DearRoyal Court Courtiers

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Royal Courts of Second Life

is

Celebrating it's Sixth Anniversary this September!!

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As many will remember, to keep the site going we must pay an annual subscription to NING and the next renewal date is July 21, 2015.

As we did not hold a Fundraiser last year, your support is especially appreciated for 2015.

The Basic package is still the best (and cheapest)one for us to subscribe to. The cost will be $300 which is approximately L$76,500.

RC SUPPORTERS:

I have created a new category, RC Supporters 2015 that comes with the traditional HeartBadge which is attached to your profile picture. Anyone that donates over L$250 will be added to this category as a "Thank You" for helping to keep this site up and running.

Donations are now being accepted inworld at the Petit Trianon .Look for the big Royal Courts sign and "Pay it" to donate.

RC SPONSORS:

An individual that donates over L$5000 is considered a Sponsor as well as a Supporter. Sponsor Logos are l isted alphabeticallyon Main Page in the Sponsors Section with link to a webpage of their choice.

Please provide me with a logo that is 200px x 100px and a link. Note that the link is restricted to pages/sites that are PG in nature.

I will be happy to make ONE change to the Sponsor information in the FIRST WEEK of its posting. After that there will be a L$1000 charge per change.

Many thanksyour support, it really is appreciated!!

Tatiana

P.S. Please note that the old RC Supporters 2013 category has been discontinued. A final "Thank you" toits 77 members

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THOUGHTS ON FUNDRAISING: Where do we go from here?

Back in 2013 we did a lot of brainstorming with regard to fundraising for this site and we were hoping that with the introduction of Ning 3.0 some of the ideas could be implemented to run automatically. Unfortunately Ning 3.0 never panned out so our plans were shelved.

I definitely look back fondly on the days when Ning was free!!

Right now it's costing us approximately $25 usd a month to keep this site running. I did some research and much to my chagrin found out that was actually cheap. I would love to move us over to another platform that is state-of-the-art but it's going to cost us around $50 usd a month (i.e. double what we are paying now).

I don't know how much longer Ning is going to be around. First they were bought out by GLAM MEDIA, then they were bought out by MODE SOCIAL. Neither of these companies seem to be concerned with "the little guy" which we definitely are. I have started archiving our information so that it is safe just in case they fold without warning.

I do have an alternative platform in mind but what's stopping me is the price. I don't know that this community can sustain the cost and though I'm willing to volunteer my time I'm not willing to pick up the bill.

All this to say, if you have any fundraising ideas I'd love to hear them.

From my point of view, I can't take on anything more that is manually intensive. Automated is good!

Put your thinking caps on and let's see what we can come up with!!

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Hi Mercury

If we don't raise enough for an annual subscription, I will switch to the monthly plan. Since we didn't do any fundraising last year I missed the chance to gage site interest as it relates to donations but I'm still not worried about it this year. We'll see how it goes.

We're very fortunate to have a core of dedicated members who continue to enjoy their time here. What I would REALLY like to do (as mentioned above) is to upgrade the site by moving us to another platform. I think we deserve the latest & greatest!!

So I'm actually hoping that we will exceed expectations allowing us to make the move.

I'd like to open up the site to a broader community more "VirtualWorldHistorical Communities" than "Royal Courts of Second Life" but I haven't been pushing this aspect because I was waiting for the Ning 3.0 transfer. Now that we know that's probably not going to happen it's time to start looking at a new strategy.

Interesting times for sure!!

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Hey Tat, it sounds like whatever the course of action ends up being, you need to raise funds to keep some form of discussion site in operation, correct? Whether it's on a different platform, or Ning or Ning Jr. (provided Ning survives), annual or monthly, we need to contribute if we want to have this as a tool for communication. And Merc brings up an important point: there aren't as many active people on the site, because at present SL has fewer active historical players. For that matter, there aren't as many active historical sims and those that remain tend to share the shrinking pool of people with an active interest in this stuff.

So yes there are things that we might look at doing to raise additional resources for supporting our discussion site -- for example, maybe not just soliciting donations of Lindens, but also how about soliciting donations of things we all make, such as jewelry, clothing, weapons, textures, furnishings etc., to sell at various donated locations on various historical sims -- which might generate some income from people who don't have a direct interest in the site as participants and contributors (in effect expanding the pool of people we are drawing funds from). But maybe this is also a good time to look at reorganizing the entire concept here and adpating to the reality that the market this site serves has changed?

Should this site perhaps include more emphasis on other grids besides SL? Should there be separate sections for those other girds (which also might help promote their use?) and perhaps special "reporters" or "editors" assigned to solicit and collect information from other grids?

Should the theme and scope of the site be expanded too? More people means more activity and more sources of support. To get more people, should we move beyond the very specific and to a certain extent, very narrow category of "Royal Courts," and include all historically themed communities we can find in SL and on other grids?

Maybe this is a good time to do things differently?

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I just popped inworld to make my donation. I also dropped Tatiana the 2X1 banner and website link inworld. I see that the donations total now stands just over 27000L. It's getting there. Tatiana, I do appreciate what you do in providing this site. It's a lot of work and I have no desire to do it. You are greatly appreciated!

I agree with Professor Stern that we might consider broadening our focus and, hence, our appeal. It would seem to me to very sensible to open this up to all historical role play and educational communities. In fact, my dear friend, Miss Trolley Trollop, and I were recently discussing how we wish there were a site like this one for more contemporary historical communities that do not involve royalty, crowns or castles. I myself am the driver of six avatars who exist in four different time periods. I post much of what those avatars have to say on my own websites, but it would be LOVELY to have a site where they could interact with others of the same time period, in much the same way my Fanny and Hester do here. I agree with Professor Stern that broadening our appeal might bring more people to the site and encourage more to donate.

I also concur that it would make sense to open this site to historical communities in other grids. Again, more membership means more potential money.

Now, what is your deadline? When must you have these funds in hand? Given a few weeks (three or more), I would be happy to host an event designed to raise funds for this site (or whatever site you choose for us. I imagine some of our friends could be called upon to help with such a fundraising event. Would it be appropriate to host a Decades Ball to which everyone comes dressedfortheir favorite historical period? I imagine we could get a neutral site to host such an event, a site that is not period restricted so that it would not matter that the periods are all mixed up. (I have a couple of possible sites in mind, but would not ask them until we have some consensus that an event like this would be a good thing to do.) I imagine live music could be had for this event as well DJ streamed music. It could be open to the general public and all donations would go to the cause of paying for the website. I also have an idea there are many people, already members here, who would love to help organize such an event.

This may not be a good idea. It sounds like a good one to me, but I have been wrong a time or two in my life. Just ask my daughter. She'll tell you. She'll recite a litany. But I digress.

Thoughts?

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that's an interesting idea Stephanie -- the fact is for lots of us, the interest in history does cross boundaries and time periods -- the hard part would be trying to decide with alt and outfit to wear for a party like that

but seriously I can't think that it would hurt to try to foster more interaction between the different time periods and places

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Are the numbers shrinking because people are going to opensim for historical rp? Land is certainly cheap in OS and it would make sense to me if builders and RPers were going there to be able to have LOTS of land and LOTS if prims. I actually own LOTS of sims in Kitely, where individual sims get 100,000 prims. I pay $35 permonth for 30 sims. Seriously. They are mostly empty and I have no huge plan for them at the moment. I took them as sort of a longterm investment in my work and in my Virtual worlds play. But I digress. I really am wondering where the RPers are going.

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Lorsagne, all the chatelaines of the Haven (from 1600-2015), the current chatelaine's American cousin Trolley Trollop, Mrs. Mary Delaney, Fr. Camara and "a cast of thousands" as yet to step forward heartily second, third and into infinity applaud the comments and suggestions of Steph and the Professore.

For Lorsagne and company's typist, SL, open sims, etc., etc., give us the tools to experience time as the continuum Trolley's 'pen pal' Mr. Einstein posits in his Annus mirabilispapers published in 1905 in the Annalen Physic scientific journal which has the practical benefit that what we call 'time travel' in SL sometimes lets us see and experience as we have never done so before the threads that do weave through human history. For me, experiencing those "ah hah!" moments is the great appeal and joy of historical RP, communities and greatly assists in creating plausible historical fiction.

Ning is a great tool to add to the mix. I would love to see more people participating and have a hunch that widening the potential audience will encourage participation of people who don't see themselves as members of a "court" or tied to 16th through early-1900 European history.

That being said, keeping track of multiple RP communities with an expanded "royal court" presence would present the administrator who already works long and hard on this with a whole new set of chores, responsibilities and demands on her time and begs the question, "How many angels can fit on the head of a pin." We know the answer: up to the limit of the servers' capacity...(grins remembering the array of PDP-11s in the living room when she was growing up.)

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Personally, I don't believe that people going to opensim for historical rp makes for much ofa reduction in the SL historical rp numbers (if any at all).

Having said that, we've had people here on RC from other grids and will continue to do so. Way back when, Events use to be limited to SL only but haven't been for a while now.

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A Decades Ball sounds wonderful!

As far as the time frame goes, July 21st is the deadline for the annual renewal soa decision with-regard-to site direction has to be made before then.

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I'm really going to show my age here by admitting that I've actually programmed a PDP-11/10. I'm sure I still have my Assembler Instruction Card around here somewhere (just in case!!).

You would toggle in the instructions andthen save them on a ticker tape. Unfortunately feeding the ticker tape back into the machine usually caused it to break destroying your program )

Ahhhh ... the good old days!!

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That's good to know. I was confused by the fact the site is names, Royal Courts of Second Life. Maybe others are confused too.

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Oh good that means we have time to plan an event and see if it brings in enough mullah to keep us up and running. I have a major life-changing event going on in rl this coming week. After Memorial Day, I will have considerably more time at my disposal. I love planning one-time events and I suspect my friend, Trolley, might like to help. Anyone else have skills and time they wish to offer?

Would mid-June be early enough to have a Decades Ball? Can I go ahead and start planning? I am thinking June 21 might be an ideal day, but that is Litha, the summer solstice. Are any of the the rp communities planning a solstice festival that weekend? If so, we could look at June 13 or 14 or 27 or 28. I would prefer the 27th or 28th but can make it work the 13th or 14th. Best of all would be the 21st if that date is not already spoken for.

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But maybe this is also a good time to look at reorganizing the entire concept here and adpating to the reality that the market this site serves has changed?

I agree that it's a good time, Aldo. It's actually a bit overdue (because of the wait for Ning 3.0) but better late than never.

The general philosophy of the site has always been inclusive:

• Though there were a lot of "courts', communities were always welcome (hey I'm from the Duch de Coeur!) which proved to be a good thing as "courts" are currently on the downswing of the cycle.
• People from other grids are also welcome although you do have to have a Second Life account to be able to register. That's for administrative purposes, to avoid spammers. and it's pretty effective. Right now it's a manual process and I don't see another viable alternative given our current technological constraints. If anyone has other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Site Branding is a Challenge:

Obviously the site name "Royal Courts of Second Life" has connotations that aren't so inclusive. Unfortunately, we can't change the Name or the Link unless we migrate the site. Moving to another platform would give us this opportunity.

If we stay put, we could do things like changing the banner and note/comment/guideline text etc.

Should this site perhaps include more emphasis on other grids besides SL? Should there be separate sections for those other girds (which also might help promote their use?) and perhaps special "reporters" or "editors" assigned to solicit and collect information from other grids?

We can easily set up Groups and/or Discussion Categories for different grids. I do find the Ning 2.0 group functionality to be a bit lacking but it's the best we can do on this platform.

Love the idea of special reporters and/or editors!!

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I think Mid-June is early enough.

I really wouldn't worry about the plans for other communities (it's like herding cats). If you like the date, post it in Events with more information TBA and reserve the spot. That way others can work around it )

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I sensed you were MY kind of gal, Tatiana. LOL. I will put it on the calendar and start beating the bushes for help.

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I think maybe adding a subtitle of sorts to the banner, mentioning that its open for other historical communities in SL (and maybe other girds as it has been discussed here) and not only courts could work as a substitute of changing the site's name for now.

I like the idea of scheduled posts exploring SL's new/interesting sims and events that mattered to the historical community, that could be very fun

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Miss Trolley and Sister Cousin definitely will help.

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ahh....yes. and the oil from the chads of the paper tape a) smelled like the dickens and b) stained liked crazy which made mothers go nuts.

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Happy to help if you need

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what would you think of holding the event on the un-named island that is in between the Duchy and Bay of Naples?

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Unfortunately as an Openspace sim it probably couldn't handle the traffic as I'm hoping for a crowd )

We could use the Petit Trianon or I can ask Skye about one of her chateaux.

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Thanks to the following, we're off to a great start!!

Sofia von Essen
Julia Auditore
Lady Leena Fandango
Lady Bluebird of Orkney
Curtis
Claire-Sophie de Rocoulle
Serenek Timeless
Aldo Stern
Stephanie Mesler
Aldo Stern
Lorsagne de Sade
Alessandra di Fiorentino-Conti
Lady Hartfield

ETA: To keep things simple, I'll post the list of new supporters once a week. I'll do my best to get the badges to you within 24 hours

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Would love to have help, Claire-Sophie. Give me a week or so to get past my daughter's high school graduation and to get the out-of-town guest gone. Then, I'll have more idea what we need and what is possible. In the meantime, I am looking at options for venue. Thanks so much!

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Yay! I have several things in mind with which I know you have experience and expertise.

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I feel very strongly that this event should actually be on completely neutral territory. It needs to be evident that it is not the project of any one rp community and is connected to no single historic era. And, yes, I am planning for the multitudes. The locations at the top of my list actually overlap more than one sim so it is possible to have more than 100 avs present at any given moment. Maybe I'm shootion' for the moon, but why not? If we don't shoot for it, we certainly will not hit it.

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Yay everybody!

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Starting a new Forum thread to discuss Decades Festival and Ball.

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That's the spirit! Grand aims beget great achievements.

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Many thanks to:

Jean-Matisse
Candace Ducatillon
Jacon Cortes
Quecay Amat
MarieLouise Harcourt

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Thank you very much!

Comte de Vaudreuil
Tiamat Windstorm von Hirvi

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Merci Beaucoup!!

HenriettaMarie Bregonis
Jean-Matisse

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Thank you so much!!

Madame Desireme Fallen

For those of you that haven't already done so, please take a minute to contribute when you have the chance.

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Many thanks go out to Blake Panache, Mayor of Philomenaville, whose fundraiser was held on FridayJune 19th.

Blake built and then donated a "one of a kind" Colonial Revival home for auction. A dance was also held as part of the festivities and a good time was had by all!

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It was a lovely party, too! And more than $13,000 lindens were donated with 100% going to Ning!

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Merci Beaucoup!

Sidonie Laborde
Crotian Egerton de Bexar
Nora Clementine Fernsby
Mercury Gandt

Plus we have donations coming in from various Decades Donation Boards on Vahalla Island, Bushside & Philomena

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Yay!! I hope Saturday is a landslide!

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Me too!!Everyone worked so hard, I'm sure it will be a smashing success

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If people come and have a great time and learn a little about history and enjoy the events and exhibits I think the Festival will be a huge, huge success--and I have faith that the donations will be generous.

So many people from all over SL have worked so hard to create DECADES...Collaboration isn't always easy either in RL or the virtual world, but DECADES to me is a wonderful example of "you can go faster alone, but further with others." Space shuttles next to House of Cards next to 17th French over-the-top "follies' next to Egyptian chariots and etc. Who knew! How great and what a good kick-start for next year's DECADES Festival and Ball!

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Many thanks!!

Marian Valeska
Skye Varriale

We currently have 29 Supporters/Sponsors for 2015 plus many others who contributed through the DECADES Donation Boards.

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Some silly building project I worked on last month has sapped all my L and more so I can't contribute at the inworld location right now. But I was happy to dump those L into the Decades project and so glad it raised enough L for now.

It would be great if something ongoing could keep building on the collaboration among history sims!

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Mistress Merry, I suspect that your Tarot House of Cards accounted for a lot of lindens that were contributed at the festival.

One last hurrah for the festival site this Sunday...and yes! an ongoing presence inworld for Decades RP & Education . . . notice will go out later today with "kick off" (I can see it now, the pink 59 ragtop racing the Egyptian chariot with the Spitfire giving chase....) Sunday

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A final THANK YOU to everyone involved in the DECADES project which raised over L$26k to support this site. That's over a third of the required funding!!

Please note that I did my best to assign RC Supporter badges to those that contributed via DECADES. It's a bit complicated matching names etc. If I missed giving you your badge please contact me & I will happily assign it to you.

We've now exceeded our initial goal of funding this site for another year here on NING and will continue to look at ways to improve not only what we have in place here but possibilities for moving to another host.

THANKS!!

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The first of the DECADES Galleries is almost ready (I am slow!). A couple of tiny donations have come NINGs way from it while it's still under construction, but hopefully once it's open and has examples of "very special" things made by creators from around the grid (including RCHC) it will provide a steady source of donations and help facilitate "cross-traffic" from within and without the RP communities.

Sister (who hopes to have a post ready about the Galleries before Monday)

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Sounds great, Lorsagne!

Many thanks for the update

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If there is anything i can do to help please let me know. I can make a matching necklace or bracelet to go with the sunflower brooch to give away to people who donate. Just let me know what you need...and Antiquity will be more then happy to help.

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It would be fantastic to have the sunflower brooch or necklace or bracelet! I have a space in the Gallery for each historical sim . . . Antiquity is ready and waiting. Will send you a notecard soon as I get inworld with LM, and details.

There is large bookcase in the gallery with a brass plaque on each shelf naming the various RP sims: ROMA, ANTIQUITY, etc., etc. And books that you click on and get NC describing the sim, how to get there, links to web info, facebook pages, blogs....the content is up to the people in each historical community. The idea is to let people who come to to the Gallery take away information about each RP (or educational sim) in SL (and other locations) and either buy things that creators have donated (proceeds either all or in part to NING) or make an outright donation and receive a thank you gift.

The plan is to also have 2-way portals so people can directly TP to the various communities. That will take a little more time, since we either need a landing spot or a "brick and mortar" virtual Galleries branch at the various sims.

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Give me a shout when you're ready to discuss a branch for the Coeurs

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Definitely! Thank you!

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