I arrived at the Nonprofit Commons SIM to meet with MeRcEdEs Ochs, the head planner for the first ever Scavenger Hunt sponsored by the Nonprofit Commons group.She'd sent me the TP request and greeted me as the site rezzed into view. We were at the main entry point. The signs displaying the names of the nonprofits that had offices here were the first to come into view.I turned to find Merc, as she is called by friends, and saw her av begin to type."Hello Nazz, it's nice to finally meet you. Ronnie will be joining us momentarily. I've just offered her a TP." She Said"Hello Merc, it is nice to finally meet avatar to avatar." I said smiling. "While we wait for Ronnie, we can chat a little about the scavenger hunt. Raising awareness seems to be a challenge for all organizations in SL, how well do you think this kind of event will promote nonprofit awareness in SL?" I asked."I think that it will increase awareness very well, because in order to find the clues for the hunt, participants will have to go into each nonprofit building. Hopefully the information in each will catch their eye and they will learn more. Also we will have free gifts in each nonprofit that will give information and a land mark ...so they may return to learn more." Ochs replied and then continued: "There will be note card givers in each participating organization, about twenty-five to thirty between both NPC SIM's."As she spoke, Ronnie Rhode had arrived. Besides running the 'Garden for the Missing' nonprofit in SL, she is deeply involved with the NPC group. Hearing Merc's response she referred to two of the attractions that people can use when visiting the NPC SIM's. "One thing that I noticed is that the magic carpet and horse-drawn carriage do, when people ride them is they often see one or more nonprofits they want to learn about and when the ride is over, they go over there. This should serve in a similar manner." She said, and then continued: "I'll let Merc speak about the scavenger hunt, she led the team in planning out the event.""I saw in the event poster that two different dates were listed. Is it one or two events?" I asked."The Scavenger Hunt begins on Friday Aug 22nd at 7pm PDT (SLT) with our opening Ceremonies and goes through to Sunday August 24th 8pm PDT (SLT). So it is one event spread over 3 days. We have musical acts planned for the opening and closing ceremonies. We've been working with Circe Broom to book the acts. Both Kim Seifert and Vincent Merricks will perform." Ochs said in reply and then continued: "The opening will of course be the start of the hunt and the closing ceremony is when the prizes will be awarded. We have tons of prizes, but the first prize is L$ 25,000, second prize is two Kiva.org gift certificates and we have various other prizes that have been donated including gift certificates to shops in SL.""Can you tell me how the hunt will work?" I asked."Well, the scavengers will have teams of one or two people. The clues as I said are hidden in various nonprofits on both NPC SIM's. The idea is to have the clues well hidden inside the buildings to get people inside to learn more. The hunters will then have to hunt throughout second life to find the answers to the clues and take snapshots of themselves with the answers. So the team that gets all of the snapshots back to me or Coughran Mayo first will win first prize and so on until we run out of prizes. We are hoping to have enough to be able to give everyone a prize." Ochs said. I asked if she and Coughran were to be the contest judges and she replied, "Yes, but I have a group of wonderful friends who are supporting me on this adventure."I commented that it would be a busy weekend for them both.She replied. "Yes it sure will be.""Merc has been working on this for a couple of months, so the credit is all hers truly. Coughran did the main design and Merc is the executioner." Ronnie said smiling."Yes very true ... but Ronnie and Coughran have been my main supports on this ... guiding me through what I didn't know." Ochs chimed in.I thanked both ladies for their time and told that I thought it would be a great event and wished them success before TP'ing back home to start writing their story.By Nazz Lane
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