Back Again So Soon?

Yes, I am! I have things to do and some important stuff to talk about. Exciting things and new things that are happening. A few exciting announcements and a quick cross-section of how our House is doing is in order.

News!

First: welcome Diana Khaan aboard! We're happy to have you in our wonderful House, and congratulations to Gresee for recruiting us a new member. This is what we mean, guys. We've had two new members this week. Recruiting is the best way we can show that we're a huge ball of active-ness to the Dark Council. I strongly encourage this.

For those of you looking for students or masters, please contact Rhiann via email! We're putting out Master surveys and Student surveys to pair people up for when we get some more students.

Finally, a quick announcement. Liam's going to be LOA until the 5th of August, or probably the 8th (he's old, he travels slow), so if you need him for anything, send it to me and I'll deal with it ASAP. Cool? Cool.

August: What's On First?

Ladies and gents, August is going to be one hell of a month. Since Liam's gone and we want to try something new, it's HOU COMEDY MONTH! Prepare to tickle your funnybones and have some fun making some competitions. Most of them are designed to be quick and short and doable in about 20 minutes so that you can get your participation up and have some fun in the process. Each comp runs for seven days starting on August 1st, so here's the lineup that you need to know!

• Running all month is Revak's Create A Shark competition. That's right. Design us a shark. Shark Week eat your damn heart out.
• Week One's competition is a caption competition by Revak - muppets and puppets abound.
  
• Week Two's competition is a limerick battle by Nathan. Make us laugh!
• Week Three's competition is Turel's EPIC RAP BATTLES OF ODAN-URR!
• Finally, Week Four's competition has you showing us how insane the Summit gets in the office with Rhiann. Go crazy and write us a short fiction and tell us what kind of silliness we get up to.
  

Get hype for hilarity. Have fun. Be awesome. The other Summit members will announce their comps via email when the time's right as reminders (hopefully).

Gaming and YOU!

There's a huge stack of gaming-related announcements that I want to go through, so let's smash these out.

• First of all, a HUGE congratulations to Turel and Seraphol (and Sight and Alaris) for beating Diablo 3's end boss on the hardest difficulty and claiming a DJB club first! They were told by Valhavoc that their 'gear was not high enough' - and they turned around and did it anyway. This is the power of will. This is what it means to defy the odds, to never let someone hold you back and tell you no. Congratulations, guys.
  
• Secondly, our own beloved Gresee has set up a new channel in IRC: #pazaak. This is a project that she's undertaken on her own to get members into Pazaak, as well as create the pazaak.org website their own official channel (and it's a great recruiting tool). If you aren't already, do visit the channel. Please remember that if you DO want official DB matches for CFs they should still be set up in #dbgaming.
  
• Thirdly, a couple days ago saw our first all-HOU flashpoint on TOR - with Turel, Nathan, Kaira and Liam! We're looking to expand our TOR presence once more, so let me know if you'd like to do that. Rhiann and I run flashpoints most days. Don't hesitate to log in, or ask people to join you!
  
• It looks like people want to game. You want games? Let's do games. Get all your details on your dossier. Battle.net names, TOR character names, et cetera. Make sure your dossier is up to date. Get Skype, get on IRC - Turel, Rhi and I skype and game, I know Turel, Edgar and Seraphol et al jump on teamspeak. Coordinate. Play. Win. This will segue nicely with our month-long gaming competition - I'll talk about that below.
  

Competition Central!

Mirus, you mentioned a CF comp?
That's right, I did. We're going to host a comp. Simple: Whoever earns the most CFs during August wins. We want to promote gaming because it's a simple activity we can all do regardless of how good our computers are; Pazaak is easy and runs on any computer with flash, or tablet devices, or whatever. We want to increase our TOR presence too. And we want to have loads of fun! So get out there and earn CFs - no need to submit to the comp. Also, hint: There's Gorefest where you get double CFs. Submit to that comp when it's on... and it might give you the edge.

What's on aside from the August comps? I'm glad you asked! Here's some of what HOU has going on:

• Edgar's DJB Fantasy football legague! American football. link
  
• The Knights of Allusis run-on! Everyone's invited to play soldier. link
  
• Darth Ansel! Zednich runs a comp with lego/action figures. I'm entering. How about you? link
  
• Tales of the Jedi - Heart of the Forest! Be V'yr for a day! link
  
• Build an Olympic stadium! Become an architect maybe? link
  

On the topic of the Leadership Rewards competition, we've already had 7 members submit to it. This is good! I'm hoping to get fully half the House submitting to this by the end of August. That's my goal. About 30 people having done this exam. If you haven't done Leadership: Rewards, do it! It's a great insight into how a medal is awarded and for members young and old it's more SA credit and also good for applying for leadership/position work.

As usual, for the rest of your competition needs, be sure to visit the Competitions Page.

Awards, Exams, Promotions!

I'm going to preface this with the following: This is five days. This is what you absolute legends have achieved in just five days, since I became Aedile. See for yourselves and be proud of what you and your House can achieve.

• Diana Khaan: Promoted to Apprentice
  
• Gellm'arco'nuruodo: Reached SA Rank II, Galactic Languages, IRC Basics, Cryptography 101, Sentinel Core
  
• Ji: Leadership Rewards
  
• Justin Wayne: Philosophy II: Cults
  
• Kaira Rohana: 1x Crescent with Emerald Star, Leadership Rewards
  
• Lu'aisha Gresee: 1x Anteian Cross
• Mirus Hi'ija: Leadership Rewards, Leadership Studies, Gaming 101, 103, 201
  
• Revak Kur: Leadership Rewards
  
• Rhiann Baenre: Dark Pundit - Vendetta, Dark Pundit - Essentials, Gaming 101, 103, DJBWiki: An Introduction, Vendetta 1, 2 & 3, Essentials 1-6, Leadership Rewards
  
• Sa Ool: Leadership Rewards
  
• Serapol Ceartas: 2x Pendant of Blood, 1x Anteian Cross, Dark Maven - Combat, Dark Savant - Tactics and Combat, Hand-to-Hand Combat
  
• Seridan Brehevik: 1x Crescent with Quartz Star
  
• Solari: 24x Seal of the Crusader
• Turel Sorenn: 2x Pendant of Blood, 1x Crescent with Topaz Star, Dark Maven - Philosophy, Sith Core, Leadership Rewards, Philosophy: I
  

This does not count Clusters of Fire, because I get a single email for them once a week. Believe me, there's more than just this going on (Turel got, as best as I can tell, about 50 CFs last night!)

I'm going to do these from now on. I want to share and celebrate what you guys do. I want you guys to know that we do things, that your activities are being noticed - and ultimately, at the end of the day, will be rewarded.

The Comments Section

This is what I want people to talk about in the comments! I like discussion and feedback.

This week: What should my report cycle be? Weekly, every 2 weeks, monthly? I'm curious to know what you think. And how much report fiction you're going to make me write. :P

Odan-Urr At A Glance

• Members: 58
  
• Newest Member: APP Diana Khaan
  
• Quaestor: Liam Torun ([Log in to view e-mail addresses])
  
• Aedile: Mirus Hi'ija ([Log in to view e-mail addresses])
  
• Rollmaster: Rhiann Baenre ([Log in to view e-mail addresses])
  
• Battleteam Leaders: Turel Sorenn ([Log in to view e-mail addresses]), Revak Kur ([Log in to view e-mail addresses]), Nathan Deciarius ([Log in to view e-mail addresses])
  

In Closing

I've been Aedile for less than a week and Odan-Urr has stepped up so much with only a slight prodding. I'm proud, you guys. I'm really proud to be your Aedile. I know not always will be this fast - and sometimes, with the right push, you guys will work even harder. I'm so super hype to serve on this Summit and I just want to take this time to say thank you to everyone for their contributions, for welcoming me as Aedile, and for being here with us all on this great journey.

You're the best. <3