Fox Reports gets an update with lots of new exciting features

Fox Reports began as a monitoring system for SkyBeam Sandbox. It was used to be able to file notes and reports about various people who caused mischief or broke the rules with repeated infractions leading to land or estate banning as appropriate, with the ability for all of the sandbox 'guardians' to have access to each others' reports. The system has a number of features geared towards making this information easily accessible by all admins without having the installation or trust network issues incurred with something like banlink.


I spoke to EriX Oh the creator or fox reports about the changes:


dana Vanmoer: What is FoxReports?
EriX Oh: A service for filing internal abuse reports and also managing Estates, via a webpage.
dana Vanmoer: Can you tell me some of the changes?
EriX Oh: - System supports multiple bots - that means, if someone has a sim in a different grid (like Beta), they can manage them too using FoxReports, and more "Bot-load-balance"
 - Scripting API support - means you can write your own programs/scripts (LSL does the job too) using FoxReports (Documentations will be released soon)
- Entire Server (!) replaced.... faster page load, faster line
- Entire Database revamped.... more flexible for future features
the system now also FULLY supports encryting: by adding an 's' next to the http - https://foxreports.lu
dana Vanmoer: Its even more secure?
EriX Oh: Yup, all clients get https free... (along with http)
dana Vanmoer: So a lot has changed?
EriX Oh: one thing remains the same..... the PRICES


Even more exciting are the new features which allow for estate level controls from the web. For any estate manager or owner who has ever been at an event and had to leave to go ban someone or restart a laggy region, the ability to launch a web browser and handle the situation remotely is a huge blessing. It further enables one to react to situations when not even logged into Second Life, like when one is stuck at work, for example. This also gives you the ability to give additional managers the estate level controls, even if they aren't Estate Managers in game, thus extending your management team beyond the normal 10 alloted.


Find out more about Fox Reports at the website http://foxreports.lu/ you can also try out the demo for yourself 
If you want to know more about Fox reports creator then you can read this fun interview http://foxreports.lu/faq.php
The first report I did about fox reports can be found HERE

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The Skybeam Fox Hunt

Among the events on Saturday at Skybeam's Third Aniversary bash, the residents took part in a fox hunt. Free horsies provided for all. But the chased could be a little "cagey" at times.

Who was the hunted and whom the hunter? Read in Community for more.

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SL-Newspaper 3rd Birthday Party

SL-newspaper hunt winner Callie Blackburn with CEO Dana Vanmoer

Thank you all who came to share our 3 Year Anniversary Bash

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Happy Halloween from SLN and Skybeam

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Come and join us for a spooktacular night

http://slurl.com/secondlife/SkyBeam/190/255/38

Prizes for the spookiest/funniest halloween costume
Random giveaways
Great music with DJ Qwark Allen

Find us behind our new office on skybeam

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New home of SLN at Skybeam

Our new office is built and our new home at Skybeam is ready. Come and visit, sit and have a chat in the lounge area while you peruse todays news.
Skybeam have made us most welcome and I am happy to be here among friends.
Overlooking the huge sandbox is great fun as there is always something new to see each day. You never know you may even find me out there building just for the fun of it :)
http://slurl.com/secondlife/SkyBeam/164/199/38

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Get your pink on for a 15-hour Pink-A-Thon for breast cancer awareness

SkyBeam Estates in cooperation with the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer is helping to spread the word about breast cancer awareness during breast cancer awareness month with a 15-hour Pink-A-Thon. The event, on October 17, is being organized and hosted by Nevar Lobo, Amethyst Starostin, Neill McCullough, Charlene Trudeau, and all the community at SkyBeam Estates. It will take place on two sims, starting at 6am SLT and finishing at 9pm SLT.

At TwoKats KoffeeHouse there will be live music throughout the day, with a special performance by singer-songwriter Kim Seifert at 6pm: http://slurl.com/secondlife/SkyBeam%20Estates/179/58/24 (there will be a detailed live music schedule posted at TwoKats nearer the time).

Meanwhile there will be dancing and fun at Ormsary Arts Centre, where Dakota Christensen (6am to 1pm), Bcreative Wilde (1pm to 6pm) and Cataplexia Numbers (6pm to 9pm) will be taking turns to spin their favourite tunes: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Scepterd%20Isle/147/99/33

ALL donations will go to Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, the premier breast cancer event of the American Cancer Society, raising both dollars and awareness to fight the disease.

_________________________________________________________________________

For more information about the Pink-A-Thon please contact Nevar Lobo. For more information about Making Strides Against Breast Cancer in Second Life please contact MSABC coordinator Synergy Devonshire

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Fox Reports, an SL innovation

Every now and then I find something new I wish more people knew about and utilised.
My association with Skybeam and its close knit community has given me, personally, a lot of great times in SL and not long ago I was visiting with Nevar (Lobo) when there was a griefing problem at the sandbox, not unusual in popular sandboxes, which Nevar as estate manager needed to deal with. I went to see if I could help and ended up becoming what Skybeam calls a Guardian, someone who helps to keep the peace and make sure things run smoothly.
What has this got to do with innovation? My introduction to Guardianship also introduced me to Fox Reports :
Fox Reports began as a monitoring system for SkyBeam Sandbox. It was used to be able to file notes and reports about various people who caused mischief or broke the rules with repeated infractions leading to land or estate banning as appropriate, with the ability for all of the sandbox 'guardians' to have access to each others' reports. The system has a number of features geared towards making this information easily accessible by all admins without having the installation or trust network issues incurred with something like banlink.

I spoke to Fox Reports creator Erix Oh:

Dana Vanmoer: What made you first think of the idea of fox reports?
EriX Oh: The main idea was, because I wanted to "report" to Charlene (Trudeau) the incidents, so she could look when she wanted ... later on, I added multi-user support, then E-Mailing and so on and also a common reporting-system... to stop everyone asking... "hey, do you've a note about ?"
... and then I had the idea to connect the SL's Estate system to the page, and ask Char (Charlene Trudeau) to put some sims "at risk" (as such a system never existed, nor was the library complete)
Dana Vanmoer: So it started a simple database of incidents and bannings, a way to keep records?
EriX Oh: The first system was simply a huge text-box, and a list with persons
Dana Vanmoer: What are the main advantages to using this rather than the normal estate tools?
EriX Oh: The main advantage is that you control your estate from everywhere where you've internet access... if you get an IM-to-EMail requesting a ban, you can execute it, not even logging into SL... (example from work, or in the train, if a long trip) the system is tested on PS3, Nintendo DS, iPhone/iPod touch ... e.t.c.
Dana Vanmoer: It sounds like a great advantage for any estate, where else would you say it would suited for?
EriX Oh: Generally, the estates function works only on private Sims, where they need to put my bot (and me) as EM ... it does not work on mainland owned sims, or simple land-owners, I could see it also being useful to places that have a gateway to SL or sandboxes.
EriX Oh: for these places, it is useful ... since the system allows more than 10 "EMs" (Estate Managers) .. and works even when the sim is a bit laggy, since the bot does not download textures and such.
Dana Vanmoer: How easy is the system to set up?
EriX Oh: It's in fact easy to setup... since you're not involved in the tech facts... you simply request it.. (using my support-page).. pay for it.. and I set it up... with your favourite URL ..like name.foxreports.lu. The sims, can be only added by myself, since I need to test it. and you setup only the users, who want/can access it
Dana Vanmoer: Is there anything you would like people to know about that I haven't asked?
EriX Oh: If SL's having problems (example login problems, TP problems) my bot can be affected too, only estate-related functionalities will not work - the reporting, will continue to work.
EriX Oh: and ... ! LindenLab does not have access to it, so - if an Abuse report needs to be filed.. you need to do that separately
Dana Vanmoer: For an estate can you tell me how much it would cost every week?
EriX Oh: For one estate & reports ... it will be 3000L$/week (three thousand) ... - the price list can be found on http://foxreports.lu/prices.php

I also spoke with Charlene Trudeau, Skybeams' owner and Nevar Lobo, one of the estate managers, and asked what they thought of the system:
Dana Vanmoer: What would you say is the biggest advantage of using the system?
Charlene Trudeau: For me, its the communication between administrators and being able to extend past the ten estate manager limit for estate wide kick/ban.
Nevar Lobo: For me as an estate manager, being able to restart sims , ban people and look back at past warnings.. so it gives me more flexibility around the estates . I don't have to be at one region on a constants basis .. i can get more work done instead of keep running back and forth for sim restarts.
One other advantage of the system is ... if you have multiple estates that you own .. regions under the same brand but on different estates .. you can include them all on the same system .. so if i have a problem on one of the homesteads and I'm on say our Zeppelinhiem Sim.. (which is over at Caledon) i can take care of a restart or issue from where i am .
Dana Vanmoer: Are there any downsides to the system?
Charlene Trudeau: That's an interesting question. I suppose that would depend on perspective. From mine, no, others might prefer the option to purchase the system one time they could install on their own and run, but that would be more headache for me than a recurring fee where its someone elses headache and I can simply use it.
Dana Vanmoer: How difficult is the system to use?
Nevar Lobo: The system is user friendly. There is forum you can use to ask questions... the forms you fill out for the warnings and such are easy to fill out.. and you can get any reports sent to your email so if you as a owner are not around when something happens you can see any report and /or pictures of the problem
Charlene Trudeau: Very. There a couple of things that maybe aren't the most intuitive but once you have been through it once, its very easy to follow.
Dana Vanmoer: What other advantages does using the system have over an entire estate?
Charlene Trudeau: You can get 'on the fly' maps of the parcels on any region, including who shows as current owner (group or individual), it also shows the for sale info, if any. Its helpful when you're trying to reconcile things, esp if you're like me and change things around on the fly as needed, you can also get snapshots of the sim statistics remotely, in case you need to judge whether that remote restart really needs to be done or not.
Oh, and one bit of extreme awesomeness for handling ban lists, you can sort it by date on the website and check off any you want to purge and clear them all with one button press from there. Within the normal estate tools, you have no way of knowing which is oldest, they are in alpha order, and trying to purge is a guessing game if you run out of space.
Dana Vanmoer: Skybeam does get griefing due to the sandbox - do you feel more confident about running a sandbox now you have this system in place?
Charlene Trudeau: oh yes, it makes it so much easier, we try to use a tiered level of warnings and bans for example, someone who violates the no vehicles policy, should be talked to and warned if they persist past three warnings, then ban.
By using the system, guardian 1 knows that guardian 3 already warned this guy and that he or she is issuing a second warning, not a first, without the system, we wouldn't know that and if someone comes back and says 'I was banned and there's no reason' we can look up and say well we have the following documentation (usually including pictures where applicable) of you doing this and this and that's why you were banned or 'gee, we don't have a record of banning you, let me correct that' because we are human and do make mistakes too :)

I see a lot of new ideas but this one is tried and tested and has been in operation for about 2 years - I just wish more people knew about it!

Dana Vanmoer

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Well SL showed us all their hope yesterday!

A huge THANK YOU to all those that took part
More images can be seen on the RFLofSL website HERE

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Breezes Thoughts on Skybeam

Yep My dear friends, I am up a tree

Ah, well so to speak. I do want to show you my home in beautiful SkyBeam Estates. This is a community so vastly full of the most talented, friendly group of residents that one could ever hope to meet much less live amongst. I am going to take you to many different regions, I hope you will come see us all I promise you will not be disappointed. The peace and tranquility here is above all the most pleasant. I wish I had a video to show you all the scenery that has been built and cared for by so many. It is the desire of Charlene Trudeau to make you welcome with her love of these lands.

ahhh our Community Center

Dancing and play cards and relaxing with friends . a sharp fast game of Darts maybe? Terrific DJ's for your dancing pleasure.

Lobo estates is where we have many a fun dance

Memorial Rockin 26 hrs of dancing. This is BCreative Wilde DJ and sim provided for by Wiccan Sojouner owner of Bewitched all for the benefit of Relay for Life, American Cancer Society, of which we are all working for the big cure. Come join us!
So many members I wish to acknowledge I can fill the pages with you all, where to begin I cannot imagine you are all at the top of my list. There is no where on the earth or Second Life any more wonderful than right here at SkyBeam
This, my friends, is the Mall at SkyBeam Muse Oh I do love these shops and you will too. oh i also meant to tell you, we have riding horses all through all the sims and you can spend forever going from sim to sim to see some awesome builds and I know you will love your experience. Invite your friends and make yourself at home

Find out more about SKYBEAM HERE and come and visit us
Breezes Babii

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What a week!

Actually its been pretty quiet all around, not helped by the fact so many friends have been hit by illness this week.
I have spent quite a lot of time on Skybeam as they changed from winter to spring thaw and had fun rebuilding Breezes and Glitters houses, its nice to be there and actually be made to feel like part of the community even though I don't actually live there - you will often find me at their events as they tend to be at a good time for me - but what was I saying, oh yes community; I expect there are quite a lot of communities in SL now and as it grows larger there will be many more, it must be a challenge in a virtual world to try to keep a community working together, just like in RL, you will find the bad apples in the barrel but I find in any community a good core to it can help to strengthen ties and its a great way to make friends.

Coming up soon is another community project I always get involved in that of the RFL clothing fair, I have had some inside info on the plans and this year the clothing fair will be absolutely mindblowing - I can't wait. Of course you will be able to get all the up to the minute events right here and we will do our best to talk to as many involved as we can, but knowing the sheer size this time around, it will a real challenge for us and one I look forward to.

We are still looking for some new writers so if you love events in secondlife or are determined to show the world what there is in SL pick up an application from our main office HERE just drop it to me inworld.
We also love to hear your stories and experiences from newbie days through to love and heartache, these go under our reader submissions banner in the appropriate section. drop us a snapshot too with a line of text - we want to show everyone what wonders there are to see and do in secondlife and for that we need your input - SL is so large now keeping up with all the places to explore is impossible but every now and then we all find a gem worth visiting or telling others about, Bixyl and Gemma are really good at hunting those out and letting you know in the explore section, why not tell us about somewhere you have found?

Dana Vanmoer

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So 2009 begins

It was fantastic to see the new year in with friends, a lot of the crew came to join me at the main office as well as close friends like Pup Witherspoon and I am actually glad it wasn't a huge crowd at least I got to chat and have a laugh with friends. It was a lovely atmosphere with DJ Qwark playing 70's 80's and 90's music for us. We were counting down to the European New Year at 3pm slt but we ended up staying until we hit midnight GMT with fireworks on both
Then I was off to Skybeam Estates and the New Year ball the amazing DJ Dakota Christensen was on a mission to see in each new year around the world going from 2pm SLT through to 1am today so if you missed the party last night you can still join in at http://slurl.com/secondlife/SkyBeam%20Muse/204/44/24 Here was a real sense of community and I felt at home.

Skybeam also announced their contest winners, over christmas Skybeam held 2 contests one for plot decoration with 3 prizes being awarded dependant on plot size and an Ice sculpture contest 3 prizes awarded to the 2 catagories or sculpts or non- sculpted sculptures and the winners were:
Decorating Contest , sponsored by Charlene and Amethyst of Captured Heart ..
each catagory gets 1st =3000, 2nd - 1500, 3rd = 750

Larger than 8192
Phoenix Ember 1st
Morgania Zilz 2nd
Tamsin Ireton 3rd
4096 to 8192m2
Crysta laville and Buck Morane 1st
Jaysyn Jameson and Harbinger Tinkel 2nd
Ticia Babii 3rd
Under 4096
Miranda Milestone 1st
Glitter Xeltentate 2nd
Breezes Babii 3rd

Ice Sculpture contest .. sponosred by Skybeam and Alessandra Pinklady
1st= 6000, 2nd = 3000, 3rd = 1500, HM = 500

Sculpted:
FIRST PLACE - #6 - Cameron Stubbs - Airship Terminal -
SECOND PLACE - #9 - Dana Vanmoer - Time Guardian
THIRD PLACE - #3 - Rowena Paine -

HONORABLE MENTION - #10 - Cheen Pitney

Non - Sculpted :
FIRST PLACE - Zanebono Capalini - #15
SECOND PLACE - #12 Jaysyn Jameson
THIRD PLACE - #11 - Thril Shan

HM - #5 Audrey Fotherington
HM #7 Azure Blackadder
HM #1 Vessus Candour

Later I popped into to the beautiful Roselindas Paradise with Rose and Eymerich Unfortunately not long after everyone finally rezzed my struggling computer finally gave up and crashed completely by this time it was almost 3am for me so I gave up. Thank you for the invitation Eymerich, I am sorry I couldn't stay.
I would like to thank all for making 2008 a great year and I look forward to a brand new year with lots of exciting challenges for us all.
2008 and has been eventful to say the least very firmly seperating the Lindens from the Residents with some VERY unpopular choices on the lindens part, my wish for 2009 is for Linden Lab to realise the damage they are doing to Secondlife and to act now before the good in SL is lost through mistrust of them.
I, for one, love secondlife as many I know do but now most stay for their friends and if large networks leave others will follow.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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WINNERS! and Thank you

What an amazing week! Here I will hand over to james to tell you all about the winners!
JamesT Juno:
Welcome everyone on the Prize Giving ceremonies for The celebration week of SL-Newspaper.
Thru the week we had a few contests and a lot of parties.
Tonight we will let you all know who has won the building contest and who has won the Fashion design contest.
First let me start by thanking the following persons / companies and organisations....
Foremost to everyone that has come along and enjoyed our events or taken part in the contests.
BNT Holdings for the sim !
Skybeam estates for combining their own 2 year celebrations with us and holding events here as well as donating a huge part of the prize. Skybeam, especially Charlene, Nevar and Amethyst, have gone above and beyond to make this celebration a success
M&M Creations for the huge prize packages
Styles of Edo for not only donating a prize but also getting up very early to help judge the Design contest
Best of SL Magazine and Boulevard agency, Frolic Mills and his team made a fantastic effort to get the fashion show off the ground. Their help shows that truly there are people out there that will do something just to be able to help and gives me hope for the future of SL
Another company that has gone above and beyond is Annette Wider and her partner Mahala Bing from Wilder PR who have helped us get the word out thank you both for your hard work.
And personally I want to thank my P.A. Dana Vanmoer for working day and night to make you all feel at home here and organise 99.9% of everything you see here.

A prize pack in total worth of over 90,000 L$ will be given away to Two winners for SLN and Three more winners for the SkyBeam photo contest.
Winners of the SL-Newspaper Building Contest. The mission was to build an office environment where a reporter would feel at home. Also should it be possible to actually place it into one of our newspaper offices. Max prim count was 25.

In fourth place is : Jangle McElroy
In third is : Leesa Back
Second is : Qwark Allen
And the winner of : a 10,000 L$ sponsorship pack from SL-N / 3000 L$ cash from Edo Tone, owner of "Styles of Edo" / 7000 L$ cash from SkyBeam Estates and finally a 10,000 L$ prizepack from M&M creations issssssss ....................

!!!! Sassy1 Fizzle !!!!!

Winners of the SL-Newspaper Fashion Design Contest. The mission was to design a free give-away costume for sl-newspaper using our logo or newspaper related textures. A wonderfulll fashion show we had yesterday brought us the following results ;

Joint second place were : Lemania Indigo designs AND Analog Jun.
Congratulations ....... !

The winner of : a 10,000 L$ sponsorship pack from SL-N / 3000 L$ cash from Edo Tone, owner of "Styles of Edo" / 5000 L$ cash from SkyBeam Estates / 3,000 L$ photoshoot voucher from Memories by Mystique and finally a 10,000 L$ prizepack from M&M creations issssssss

!!!!! Nany Piaggio !!!!!

And as a bonus Best of SL Magazine has offered to do a full page spread for the winner Nany.

For the prize giving ceremonies of the skybeam photo contest I ask the representative of Skybeam to steal the microphone from me ........

Amethyst Starostin takes the stage

Amethyst Starostin:
Good Evening Ladies and Gentleman. One of the events as part of the SL-Newspaper Celebration was a photo contest sponsored by Skybeam Estates. The theme for this photo contest was Celebration and could be taken anywhere on the Estates.
We had 13 wonderful entries and the judges had a very difficult time this morning choosing the winners. I would like to now announce those winners and award the prizes.
In 3rd place - Phoenix Rising by Phoenix Ember!!
Phoenix has won a $5000L Sponsorship pack from the SL Newspaper and $3000L cash
Now, for our 2nd place winner - In Celebration- One Millionth Meter by Mystique Sassoon!!
Mysti has won a $5000L Sponsorship pack from the SL Newspaper and $4000L cash

And our first place winner...receiving a 10,000L Sponsorship pack from SL Newspaper and $5000L is Slink Dreadlow with Sendoff!!
Charlene Trudeau, Nevar Lobo and I would like to thank you for allowing Skybeam Estates to be a sponsor of this event and look forward to many more. *smiles* Thank you.

Dana Vanmoer shouts: Thank you SKYBEAM!!!!
JamesT Juno: Thank you Amethyst
Now the official part of this ceremony is done, I ask you to please join us in a dancing celebration and enjoy the rest of the evening.
But not before I Thank Gemma Cleanslate and DJ Qwark Allen for their wonderfulll help and everyday hosting of sl-newspapers week-event.
Special compliments go to Quark for the fantastic varied music collection.

LETS PPPPP AAAAA RRRRR TTTTT YYYYY !!!!!!!

Thank you everyone for joining us don't forget one last blast LIVE with Labgraal at 1pm SLT
Teleport HERE

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Skybeam turns 2

This month, SkyBeam Estates celebrates its second birthday and we are celebrating with tons of events all crammed into one amazing day!
Here is the Schedule of Events: ( all times are SLT )
Hot air Ballon rides and Airship Rides over the estate will go on all day. Many other events will be happening as well. Check out all the shops throughout the estates and visit the New home of Labgraal for a look at whay they have done for their cause.
7:00am SkyBeam Yard Sale Begins .. this event will run the entire weekend
930am: Speed Building Contest
The speed build contest will start promptly at 10am on Saturday, November 15, 2008. Please plan on arriving by 9:30 to claim a spot. Theme will be announced at the start of the build contest. Feel free to interpret this as you will. Cash Prizes for top three places. Limited spaces available.
9:30am - noon : DJ Dakota Christensen will be rocking us to get our Birthday Party started. She will be over at the Speed Build Contest and streaming through out the estates.
9:30 am- 11am: Fox Hunt through out the estates.
Get your horses ready for the first Skybeam Estate Fox Hunt. We have our Fox training and ready to run . The Fox will be caught 3 times with each person recieving a cash prize. Once you capture the Fox you will have to pull back to allow for others to be able to capture. Capture equipment will be provided at 930am and must be used to be a legal capture.
This will be a good time for all so come join this event .
Noon -1:00pm - Awards ceremony for build contest and fox hunt . 1:00pm - Labgraal Live ....
The Wonderful Keltic sounds of Skybeam's Own Labgraal will be prefoming at the main stage. This will also be the Grand opening of The Eco- Spirituality Land ... The LabGraal is one of the keltic music groups that with great merit has acquired a lead role in the european musical scene. It is made up of a formation of five musicians, who often also dedicate their time to the defence of native peoples and their traditions, to struggles to safeguard the environment and animal rights and to initiatives of solidarity and for Peace. All visitors are welcome and please enjoy the music .
2:30 - 4:00pm Live From Iceland ... DJ Zoolie Nasu will be taking request and bringing us some dancing on the main stage ... This is time to enjoy the sights of the Labgraal Land and dancing over the water.
4:00pm Kim Seifert Live
Kim's musical style and personal sound is well suited for high energy country rock, and this where she shines and has the most fun. Her dynamic voice will have your heart singing with joy, and your feet dancing out of control. Polished and clean, with excellent range and emotional power, Kim's performance will take you away.
5:00pm - 8:00pm Formal Ball
This Formal Ball will close A wonderful packed full event for Skybeam's Birthday . DJ Bcreative will be playing all our favorites as we dance into the evening . Get your Tuxes and Gowns ready and come dance with us under the moonlight. Prizes for Best Dress

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