero, Foxnsane Ceawlin

Chilbo Community Committee Chairs

The six month terms of the Community Chair positions have expired.  Some chairs volunteered to continue in their positions, some new volunteers came forward, and Rachel Corleone will be taking on some additional responsibilities for processing Membership Applications.

2009 Chilbo Community Committee Chairs

-  Director of Public Safety Rachel Corleone
-  Communications Director Malburns Writer
-  Technical Director Tara Yeats
-  Arts & Entertainment Chair Corcoman Voom
-  Commercial Chair Tommy Brouwer -> Absent from meeting, pending feedback
-  Education Chair Gann McGann -> Absent from meeting, pending feedback
-  Residential Chair Kristine Kristan
-  NonProfit Chair Lizzette Zenovka
-  Activities & Events Monarchy Republic

Malburns Writer suggested that Committee Chairs should schedule once-a-month office hours so that community members can discuss matters in between Town Hall meetings.  Everyone agreed this was a good idea, so committee chairs should talk to Monarchy Republic about getting your office hours on the Chilbo Google Calendar (or put them there yourself if you have access).

A tremendous thank you to those who have worked so hard to keep our community growing and vibrant in the last six months, and for those who are continuing or taking on new positions!

Chilbo Summer Faire 2009

Chilbo Summer Faire 2008 Fairgrounds

We will again hold the Chilbo Summer Faire this year, Monarchy Republic will be the main coordinator for the event, and a planning page has been created on the Chilbo Wiki  – if you don’t already have an account on the wiki, you will need to create one to make edits/contributions to the planning.  Questions about creating an account on the wiki?  Contact Tara Yeats.

Public Safety & Prims

Director of Public Safety Rachel Corleone reports that there are now over _6000_ scripts running in the Chilbo sim.  Please take a look at your location and see if you can figure out how many scripts you are running (by opening View > Statistics Bar and rezzing and derezzing items to see how much the Active Scripts total changes).  If you have unnecessary or very laggy scripts running, please remove them!  The Chilbo sim has been experiencing high lag spikes due to this overload.

Resident Alleara Snoodle has created a “load balancer” to distribute lag between the Chilbo and Madhupak sims to help alleviate this problem.

Arts & Entertainment

Rachel’s new cinema south of the Crash House

Corcosman Voom, Chair of Arts & Entertaiment, reports that Douglas Story will be coordinating an exhibit to feature Ryan Snook‘s fabulous avatar creations.  The trickiest part may be figuring out how to use bots to display Ryan’s intricate (and high prim) designs.   More info to come, hopefully Douglas can give us an update on the status.  Since the planned time frame is sometime in August, perhaps this would be good in conjunction with the Chilbo Summer Faire?

Rachel Corleone has opened up a new bar/stage/cinema right behind the Crash House, and wants to learn more about streaming video into SL, Malburns Writer volunteered to assist.

Kristine Kristan thanked everyone who attended the 4th of July picnic and fireworks celebration, and everyone who came out for her gallery opening and supported the artists on display.   Corcosman Voom made an excellent blog post covering the 4th of July picnic, see the Chilbo Road Press article at http://www.chilbo.org/blog/2009/07/didi-we-party-yes-we-did/

New resident Bobo Bolero is seeking gallery space in a Mature sim.  Most of the land owned by the Chilbo Community group is in PG sims, so perhaps other local landowners (Olando7 DeCosta or Valentino Tendaze) might be able to help with this request?

Graffiti artist Sil0ne Vendetta contacted Fleep after the Town Hall (so adding these notes as an addendum) to say thanks for the community’s support of his work.   He may be interested in doing an exhibit for the Chilbo Summer Faire.  Sil0ne contributes graffiti art around the Chilbo Community, as always, community members have “edit rights” over his work, so if something he puts up around your places drives you nuts, let Fleep or Rachel know and we’ll return it to him, otherwise, much thanks to Sil0ne for giving our community an urban “lived in” feel!

Residential

Kristine Kristan’s new residential buildings

Kristine Kristan will be taking over from Alleara Snoodle as the new Residential Chair for this term.  Kristine has already begun working on residential projects by creating new, lower prim starter homes for the rental properties.   Following the Town Hall meeting, she displayed her new works down in the Sand Box.   Rachel is going to help with replacing some of the older brownstown style rental houses with Kristine’s newer prim efficient models.

Commerce

Commerce Chair Tommy Brouwer was absent from the meeting, no additional updates.

Education

Corcosman Voom asked about this year’s Connectivism Course being taught by George Siemens and Stephen Downs.  Last year the Chilbo Community hosted a Second Life cohort of the course, facilitated by Fleep.  This year Fleep’s RL schedule is too hectic to be a main facilitator, but she did volunteer the Education Village in Madhupak as a potential site if another SL facilitator steps up.   You can read more about this on Fleep’s blog at:   http://fleeep.net/blog/2009/07/07/reconnecting-with-connectivism-cck09/

The Connectivism course is free and open to the public.  Fleep highly recommends it to anyone involved in or even remotely interested in the future of education

Non-Profits

Levittown Historical Society & Museum Office run by Bobkoe Nirvana

Lizzette Zenovka couldn’t attend the meeting today, no reports from the Non Profit sector, but resident Bobkoe Nirvana has opened up an office for the Levittown Historical Society & Museum down in Madhupak, right across from the SL HIV Center.  Bobkoe is rather new to SL, but wants to expand the RL presence of the Levittown Historical Society.

Activities & Events

Monarchy Republic will be coordinating this year’s Summer Faire.  See above.

Miscellaneous/Other

Kristine Kristan has donated an adorable little kitty to the Chilbo Public Library, stop by to check it out!  We discussed an appropriate name and it looks like “Hiro” from Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash” might be the winner. 

Speaking of Snow Crash, if you haven’t read it, Fleep highly recommends it!  Many things in Second Life come directly from the novel.   Tara Yeats and Malburns Writer also recommend “Halting State” by Charles Stross.  (Anyone want to add that to the Chilbo Recommends shelf in the library?)

Kristine Kristan has also created a “Route 10 Diary” as a Twitter feed about her travels along Route 10 in Second Life.   Check it out and follow her travels at http://twitter.com/route10diary

Monarchy Republic and MS Hawker are contemplating a “Chilbo Culinary Delights” weblog that may incorporate the Bakery and the Chilbo Nature Preserve and Garden, with recipes and other delectable delights.  Interested collaborators can contact them for more info.  (Tara Yeats‘ suggestion of “Chilbo Chewables” was greeted with some laughter *grin* and Malburns Writer requests that our vegetarian friends be considered!)    [Edit:  Originally said Kristine Kristan on this news item, corrected to Monarchy and MS!]

Meeting was adjourned.  Next meeting is scheduled for Saturday, August 8 @ 11AM SLT.  A full transcript of the meeting is available in the Chilbo Town Hall.

Cecilia Delacroix gives a poetry reading at the Chilbo Summer Fair 2008.

Yesterday, two exciting events at the Chilbo Summer Fair – Cecilia Delacroix gave a poetry reading of her Seasons Cycle in the Shells plaza, and accepted our invitation to become the official Poet of Chilbo!

Chilbo residents and visitors listen intently to Cecilia’s poetry in the Shells Plaza.

Cecilia has christened two of our public venues with their first ever performances, and donated the beautiful images to the Shrubbery Amphitheatre background, so we are very pleased indeed to have her with us. If any Chilbo resident needs to commission our Poet, please contact Cecilia Delacroix!

Rezago Kokorin leads the Virtual Artists Alliance Workshop in the Chilbo Sandbox.

Later that evening, Rezago Kokorin gave a presentation in the Chilbo Sandbox at the Virtual Artists Alliance Workshop. The premise of these sessions is simple: the host introduces a concept or technique that can be applied to building in Second Life, and the remainder of the session is dedicated to experimentation, using the concept or technique for artistic application.

Chilbo resident Kim Link asks a question while Rezago looks on.

Chilbo residents and guests took the scripts Rezago provided and began practicing the various techniques he discussed, asked questions, and learned about creating prims that are responsive to an avatar’s proximity. Rezago will be leading another workshop next Tuesday in the same place – be sure to join us!