Relay For Life of Second Life releases new-style event boards

Press release

Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - For immediate release
Relay For Life of Second Life releases new-style event boards


Moonshade Pastorelli writes:

Relay For Life of Second Life (RFL of SL) is about to hit the grid. A new event board makes it easier than ever to list, promote, and discover events during the 16 weeks of fundraising. The RFL of SL 2010 campaign kicks off Saturday, March 13.
Some of the events to look out for during the campaign are races, DJ parties, live music marathons, fashion shows, and rodeos. A popular event is "Bid Me Bald." For every L$5,000 a team member raises, she or he must go bald for one day.


"I want everyone to be aware of the event boards--to touch them, to enjoy the fantastic events that the RFL teams put on," said Panza Eilde, RFL of SL teams chair. "There's joy in sharing the conviction to raise funds for research that will help people overcome cancer. We want people to come to events, socialize with others, and raise funds for a good cause. We want to hit that $300,000 US donation mark this year."


Event boards were created to publicly display images of upcoming events that support RFL. Clicking any image on the event board will provide a note card with information about the event, when it will be held, where it will be held, and who's holding the event. With a possible 40 events per week over 16 weeks, the event boards will be able to cycle through a series of images. The American Cancer Society (ACS) logo or mission posters will also randomly appear on faces of the displayer. Click these images, and the viewer is taken to a web page for more information about ACS and RFL.


Click on the banner at the top of the displayer and a blue menu appears with options that the owner can set, such as change the speed of the texture cycle, remove events that conflict with the owner's local events, and offer a copy of the displayer itself.


"One of the neatest things about the event boards is that the team captains can post their events in one location and with continuity," Eilde said.
To place an event in the displayer, RFL team members visit the middle floor of the warehouse at ACS Island. An in-box on a desk accepts a square, full-perm texture and a copy and resell/giveaway note card that contains particulars about the team event. The event image hits the displayer within one to two hours, and an e-mail is sent to the public relations team to get news about the event to various SL media. The event is also shown on the RFL of SL web page. When an event is over, it is automatically deleted. Teams are asked to place an event in the in-box no more than 10 days before it begins.

The new event boards were created by Charlene Trudeau, RFL of SL design committee chair, and the board itself was conceived and created by Dwen Dooley, RFL of SL survivor/caregiver chair and himself a cancer survivor.
"The idea of the design is that the displayers should all have the same look and feel so they're not confused as being anything other than an official RFL of SL event board for the ACS," Dooley said.


Event boards can be set up anywhere on the SL grid and are available in a variety of styles and sizes: a two-prim one-face displayer, a four-prim three-face displayer, a six-prim six-face displayer, and a 10-prim nine-face displayer. Most of the displays come in small, medium, and large; however, the one-face event board is also available in tiny. The largest displayer, with nine-faces, stands 6.5 meters tall and 5 meters wide. The six-face event board has three faces on each of two sides and is ideal for locations, such malls or outdoor settings. The other event boards can be easily set up on a wall.


"Even amidst the competitiveness of Relay For Life, there's a camaraderie," Dooley said. "We're all fighting cancer in one way or another. Celebrate, remember, and fight back. I think that's the best feature of this event board. A team associated with a venue will put out one of these displayers, and it will stay there and show the events for all teams, not just one. It will display events at different places and different times. It will improve fundraising for everyone. People will start coming to more events, and those people who don't know about RFL of SL will come to the events."


Tayzia Abattoir, event chair, said: “I am excited about new technology and whenever we can find uses for it to better our in-world program. This is a wonderful new informational outreach opportunity created by Dwen. He has worked many hours perfecting the event board and it is an exciting new tool for our RFL of SL program.

“It will make it much easier for team captains to get the information about their events out, not only from the listing on the event board itself, but also as the information fed into the system about their events is generated to our PR group to release to media outlets and list on our google calendar etc.”
Distribution of the event boards directly to RFL of SL groups began on February 21. Displayers may be obtained by others in one of three ways. Go to any current displayer and click the banner on the top. Select "Get a Copy" from the menu, and a boxed kit of all 11 displayers will be sent. These kits are no transfer. A free copy of the kit may also be found at ACS Island at

http://slurl.com/secondlife/American%20Cancer%20Society/151/162/51.

Xstreet SL lists the event board kit for L$1, which is distributed to ACS.
For more information about the event boards, e-mail Dwen Dooley at dwendooley@gmail.com.




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