Tag: RFL Archives

The 2014 Relay for Life weekend in Second Life is upon us, and with over $300,000 USD already raised this year, it look like the weekend is going to be a scorcher. The theme for the weekend is Journey of Promise. As with previous years, the weekend will be focused on the 42-regions Relay Track and activity regions and the American Cancer Society region.

The aim this year is to raise $401,000, with $382,000 already raised. 401 is the form used to mark retirement in the USA, and the plan is to retire cancer!

Event Highlights

The following are the main events scheduled for the weekend – but remember that there are relay laps, entertainment and more going on across the entire weekend. All times are, as usual, SLT.

Saturday July 19th

• 10:00: Opening Ceremony
• 11:00: Survivor/Caregiver – CELEBRATE
• 12:30: Teams Lap
• 14:00: CRAZY HAT – wear the craziest hat you can find
• 15:00: CARTOON CHARACTER/ANIME – become that cartoon character of your dreams
• 16:00: BLACK AND WHITE – wear only black and white during this lap
• 17:00: SCI-FI/FANTASY – represent the Sci-Fi or Fantasy character that you wish to be
• 18:00: PIRATES –  pull out your eye patches, pirate hats, scarves and more!
• 19:00: BALD IS BEAUTIFUL
• 20:00: PURPLE!
• 21:00: Luminaria Ceremony – REMEMBER
• 22:00: MOST COLOURFUL – how many colours can you wear?
• 23:00: 10TH ANNIVERSARY – ONE TEAM!
• Midnight: PJ PARTY

Sunday July 20th

• 01:00: HOPPY BALL BOUNCE WITH US – bounce around the track! Find your hoppy balls in the Relay Info Stations!
• 02:00: SIXTIES (60’s)
• 03:00: BEACH PARTY
• 04:00: KIDS and CHILDREN – dress up as a kid, shrink your avatar
• 05:00: HEROES EVERY DAY AND SUPER – we all have those we consider heroes…who is yours? Superman, parents, doctors, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc
• 06:00: Fight Back – make that pledge…what will YOU do to fight back against CANCER?
• 07:00: INTERNATIONAL, CELEBRATE YOUR NATION! – wave your flag, dress up in your colours
• 08:00: COFFEE AND DOUGHNUTS IT’S BREAKFAST TIME!
• 09:00: FORMAL HOUR – time to put on your finest gowns and suits and walk the track in those dress shoes
• 10:00: CLOSING CEREMONY – head over to the Activities Regions and tune in to the stream
• 11:00: VICTORY LAP
• 12:30: RAFFLE DRAWS
• 13:00: SILENT AUCTIONS end

The Luminaria Ceremony and Fight Back

At 21:00 SLT on Saturday July 19th, the Luminaria Ceremony will talk place. The track regions will all be set to midnight and thousands of luminaria will be lit, each one representing a survivor or someone who has passed away from cancer. People are invited to walk the track in silence for one hour as dedications are read over the broadcasting stream.

06;00 SLT on sunday July 20th will mark Fight Back. Pick up your specially made FIGHT BACK ARMY CAP and Fight Back Flags – available at the Relay Stations, and join us as we make our fight back pledges to save a life this year; your own, a friends, a family member, or someone you don’t even know yet.

Where to Start

The best place to start is the Welcome Area, particularly if you’ve not participated in the RFL of SL weekend. Here you can pick-up your track tools, which will record the distance you walk around the track and allow you to chat with friends and those around you and walk at the same time. You can also obtain a reference guide to the luminaria donation colours and detailed of the themed laps for the weekend. Greeters will also be on-hand to answer any questions you may have. Once you’re ready to go, use the teleport to get to the track regions.

Useful SLurls

• Welcome Area
• Main Activities stage:
  • Access 1
  • Access 2
  • Access 3
• Music Stage 1
• Music Stage 2
• Music Stage 3
• Survivor / Caregiver Campsite
• Silent Auction
• Silent Art Auction
• RFL of SL Museum

Related Links

• RFL of SL blog
• RFL of SL website
• RFL USA (American Cancer Society)
• RFL UK (Cancer Research)
• RFL of SL coverage in this blog

Underway now through until June 28th at The Arts Castle, Cor unum, is an RFL silent art auction organised by Team Relay Wizards for SpUnKy.

On offer are over two dozen works of art from SL artists including Bryn Oh, Feathers Boa, Littleone Aries, Kake Broek, Graye Ashbourne and more.

The artwork is set-out alongside a spiral ramp leading up from the arrival point to a platform floating over the castle and which contains a number of sculpture pieces also in the auction. To bid on any item, touch the RFL display panel alongside it, and say your bid on channel /67.

Friday April 18th will mark the start of the Spring Fest weekend, a part of the RFL of SL activities occurring this season. The three-day event will include DJs, live entertainers, and a range of activities organised and run by RFL of SL fundraising teams.

The press release for the weekend reads in part:

Join the awesome teams of Relay For LIfe of Second Life for three days of fun-filled spring activities and relay fundraising! Activities include live djs, a carnival, live performances, 7Seas Fishing, and Bumper Boats!

Spring Fest is made possible by The Relay Rockers, who are celebrating their 10th year of relaying in Second Life. The event is organized by the Team Information Processing & Encouragement Area of the 2014 Relay For Life of Second Life Committee.

Spring Fest will open to the public on April 18, 2014. Please come out and fundraise with us!

Activities will kick-off at 16:00 SLT on Friday April 18th and will close at 22:00 SLT on Sunday April 20th, with events taking place in four locations across the Spring Fest region:

• DJ Area
• Carnival Area
• 7Seas & Bumper Boats Area
• Live Performer Area

The full schedule for the weekend can be found at the Spring Fest website, which also provides more information on the weekend. Those wishing to contact the organisers can do so here or in-world via Jessii2009 Warrhol or Johannes1977 Resident.

Related Links

• RFL of SL website
• RFL USA (American Cancer Society)
• RFL UK (Cancer Research)
• RFL of SL coverage in this blog

Saturday March 8th and Sunday March 9th mark the Relay for Life of SL kick-off celebration, which will be taking place alongside a number of RFL team events being held across the grid as the 2014 Relay for Life season gets officially underway in Second Life.

There’s a lot going on, with plenty to keep people occupied and enjoying themselves,  with plenty of entertainment, music and opportunities to both fund-raise and donate to the cause.

The Kick-off Celebration

Relay For Life of Second Life kicks off it’s fundraising season on March 7-9th with a weekend FULL of celebration!  Teams have been registering and will be present at the kick-off regions with team vendors, kiosks and flags waving to show their team spirit.

On Saturday at noon the official Kick-Off Ceremony will begin.  This year’s ceremony will be presented by the 2014 Steering Committee, Stingray Raymaker, Nikki Mathieson, Dawnbeam Dreamscape and Random Padar Darrow.  It will also include a survivor speaker NickiB27 and readings from this year’s Division Chairs, Gemstone Sunkiller (Internal Support), Sunshine Zhangsun (Events/Design), Serina Juran (PR, Outreach) and Dwen Dooley (Tech).  The ceremony will conclude with the traditional PARADE OF TEAMS and with that, the 2014 RFL of SL Journey will officially begin!

So reads, in part, the official announcement of the kick-off event, some details of which I’ve previously published.

There are four regions for the Kick-off celebration, which has the theme of A Journey Through the Continents. Follow the path through the continents, from the sands and plains of Africa or through the tropical rains forests of South America and onwards around the world, passing team kiosks where you can tarry a while, join silent auctions, queue for a kiss at the kissing booths, buy merchandise and enjoy other fund-raising activities while T1 Radio broadcast music and events.

The main SLurls for the kick-off celebration are:

• RFL Kickoff 1
• RFL Kickoff 2
• RFL Kickoff 3
• RFL Kickoff 4

Other Events on the Weekend

If the kick-off celebration gets a little too crowded for you, why not try hopping over to one of these events over the weekend?

• Cure Chasers: Kick Off Party – 15:00 SLT, Saturday March 8th through to 17:00 SLT, Sunday March 9th – event details
• Foundation For Life:  Party of Nations for Life – 13:00-17:00 SLT, Saturday March 8th  event details
• Hearts & Souls:  Swing Crash – 12:30-14:00 SLT, Sunday March 9th – event details 
• Inspired Dreamwalkers: Shades of Hope Gala – 15:00-17:00 SLT, Sunday March 9th – event details

And there are a slew of events through the week and beyond, all a part of RFL of SL’s 10th anniversary year – see the RFL of SL Events page for details!

Related Links

• RFL of SL website
• RFL USA (American Cancer Society)
• RFL UK (Cancer Research)
• RFL of SL coverage in this blog

The 2014 Relay  for Life of SL season gets underway on the weekend of March 8th / 9th with the kick-off celebration. This is the tenth year RFL of SL has been held, and all involved are working hard to ensure it is a special anniversary.

In a press release about the celebration, Nikki Mathieson, this year’s Event Chair, said:

A favourite time of year, for many Second Life residents, is about to begin. The experience of working together for a cause that touches each of us so deeply is like no other experience, online or off. The support and camaraderie, the depth of passion to do more, reach further and spread awareness, while fundraising make this yearly campaign so special and amazing. We strike REAL blows to cancer. Relay For Life of Second Life is an incredible group of people who work hard KNOWING that they are saving REAL lives against an all-too-REAL disease. We need more volunteers to come join us and spread the word.. COME RELAY WITH US.

The kick-off regions will be opening to RFL of SL teams at 17:00 SLT on Friday March 7th, and the celebration proper get underway at noon  SLT on Saturday March 8th.

In keeping with this year’s overall theme for RFL of SL, A Journey of Promise, the celebratory weekend will focus on  A Journey Through the Continents. Relay teams have been invited to set-up kiosks on the path round the world within the kick-off regions, where they’ll be able to run a raffle or silent auction (or both) and / or a kissing booth, and have up to six vendors so that they can start-up their in-season fundraising efforts.

Activities through the weekend will include (all times SLT):

• 17:00 Friday March 7th: regions open for Relay Teams to set-up in their assigned spaces along the path around the world, followed by a tailgate party
• 10:00 Saturday March 8th: T1 Radio commence their celebration broadcasting from the regions
• 12:00 noon, Saturday March 8th: Opening Ceremony featuring RFL Planning and other committee members, and cancer survivor Nickib27 will share her experiences and the role the American Cancer Society played in her fight. The ceremony will be streamed live by T1 radio for those unable to attend
• Saturday March 8th afternoon / night: a range of entertainments featuring DJs and liver entertainers
• Sunday March 9th will feature a dance troupe, more music and entertainment, and at 13:00, a game of Family Feud which will allow three Relay teams to compete with one another and the Planning Committee!
• 22:00 Sunday March 9th: the kick-off celebration closes.

There is still time of those Relay Teams not registered for the celebration to do so. Teams just need to register via Google Docs, and do so by 23:59 SLT on Tuesday March 4, 2014.

Commenting on the celebrations, Stingray Raymaker, American Cancer Society staff partner, said: “I’m really excited about this year’s Kick-off because it’s the biggest Kick-off event that we’ve ever planned. The ceremony will be fantastic, but I’m really excited to see what our teams are selling in their Relay vendors!”

Other Relay for Life events scheduled for 2014 in SL include:

• May 4-10: Halfway There Journey Week
• July 19-20: Relay Weekend
• August: Wrap-up Party

About RFL of SL

Relay For Life is the signature fundraising event of the American Cancer Society, and has grown into a world-wide event in the fight against cancer in all its forms.

Relay For Life of Second Life is an annual activity that takes place in Second Life in July each year. Volunteers form or join teams to have fun while fundraising and raising awareness from March through mid-July. In July, teams build campsites and walk a track, just like in a real world Relay. Over the last nine years, Relay For Life of Second Life has raised more than $2 million for cancer research and is the largest charity event in the virtual worlds. Several thousand volunteers from more than 80 countries participate each year, truly making it a global event.

Related Links

• RFL of SL website
• RFL USA (American Cancer Society)
• RFL UK (Cancer Research)
• RFL of SL coverage in this blog

Saturday February 8th marks the opening of RFL of SL team registrations and the start of Paint SL  Purple campaign.

Those wishing to enter a team into this year’s RFL activities can register here. When registering, please note the following from the RFL of SL wesbite on team registrations:

Please keep in mind that fundraising tools will not be distributed immediately, but our Team Coaches will contact you after you register. We also plan to host some Team Captain Trainings again this year.  We encourage all Captains (rookies & veterans) to attend.  We’ll explain some of the changes for 2014, as well as provide an understanding of who to go to for various questions throughout the year.  There will be plenty more valuable information at these trainings; please plan to attend.

Details on the training will be announced soon.

Paint SL Purple is the campaign to raise awareness of RFL of SL throughout the grid, and to build excitement about the upcoming events of the season.  This year, Paint SL Purple runs through until the Kickoff weekend on Saturday March 8th and Sunday March 9th. Again, to quote from the RFL of SL blog:

So, make sure you find all your purple clothes, hair, accessories, and even skin!  Plant purple trees on your land, paint your walls purple, color your grass purple, and hang purple signs, banners, streamers, flags, and balloons.  Be sure to tell anyone who asks, “why all the purple?” that it’s for Relay For Life and invite them to learn more and possibly join the Relay family!

Dwen Dooley has put out a video on RFL of SL, covering some of the new / changed elements in this year’s RFL of SL activities and infrastructure.

Related Links

• RFL of SL website
• RFL USA (American Cancer Society)
• RFL UK (Cancer Research)
• RFL of SL coverage in this blog