Getting Set Up

Welcome everyone to the "One Is Silver & The Other's Gold" Grid Wide Hunt...affectionately known as the Silver & Gold Hunt. I am getting set up and accepting applications (will post the application info in a separate post) now for this hunt. Hunt will run from December 5, 2009 to January 5, 2010! So I want to start out this blog by giving a bit of info on the concept and on me. As a vendor myself I have been doing hunts since the POE one last December and have had some great and wonderful experiences alongside some frustrations in doing them. I have been in SL as a merchant/vendor/content creator for over 3 years now as well as a teacher and Dean of CIF&D. The original idea came to me to do a hunt as an organizer as another way to give some exposure to my students and graduates because I know how hard it is to get started and get your name out there. Hunts have been a wonderful source of new customers and friends for me so it seemed like something that might help them get a bit of footing starting out.

Taking on a project like this was daunting with all that I do already, so I spent several months watching closely how each hunt I participate in was run, how the hunters perceived it, and making lists of what things I felt worked best and which things I wanted to avoid and laying general plans for the hunt. Early in September I finally decided that it was time to do a hunt and that I wanted to do it for the holiday season both to let those participating vendors give gifts to hunters during this season of giving and also to get people coming through our shops in hopes of having them think of us or see items they might not have when they were considering giving gifts to their friends.

Additionally, while going through inventory I found that holiday items are bountiful and I am sure others have tons of holiday stuff from hunts too. So that in mind I wanted a theme that would not lock our vendors into doing an item that was only useful for the holidays. After putting a request for suggestions for ideas to my student group and the jeweler's group I didn't get any ideas that seemed to fit the feeling of the season and went looking for one that felt right. I came across a girl scout website with old folk songs listed... after much research on the background of the song "Make New Friends" it is indeed an old folk song and public domain. Thus the theme of our hunt was born.

First two verses of the song (in case your not familiar with it):

Make new friends,
but keep the old.
One is silver,
the other is gold.

A circle is round,
it has no end.
That's how long,
I will be your friend.