Welcome to the Planning for the 2008 Bash!

[Scott]

Hi Everybody!

This is what is called a private forum. If you are reading this you have been invited to be here to assist with the planning for the 2008 Birthday Bash. I welcome you, and I look forward to your help!

Please jump in and introduce yourself, and lets talk about what we want to do for the Bash! To start off, I'm Scott Greaves. I have been around the IAP for a while, and I volunteer to run the Birthday Bash every year. You'd think I'd learn!!! Actually, you'd think Jeff would learn!!! [8D]

We had some good contests last year. Take a look at some of the posts here to see details of what we did. My personal favorite is the Ugly Pen Contest. Totally not serious! The Pen-and-Penturner was a pretty good contest as well. The big one was the Daily Trivia contest. It was very popular, but also a lot of work. It is pretty much a separate contest every day, for 31 days. I have had a suggestion this year for a new contest that sounds fun - a Liars Contest! The idea is to spin a tall tale involving pens or penturning. We have some very creative people, and this could be a lot of fun! Other suggestions are definitely welcome!

Lets get going! The Bash is coming up quickly!

Scott.

 

[jeff]

Scott - I was thinking of running a vote for the best featured pen of 2007. Basically a vote of the pens I featured on the front page. I think it will be a bit tedious to run, since I don't really want to use the voting software for it. I'll have to just accept emails, but even if we get a few hundred, I can probably tally them without too much trouble.

Another option would be to have the bash committee select a best pen of each month and vote for one of those.

What do you think?

 

[melogic]

Well, I'm here!
I'm Mark Lynch and I have been around the IAP for a while also, but not as long as Jeff and Scott. I really enjoyed the Birthday Bash last year and I look forward to this every year. I like how it grows just the same way the IAP grows. I too like the ugly pen contest. I like the idea of the best pen of 2007.
Also, what about the largest pen made that actually writes?

My wife and I are putting our heads together to see what we can come up with and we will post back here when we have some more ideas. [}]

Let's get on with the fun!!!!!!!

 

[maxwell_smart007]

Hi, I'm new to the forum, and turning in general, but I really like the atmosphere here, and it's becoming like a second home to me. Glad that I was able to help out.

I've never experienced a birthday bash before, but I'm getting quite excited about it!

 

[Scott]

Hi Everybody!

Jeff - I like the idea of voting on the best of the featured pens! That would be a fairly easy one to run, we would just post a topic with pictures of all the pens and who made them. Give everybody an E-Mail link to vote, and then just manually tabulate the votes. Award prizes to the top three, and then a random draw of three of the people who voted. That would be great!

Mark - The biggest pen that actually writes. Hmmmm. Not bad! Anthony would probably win, but it would be a close race! Hmmmm - I have an old fence post and an extension on my lathe! [8D]

Andrew is helping to contact suppliers to get donations for prizes. He is doing great! Ellis hasn't posted yet - he is keeping track of the prizes we get committed to us.

Watch for others to join us here. This should be fun!

Scott.

 

[melogic]

My wife and daughter seem to think we should have some kind of contest for the most exotic or funniest display of pens or for pen(s). Any thoughts or ideas?

 

[DocStram]

Thanks for having me! I'm Al Stramiello. Being a "Stramiello" means that your nickname becomes "Stram". I grew up in Western Pennsylvania and live in Macon, Georgia. I teach at Mercer University. I have a doctoral degree in Special Education (thus, my students call me "Doc Stram") and I do a lot of advocacy work for children with disabilities.

Last year's Birthday Bash was a huge success. Plus, it's timing was perfect for helping to calm things down a little in IAP. The Bash did a lot for building a sense of community among the members.

I'll be glad to help however I can. I'm not so good at contacting suppliers for donations .... but, I would be willing to help with the Trivia Contest or whatever way you need me.

Thanks for having me!

 

[fiferb]

Hello,
I'm Bruce Fifer. I retired from the Army 2-1/2 years ago. I worked for a manufacturing company for a year but some turmoil in my life had me evaluate what I was doing. So I retired completely. I enjoyed the birthday bash last year and want a way to contribute more this year. I am on IAP daily, sometimes several times a day. I willing to help with whatever you need. I'll even admit that I know and have been to Al's house.[}]

 

[DocStram]

Originally posted by fiferb

Hello,
I'm Bruce Fifer. I retired from the Army 2-1/2 years ago. I worked for a manufacturing company for a year but some turmoil in my life had me evaluate what I was doing. So I retired completely. I enjoyed the birthday bash last year and want a way to contribute more this year. I am on IAP daily, sometimes several times a day. I willing to help with whatever you need. I'll even admit that I know and have been to Al's house.[}]

Yeah .... my wife and I were missing silverware after Bruce left! Welcome aboard, Bruce!

 

[oldsmokey]

Hi everyone. I am Ellis Miller. I retired from LAPD May 05. I told Scott I would be happy to help him this year. Scott sent me an E-mail with several areas he needed help. I looked at the list and selected to keep track of the prizes. Scott thanked me very much, he really appreciated me doing that for him. Now he really sounded sincere. Now I begin to wonder what I had gotten into. The next day I got my answer. A 22 PAGE E-MAIL WITH DONATED PRIZES.
All kidding aside I am glad I have the time to do this for the site.
If anyone (Doc Stram) knows of any supplier that might donate I will be happy to contact them. After all, if I can sell traffic tickets, I can sell anything.
Ellis

 

[Scott]

Hi Guys!

It's nice to see everybody here! And I AM sincere! [8D]

Al, thank you for saying you'd work the Daily Trivia contest! That is my biggest worry. I know I cannot run it myself, so I have to rely upon somebody else to do it. Bill Jacob did it last year, with the help of others, and it was almost too much. That's why I would like to divide it up a bit this year. But you know more of what you're capable of than I do, so let me know. I'm thinking of dividing it between three people who would each run if to apx ten days. You would need to come up with the questions (and answers). You would receive the entries from all the contestants, and determine the winners.

Jeff, for the Trivia contest, could we possibly devise a standard interface for the trivia, so we could pre-load the questions, and have the software automatically post the question at the correct time? If we could do it this way, that would take a lot of the trouble out of running this contest. Of course they would still have to tabulate the results and announce the winners, but posting the question at a precise, consistent time would help a lot!

Mark and Bruce - Have you thought about any specific thing you'd like to be in charge of? Part of the trivia contest? One of the other contests? Scrounging up prizes? To tell the truth, I just appreciate you all being here to bounce ideas off of.

What about this idea of a best/most exotic/funny pen display? I'm open - what do you all think?

Thanks again!

Scott.

 

[melogic]

Scott I can help out where ever I'm needed. I'm not sure with my schedule that I would be able to do the daily contest but I feel sure I could do one of the other contests.

 

[DocStram]

Scott, Jeff, et al ......

Having three people run the Trivia Contest seems like a good idea. Did Becca say she was interested in helping? Has anyone else volunteered?

What would be the date for the first Trivia Question ... and when would it end?

 

[fiferb]

I would be willing to help with the trivia but I think you should know up front that I don't think I got a single answer correct last year.[:I] My questions may wind up being a lot simpler.

 

[Scott]

Mark - How would you like to run the Liar's Club Contest? Think about it. What I'm thinking is for people to submit essentially "short stories" that are tall-tales or outright lies concerning pens and penturning. Maybe plan on starting this the second week of January, letting people submit entries for about two weeks, and then choose the winner. As for judges, just pick whoever you want. I never revealed who the judges were for the Ugly Pen Contest last year, but they are not connected with penturning in any way, and it wasn't me or my family. The most fun will be in writing up the rules for the contest, and you would get to say what goes!

Bruce - Thanks for volunteering to run part of the Trivia Contest! Simple questions are the best! I don't think complex questions are necessary at all! If I am lucky we will get somebody like Klingspor to sponsor the contest again, and then get a bunch of small prize donations so that we can award a prize both for the first correct answer, and another for a random drawing from among all correct answers! That would be fun!

Thanks again!

Scott.

 

[melogic]

Sounds good to me Scott! I will be thinking of some rules. I will be out of town this coming Sunday and Monday and will not have access to a computer. But I will check back in sometime Tuesday. I will also be out of computer range on December 16th, 17th and 18th for future reference. I will be in Pittsburgh.

 

[Randy_]

Hi all:

I should have chimed in earlier; but I've been jammed up with a few other projects.

I've been around IAP for a while and learned tons of good information here. Guess my uniquely styled messages are known to most of you. I'm real small-time and turn pens and other small items primarily for fun and relaxation. Most of the stuff I do goes to friends and family as gifts although I do sell a piece now and then. I have resisted the temptation to actively pursue selling sell pens as I think it would spoil it for me as a hobby.

I've won a prize or two in the past so I guess it's time to hop the fence and see what it's like on the other side. Scott, it looks like I need to take on one of those slots in the trivia contest and hope that I can come up with some good questions. Splitting the trivia contest three or four ways sounds like a good idea to me. Only issue I see is the problem of duplicate questions. We will have to coordinate somehow to be sure that does not become a problem. The guy that gets the first week is in high cotton; but the 3rd and 4th guys in line could have a problem.

I think this will be fun.....am looking forward to it!!

 

[Scott]

Hi Randy! And Thanks! Lets stick with splitting the Trivia Contest three ways. Each of you need to come up with ten trivia questions, so be thinking of them. We will want to have these ahead of time so we don't have duplicates. So if you can do maybe twelve questions each so we have a couple to discard if we need to. When you're ready with questions, post them on the topic I will start for that purpose. Lets shoot for getting them ready by the tenth of December. Realize that I am going to ask a couple of other people to contribute some questions, such a Becca, and I'll post those there as well. So if any of us have an idea for a trivia question, post it on that forum! We need 31 total.

I think valid areas of information for the trivia questions would be, of course, penturning, pens in general, the IAP and PMG, wood, turning tools and supplies, penturning suppliers, etc.

Thanks everybody!

Scott.

 

[Scott]

I just posted the Dear Santa Contest on the Casual Conversation forum. I made up the rules this morning as I was drinking my coffee, grabbed a couple of free GIF's off the Internet (make sure they are free to use), and off we go! Sometimes running a contest is just that easy!

The contest I have in mind to start on the 15th that I mentioned at the bottom of the Dear Santa post is the Name the Reindeer Contest. Santa needs another reindeer to carry the extra gifts this year - what will his name be?

What do you think?

Scott.

 

[maxwell_smart007]

I really like that Name the reindeer idea - could lead to some really interesting answers!

 

[Scott]

Originally posted by Scott

Sometimes running a contest is just that easy!

And sometimes it isn't that easy!

If you have been watching the Dear Santa Contest, you've seen that it went south quickly. Evidently some of our members think that Santa is doing something more than just riding his reindeer around the paddock! Funny how something simple like throwing in a little animated GIF can throw everything sideways. [:I]

Any suggestions on what I should do to correct it? I have tried editing the post and topic, but I don't have the ability to do it. I'll have to get one of the Moderators to do it. I'd replace that graphic with one of Santa sitting with a child on his knee, but what would these imaginative members think of that? [:0] Should I leave the posts about the reindeer graphic? Delete them? Delete the topic and start over? We already have one entry, so I want to leave it. What to do? Like I say, ideas are welcome!

Jeff, maybe just temporarily, until the Bash is over, you should make me a Moderator of this Forum, the Casual Conversation forum, and the Bash forum when you bring it up. On the other hand, if you want to just make the changes, I'm good with that, too!

Thanks!

Scott.

 

[maxwell_smart007]

I don't think there's any saving of that topic...the graphic's all that you're going to get responses on...

I'd start a new one and indicate that it's only for entries to the contest only - have a moderator move the one legitimate post to the new thread...

I'd get rid of the graphics altogether, except the innocuous Santa at the beginning of the topic...

 

[Randy_]

<center>Scott:
I would delete all of the responses that do not fall in the specific realm of being an entry for the contest...and post a reminder that all future extraneous comments or posts will be deleted.

Personally I don't see anything wrong with the graphic; but there will always be the odd individual or three who can find bad in anything. And I've seen comments here on IAP that I thought were much more inappropriate and have never seen WC complain about them.
Think he was just having a bad day!!

Like the guy said, "You can't please all of the people all of the time."



P.S. I would be more than happy to post a defense of the graphic; but that would only add fuel to the fire and maybe precipitate a full-fledged war so I will remain mute on this particular situation.</center></u>

 

[DocStram]

I think we should keep the Dear Santa contest. I'm with Randy and Maxwell Smart on this one. All we need to do is get it under control .... I think it can be salvaged. Have Scott be the mod. Then, can you just go in and delete the off color posts that people thought were "humorous"? After deleting the inappropriate comments ... then add a post saying that we want to keep the Birthday Bash on track and that funny Dear Santa letters will be accepted. Maybe even let the prize be known up front so that people see we are serious.

If you can't delete the inappropriate posts ... then start a new thread for the Dear Santa contest and copy the appropriate letters in place.

Just my two cents.

 

[Scott]

Ahhh! Jeff cleaned it up for us! Thanks Jeff! It looks like it's running well now, and getting some more entries!

On with the project!

Scott.

 

[Scott]

Hi Everybody!

It's been a while since we had any activity here, so let me update you on what we're up to!

TRIVIA CONTEST

Over in the Trivia Questions forum, we have about 25 questions already!!! It would be nice to have about ten or twelve more, then we can weed it down to the 31 we need for the contest.

I have been talking with Jeff about how we can do the Trivia Contest a little more automatically. What we came up with was to set up all the posts for the Trivia contest here in the planning forum, and then when we're ready to post the question each day, I can move the topic over to the regular Bash forum.

The entries for the Trivia Contest will come in by E-Mail. Jeff will set up a dedicated E-Mail address for contestants to submit their entries to. The three of you who are running the Trivia Contest, Al, Bruce and Randy, will need to designate an E-Mail address that we will send these entries to. A suggestion here would be to contact your ISP and see if you can set up a separate E-Mail address on your account, just so the entries don't get mixed in with your regular E-Mail. You will want to be able to determine the winners based on 1)The first correct answer, and 2) all the correct answers, from among which you will do a random drawing for a second prize.

You three should talk about who wants to do which portion of the contest. The first ten days of January, the second eleven days of January, and the third ten days of January. I would suspect you'll want to post the question at a standard time, such as 1:00 pm Eastern, so everybody knows when to look for the question. We'll want to end the contest at the same time every day, early enough that you can tabulate the votes, then we'll post the winners the next morning.

OTHER CONTESTS

I'm still planning to run the Ugly Pen Contest. I'll probably use about the same rules as last year. I don't think I'll run it for the whole month, probably just two weeks, but I don't know which two weeks. Any suggestions?

Mark is going to run the Liars Club Contest. I think this one could run for two weeks as well. Again, any suggestions on which two weeks? Mark, do you have any ideas on what you're going to do with this?

That leaves us three more contests: The Pen and Penturner Contest, the Best Featured Pen Contest, and the Article Contest. We don't have anybody to run these yet. The Pen and Penturner Contest is a quick contest, so I might just run that one myself as well. Jeff may run the Best Featured Pen Contest, but he is going to be kept quite busy with the Donation Raffle, so I'm thinking of asking for a couple of more volunteers to help run this contest, and the Article Contest. What do you all think?

I think this is enough contests for the Birthday Bash. It is more than we had last year. But really, we could fit another one or two in if we wanted. What do you think?

Andrew has been doing a great job getting donations of prizes from pretty much anywhere you could think of. And Ellis has been keeping a running list of prizes. We need to start developing the list of donors and the links they want on the main page. Jeff says we can set up another forum here to list the donors and their links, so he can just transfer them over when the Bash starts.

Jeff will be creating the Birthday Bash Forum soon, and it will be locked so only we can see it for now. We should still discuss everything here, but that forum will be available to start loading stuff for the Bash anytime, and then we'll just unlock it on January 1st.

Whew! Long post! What do you all think?

Scott.

 

[maxwell_smart007]

That sounds great, Scott! I still like your idea of the 'name the reindeer' contest though...

Be neat to see some sort of challenge...Someone posts a challenge, and the first person to complete it, photograph it, and display it on that thread wins...(i.e. Red dyed maple cigar with green acrylic centreband...something that someone likely won't have already done)...

Andrew
P.S. - there are only a few places that I'm still waiting on that are likely to respond for the birthday bash donations. I'd give it at least a week still, and then we're probably set for prizes, I'd say...

 

[Randy_]

Scott:

You can use the following email address for me:

2008bash@gmail.com

I would guess the first 10-day segment might be the least desirable so I will volunteer for that one unless someone else specifically wants it. I don't really have any preference.

 

[Randy_]

You will want to be able to determine the winners based on 1)The first correct answer, and 2) all the correct answers, from among which you will do a random drawing for a second prize.

I'm puzzled by #1?? I thought the trivia contest winner would be determined using method #2.

Do we need to save the daily entries for some period of time after each contest closes in case there is a dispute??

I am going to use this RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR to select the winner.

 

[melogic]

Scott, I am not quite sure how or what I'm going to do with the Liars club contest. I have been throwing around a few things with my wife and daughter but have not really found anything that says "That's it". I was planning on posting a new thread in this forum to get some ideas from some of the others here. Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

 

[Scott]

Andrew - The Penmaker's Challenge. Nice idea! We could run it four times during January. Announce a new challenge every Monday, and award a prize for the first person meeting the challenge. Very interesting! What do you all think?

Randy - The first ten days is yours! Start picking out the questions you want to do. I'll let Jeff know that E-Mail address. We are probably going to be able to award two prizes each day, so I just figured one for the first correct, and another to be drawn from among all the correct answers. Using a random number generator is a great idea. People may want to contest the decisions of who wins, but I can't emphasize enough that your decision must be final. Once we get a look at all the prizes, we may find out that we can only do one prize each day, in which case I would lean towards a drawing from among all the correct answers. I am not the "Boss" of this - what do you all think?

Mark - Yes, I'll start a topic for the Liar's Club Contest, and lets discuss that specifically.

Scott.

PS - Andrew, I am still planning on a Name The Reindeer contest, but that will be soon, in the month of December, so not part of the Bash, technically.

 

[melogic]

To go along with the Pen makers challenge; What if the challenge is to create a pen and display using the same materials? (ie. a pen made from cocobolo with a BOW center band and a display using cocobolo and BOW) Any material can be used but the pen and display have to be made from the same material and they cannot be one that has been posted on this site before. They have to be new or never photographed and posted on this site before. I think we had a similar contest a few years ago? What do you guys think?

 

[fiferb]

As far as the pen makers challenge, I like the idea of it being something new. My only concern is that some folks, especially some newer members, may not have a ton of blanks and wood. Kits as well. Just something to keep in mind when setting up the challenge. I don't think we want only the more experienced members competing, or do we? If we do then by all means, make it tougher.

 

[Randy_]

Originally posted by Scott

.....Randy - The first ten days is yours! Start picking out the questions you want to do. I'll let Jeff know that E-Mail address. We are probably going to be able to award two prizes each day, so I just figured one for the first correct, and another to be drawn from among all the correct answers. Using a random number generator is a great idea. People may want to contest the decisions of who wins, but I can't emphasize enough that your decision must be final. Once we get a look at all the prizes, we may find out that we can only do one prize each day, in which case I would lean towards a drawing from among all the correct answers. I am not the "Boss" of this - what do you all think?

Scott: If the questions are posted at or about 1 P.M. EST that would seem to favor a certain class of IAP members...and probably a relatively small class of members at that. Folks who would have the best chance of being first would be those who have access to a computer between the hours of 10 A.M. and 1 P.M. (local) when many of our members are slaving away at their day jobs and may "NOT" have access to a computer.

If we want to make one of the answers time sensitive, maybe it would be more inclusive if we offered a prize to the first answer posted "AFTER" 11 P.M. EST or somewhere after 8 P.M.-11 P.M. local time. There are always going to be some folks who don't have computer access at certain times; but this method might be less restrictive?

What do you think?? Am I over thinking the situation and making it too complicated??

 

[Scott]

Yes!


Just kidding! You make a good point. Maybe if we have two prizes to give, we should just do a random drawing from correct answers for both prizes! I have to admit to not having run the Trivia Contest before, so I really haven't thought about some of these things. That's why I really encourage a discussion on this, because if I had to make it all up out of my own brain, well, you see what kind of results we might get!!! [:I]

Mark and Bruce - I really don't think we necessarily need to make the Challenge hard. But it wouldn't be bad either. Maybe do a couple of easy ones, and a couple of hard ones?

Lee Thomas will be joining us here on the Planning forum soon. He has volunteered to run the Featured Pen Contest. I have invited Becca to join us here as well, but she hasn't agreed yet (smart Woman!). [8D]

Thanks again!

 

[Scott]

Hey Everybody! Jeff has just created the Birthday Bash forum. This is where we will run all these contests and events. It is locked right now so only we, the ones working on the Bash, can see it. It's not really there for casual posts right now, but it's ready so we can pre-load what we need to, to set up our contests.

Scott.

 

[fiferb]

Something to think about on the trivia, if we have a first to post, regardless of time, some of the international members may be sleeping. I like the idea of randomly drawing 2 correct answers if we have 2 prizes.

 

[Randy_]

What is considered to be the official birthday of the IAP? Don't recall ever seeing it stated.

Is this date common knowledge......would it be a good trivia question?

 

[Scott]

Originally posted by Randy_

What is considered to be the official birthday of the IAP? Don't recall ever seeing it stated.

Is this date common knowledge......would it be a good trivia question?

Well I'm pretty common, and I know it! [)]

The site went public on January 1st 2004. Jeff and I were testing things and posting stuff for a while before that, but it wasn't public yet. (The join date on my profile is December 12, 2003) Yes, the actual birthday would be a good trivia question!

Scott.

 

[Randy_]

Originally posted by Scott

The site went public on January 1st 2004. Jeff and I were testing things and posting stuff for a while before that, but it wasn't public yet. (The join date on my profile is December 12, 2003) Yes, the actual birthday would be a good trivia question!

Scott.

Just like a dang politician!! Never a straight answer......or two answers to the same question!![}][}]

The member list shows a member listed on 12-2 and Jeff "joined" on 12-5. Seems to me that if someone could "join" the forum, it was already born even if it was not yet available to the general public.....but, hey, what do I know!!?? I will go with whatever you and Jeff define as being the "OFFICIAL BIRTHDAY."

So what do I need to use as the answer for the question???????????????