Cypris Chat

Cypris Chat Newsletter
Volume IV Issue 1 December/January 2012
Written by Professor Merryman

Cypris Chat Members: 540 (As of Jan 15th)
Website Members: 59
Facebook Group Members: 123
Land Status: Paid until Feb 20th. Will pay monthly at first (L$8,100/wk)
Money as of Jan 15th : L$396,105 (US$1,597 )

This is the last newsletter for 2011. Most of what is said here was taken from the end of the gala we had on the 16th. of January. This newsletter was distributed in the middle of January, late. There is no short version for this newsletter. Sorry it’s so long but we have a lot to say about Cypris Chat; so many new members, so many new friends, and so much English learning taking place. I hope these newsletters preserve the history of what is transpiring to be a paradigm shift in the way students “learn” any language.

The following is the welcome speech presented by Mystie Slade, a Japanese English learner,  at our 2011 End of Year Gala.

Hello and welcome everyone, to the Cypris Chat 2011 Year End Gala! I’m Mystie Slade, co-founder [,manager, bookkeeper, and Professor tamer] of Cypris Chat.

Today, we are here to celebrate our achievements, and will be presented with reports on how Cypris Chat has been doing throughout the year 2011. Then there will be awards to be given to members who have been particularly contributing to the group in many different ways. There will also be Gift exchanges, and a dancing time.

As we all know, 2011 has been a very very tough year in the world. We still have economic crisis in many countries which never seems to end, as well as getting hit by big natural disasters that devastated the whole world. We can not stop feeling that the time is changing in a great speed. Some good, some not so good, unfortunately.

But We at Cypris Chat, since our founding in 2008, have grown so big, and been learning together so many things, playing together so many times. Laugh and cry together for the events in the real world. There have always been someone here, who would give you warm caring words in the toughest of times. We are here together being friends no matter where you are from, what your beliefs are, or how you look like, with respect of each other. I think we are the greatest park of the world united, and I am very proud to be a part of it. I would like to thank you all very very much for being my friends, and making this group such a wonderful learning place.

Our Mission
We strive to provide an educational yet fun and interesting environment for English learning and teaching. Our members have the chance to be part of a living community surrounded by others who are learning, teaching or simply interested in speaking English with people from around the world. We believe learning should be a way of life instead of a struggle to achieve.

Our Four Principles

Share
After joining our family, members should find ways to share what they have learned or done in Second Life. Tell us where you have been, what you have seen. Show us your safe toys, clothes, avatars and gadgets. Sharing promotes communication.

Respect
Second Life is very different from real life, but it is real for many of us. We all come from different cultures, different backgrounds and with different reasons for spending time in SL. We might not understand each other but we both have the same goal, to learn or teach.

Respond
Let us know what you think about Cypris. Help us make this community a better place for you. Your feedback is what makes Cypris so great. Your opinion matters the most. Help each other with learner/teacher feedback. Communicate mistakes and successes.

Be Active
Speak. Talk. Ask questions. Say something. We are not passive learners, we are active! In order to improve, we must practice. To practice we must participate. To participate we must SPEAK! Less text chat and more voice chat. We are here to help our members improve their ability to communicate in English.

Visitors and Activities

For most of 2011 Cypris had over 250 visits per day with the average time spent on the sim being over 30 minutes. These figures are only for the welcome area. We had many more people teleporting directly to various parts of the sim, like the tiki bar and sandbox, which were not recorded. The new sim will have hotspots setup to track which areas of the sim are being visited the most in order to help in designing the sim to be more “speaking time” efficient.

Events
There were many events and parties throughout the year. From Duke’s DJ Chat Times to Yomi’s Game Times. We had 6 advertised events this year: Valentines, St Patrick’s, Summer Fashion Show fund raiser, Mystie’s Talent Show, Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s. These events make living in an English world fun. Next year I am hoping to involve the officers more in planning and organizing these events.

Lessons
Duke, Feronymous, Basho, and myself gave more than 170 free lessons. We’ve learned a lot and continue to learn more with every lesson taught.

Activities
We offered over 300 different practice activities this year. From reading circles to games, movie discussions to various grammar based activities. Thank you to our hosts for providing us with opportunities to speak. And congratulations to you for taking an active role in your learning.

Officers
We currently have 14 officers. 4 tutors, 6 hosts, and 4 guides. These officers are invited to attend semi-regular weekly meetings to discuss what’s happening at Cypris. This is a good chance  for learners to get involved with native or advanced speakers. It’s also a good chance to learn from experienced SL users and teachers. To become an officer, members must show they are very active in the group and wish to help the group become a better place for English practice.

This was a challenging year. Cypris Chat positioned itself as the largest most active English learning community in the virtual world. We saw many new people coming to Cypris but how to manage them while at the same time providing activities, lessons, and some fun for ourselves was hard to do. Living on a homestead was nice, but being limited to 20 avatars, especially during events, was not fun. This year was plagued with restarts and lag, voice trouble and even a few griefing incidents that were difficult to fix. We had to ban some avatars for not following our principles and we lost some good friends because they either moved on and have not been able to return or because they ran off and got married.

One thing always rings true. No matter what we do, Cypris Chat can continue because we all have the same goal in mind, to be able to speak or teach English. This was proved time and time again.  If someone had a question, a guide, host, or tutor was either always available or the “Contact Officer” box helped get the message out that help was needed. The website and Facebook helped us greatly to keep in touch and share while no inworld. The wiki offered notecards with ideas for teaching and Google calendar, both inworld and online kept us up to date.

We’ve created a pretty fantastic community. Other communities use our ideas, tutors and groups around SL use our concepts, and researchers and teachers study us to learn how we manage such a group. It’s you who does it! Your activity and your will to learn and be active. You make this community what it is; a place to live and practice speaking or teaching English. Your ideas and your dedication to our group make this community better and better. Thank you. For if it wasn’t for you, I would never have put so much of my heart into this. Thank you everyone.

Finance Report
By Mystie Slade

Cacy and I have been checking the donation incomes and payments as Cypris accounts. . Here is the report of the bi-annual donation drive from the beginning of December up to this moment. Total donations received: L$375,637 (appx. US$1,437 ) including 11 donations by Paypal & bank transfers amounting to: US$1,162. We have paid US$155 for renting Cypris Village III homestead and this new place, as well as purchasing some group objects. Total donations made in 2011 was appx. US$2,787 with total payment of US$1,587. In Cypris Texan’s account we now have L$396,105 (US$1,597 ).

Sim Report
By Mystie Slade

As we all know, Cypris Village III was a beautiful place, and we have received so many new visitors. We’ve been able to achieve so many things as Professor has just commented earlier. However, quite soon we started to encounter problems such as griefers and many many crashes of the sim. Also we started to have many avatars gathering for lessons and activities as well as around other parts of the sim, and soon we found the 20 avatar limitation was really not good enough for Cypris anymore. We want to have more people allowed so that more members can come and enjoy our events and activities. Homestead not only have avatar limits, but also limiting numbers of prims and scripts you can use on the sim. Being Cypris and knowing Professor Merryman, this was a HUGE problem. “We want more! We want to be able to give more!”

We had also started to receive complaints from members about the conditions of the sim. The only solution was to move to a full region, hopefully a whole sim just like what we’ve had for the last 2 and a half years. The full region offers a whole lot more. More avatars in a sim, more objects we can use. Professor can create more interesting and useful learning tools for us. More learning opportunities. After many discussions with officers, we have decided to move to this almost a half size parcel of a full region for now. Although this small land costs just about the same as the full homestead, it actually offers so much more, in a cozy atmosphere. So far I have heard only good comments about this place from members who’ve visited here. This is not a permanent move. We will continue to raise money for the full size region, and we will keep having communications and discussions in future with members and officers of Cypris Chat for any issues and opinions on this matter. Thank you very much.

Awards of Appreciation
During the gala this year, our year end event to celebrate our accomplishments and give thanks, I presented awards to some of our special members. The image I presented to them is a symbol of gratitude for all of the time they have spent volunteering and making our community great. The following is a transcript of what I said at the event.

I’d like to present a couple awards to people who have really made a difference in the group. Their time spent volunteering and helping to manage Cypris has been invaluable. Without you, Cypris would not continue. I cannot do this alone. I’d like to present the following awards:

To our most active tutors and hosts. You have not only helped yourself learn and make friends, you have made it possible for the world to practice and learn English. We can’t thank you enough. Your time is very much appreciated. Please accept this award as a small token of our appreciation.
TUTORS
DukeVan Acker
Feronymous Tremor
Basho Singh

HOSTS
PinkSamurai Fairlady
Wei Gears
Cata Charisma
Yomisma Aura
Junai Carolina
Jeff Hema
Thank you!

To the active officers and guides. You have participated in our discussions, helped us vote on important issues given advice, helped us organize events, and helped new members join.

Vamp256 Merlin
Qisreen Elton
Christine Bonham
Cacy Karu
Kazy Dover
Showshow Camel

Before I present the final awards. I would like to congratulate a few of our members. These members have worked hard to improve their English They started as a beginning English. speaker and are now upper intermediate English speakers. Congratulations to:
Cata Charisma
Lora Tachikawa
Power Chant

I have a few special awards to give to the people who have really shown a dedication to Cypris Chat and to my cause. These individuals have not only helped Cypris by volunteering to help, they have also helped me personally develop ways to make Cypris Chat better in the future. For this I must bow to you and show you how much I appreciate your support.
Basho Singh
Yomisma Aura
PinkSamurai Fairlady
DukeVan Acker

And finally…
To the one person who has helped us all in so many ways. Our beloved, and oh sooooo patient co-founder and estate manager…
Mystie Slade!!

Mystie deserves an entire page to herself. There is so much I could say. She and I have been working side by side for over three years now. Whenever I have a question or need advice she is within a text chat away. She answers questions and helps every member with such patience and a caring voice. She has always been an active learner and has improved to the point of becoming a fluent English speaker. She volunteers many hours of her time every week to be with our members and help manage the sim. For the past few months she has helped to bring our officers together for weekly meeting to discuss things that are happening in the group. She also hosted a fantastic talent show this year. As if she doesn’t spend enough time volunteering and helping, she has started her own Japanese learning group.  To top this all, she fought a very close bout with cancer this year that had us all very worried. She came through fine. She truly is a super woman. Thank you Mystie.

Thank you!!

New for 2012

• Tags
  This year we will introduce a new title tagging system. There will now only be three tags available: Guide, Host, or Tutor. Members who wish to volunteer to lead a practice time can become a host or tutor for the duration of their activity. If for some reason they become inactive we will try to discuss with them why they have become inactive. The purpose of the tag is so that hosts, and tutors can send out notice cards. If they are no longer active we will change their tag to Guide. When a host or guide would like to become active again we will gladly make them a host or tutor again. This system will help us keep in touch with guides, hosts, and tutors to ensure we continue to be active as much as possible. Asa result, there will be more opportunities for speaking and interaction.
• Monthly Themes, Structures, and Activities Calendar
  We have created a monthly calendar of themes, structures, and activities to use as a guide for hosted activities and tutor lessons. In the past it has been a little difficult and time consuming to plan lessons every week. This calendar will hopefully help. Hosts and Tutors will be encouraged to add their notecards and ideas to the wiki page as well as discussing adding to monthly discussions on the website. Over the years this calendar and lesson plans will help greatly in offering activities at Cypris.
• Scripted Learning Activities
  In the past, I was able to develop a points system using the SLOODLE OpenSource module for Moodle. The system made it possible for me to make scripted quiz games and interactive objects for activities such as scavenger hunts, murder mysteries, and logic puzzles. I hope to create a new system for points this year as well as experimenting with a flashcard system.
• Member Organized Events
  As I am sure you all know, organizing events and parties takes a lot of time but it is also a lot of fun, especially when you can see the photos and videos after the event. It is really rewarding to see something you have put effort into become something fun for everyone. Unfortunately, I can’t do it forever. I need to turn over the event organizing to you, our members. Besides, isn’t this a good opportunity to practice speaking English? Plan an event! It doesn’t have to be anything too extravagant. Celebrate a birthday, have a photo contest, get together for a dinner party, watch a movie together, play a game. Holidays like Halloween and Christmas don’t need big parties, they just need someone to make a date and call it a party. This year I will be taking more of a backseat to these events and praying for some energetic members to step up and plan some events.
• Raising Money to Help Cypris Grow
  We reached our six month goals last year, but in order for us to grow to the next level and become an official non-profit, we need to raise much more money. As a non-profit we will be able to accept corporate donations from our members and afford paid tutors and event organizers to make Cypris incredibly more active. We need to raise money and save it. This year I will make the goal $5,000 USD. Can we do it? It’s exciting!

Professor’s Vision for the Future
My current situation – Happy? Will I quit?
I’m here to stay! I love what we do and it fits into my lifestyle very well. I live in Japan where everything costs money and most things to do are boring to me. The only way I will leave Cypris is if I start making millions of dollars. Sorry. I’m sure I would be able to pay for someone to take my place if I were making that much. So for the time being, I’m staying here.

How do I plan to make millions, you ask? Start a school. Let’s be honest, every teacher thinks he can teach. I’m no different. I think what we are doing here could be part of a very interesting school. Making it profitable both consistently and long term is the problem. At the moment, I’m learning how to teach and what people like or don’t like about virtual worlds and education. I hope to combine all of my knowledge to come up with the answer everyone is looking for; how can we teach and support our lives in virtual worlds.

I’m thinking of publishing a monthly print newsletter. With as much exposure as we have now it might be possible to sell an English study newsletter which could work together with lessons in Second Life.

For the time being, I’ll be concentrating mostly on creating materials for tutors and hosts to use at Cypris. Hopefully this kind of support will inspire you, the officers and most active member of the community to start more lessons, activities, and events. I will do my best to make this community as active as possible so teachers can teach in their own groups and bring their students here also. I think it would be fantastic if teachers and students could come to Cypris from around the world to practice speaking and teaching.

Future of Cypris Chat
2012 will be the year we take Cypris Chat to the next level. Until now we have only been able to grow freely and organically. What does this mean? We have made rules and tried to ‘police’ our members so that we are able to develop the core of our group. Every member of that core understands exactly what our purpose is and what we expect from each other. The Cypris Mile High Club is dedicated to bringing these core members together and working together to establish a new plan for expanding the group.

The plan I have in mind for Cypris, and one that will surely change with everyone’s input, is for us to have a calendar of themes, grammar structures, and activities for hosts and tutors to use as a guide to help them plan their lessons. If all of the hosts and tutors follow this plan then our members will be able to learn and practice a specific set of vocabulary or grammar for an entire month.

Another part of my plan is to create a point system similar to the SLOODLE points system I helped develop two years ago. This system will give members a way to acrue points as they study. For example, they can get 10 points for finishing a quiz or 5 points for writing a forum post on the website. These points could then be used to pay for private classes.

Finally, I hope to increase activity at Cypris Village by either hiring tutors to be available for activities and lessons, or give some sort of incentive for tutors to join and give lessons. This concept might entail providing training and support for new tutors; something that would require more time than I think I would have to get started unless I had some sort of outside support.

Last year I applied and made runner up for a fairly substantial grant from the Ministry of Education here in Japan. I have applied again this year but I have a feeling three times the charm. The amount I am asking for is over $150,000 USD. We would be able to hire staff and help pay for the development of a system for simulations and language learning. is system could then be used as a model for future learning theories and research and eventually mainstream adaptation. It’s sounds complicated, and it is, but if I keep trying to explain what it is I am envisioning I believe one day it will become clear to everyone; use virtual worlds to connect and practice English as if you are living in an English speaking country.

This brings us to the end of a VERY long newsletter. I look forward to a prosperous and healthy 2012 for one and all. Be safe, and for heaven’s sake…speak English!

Cypris Chat Newsletter
Volume III Issue 5 August/September 2011
Written by Professor Merryman

Cypris Chat Members: 548 (active within 120 days)
Money: L$ 138,478 ($553 USD)
Donations for July/Aug: L$5,050 (Less than one week of island rental)
Land Status: Paid until October 28th

Statistics
Visits since August, 08 9611
Unique Visitors: 893
Returning Visitors: 547
Average Visit Time: 00:23:07
The sensors were moved after the redesign which means the statistics are not exactly representative of the total visits. Before the redesign, most people were hanging out around the welcome area. After the redesign, avatars are moving to other parts of the sim. This is good but I need to set out more sensors which can cause a little more lag. I’m still researching.

Cyprischat.org Monthly Pageviews: 91,000 (August)
49 members
22 active members
194 updates
11 groups
12 forums
48 topics
129 posts
19 blogs
36 blog comments

Our Mission
We strive to provide an educational yet fun and interesting environment for English learning and teaching. Our members have the chance to be part of a living community surrounded by others who are learning, teaching or simply interested in speaking English with people from around the world. We believe learning should be a way of life instead of a struggle to achieve.

What are the 4 principles of Cypris Chat?

Share
After joining our family, members should find ways to share what they have learned or done in Second Life. Tell us where you have been, what you have seen. Show us your safe toys, clothes, avatars and gadgets. Sharing promotes communication.

Respect
Second Life is very different from real life, but it is real for many of us. We all come from different cultures, different backgrounds and with different reasons for spending time in SL. We might not understand each other but we both have the same goal, to learn or teach.

Respond
Let us know what you think about Cypris. Help us make this community a better place for you. Your feedback is what makes Cypris so great. Your opinion matters the most. Help each other with learner/teacher feedback. Communicate mistakes and successes.

Be Active
Speak. Talk. Ask questions. Say something. We are not passive learners, we are active! In order to improve, we must practice. To practice we must participate. To participate we must SPEAK! Less text chat and more voice chat. We are here to help our members improve their ability to communicate in English.

What’s happening at Cypris?

Short Version

• The sim has been redesigned to add more private conversation areas and move people away from the welcome area so that hosts and guides can answer questions more easily.
• We had two successful events; Hands Across Sims and a Talent Show. We are hoping for more activities and events organized by our members.
• We continue to grow however keeping up with growth and making Cypris an active learning community means more time managing. Thank you very much to our wonderful hosts and guides led by Mystie Slade our estate manager.
• Many people are coming to Cypris to hang out with their friends. This is nice, but we need to make sure everyone is speaking in English and using voice to communicate. Text chatting should only be used when typing helps keep the voice conversation moving.
• We have been having terrible lag issues and sim crashing when the sim is full. Recently these issues have subsided and seem only to occur during Practice Times. Remind everyone to wear low prim unscripted clothing when visiting the sim during busy times.
• SLOODLE testing is going well for our new points system. You will all be able to continue with your previous point totals.
• The sim did not turn in to a beach paradise for summer. Sorry. There were just too many other developments to take care of.
• Halloween and Thanksgiving is coming. Would anyone like to volunteer to organize a haunted house and party? The history of Thanksgiving lessons will be offered also.
• The websites are still waiting to be upgraded due to one piece of software being released. It should be released this week and then I will upgrade the websites.

Long Version

• The sim has been redesigned to add more private conversation areas and move people away from the welcome area so that hosts and guides can answer questions more easily.

Some of you have mentioned you like the older design better. I agree, but this new design will prevent people from congregating at the welcome making it uncomfortable for new visitors learning English. The new design also allows for more private conversation areas. Please let me know what things should change so I can keep them in mind for the next redesign, happening sometime next year.

• We had two successful events; Hands Across Sims and a Talent Show. We are hoping for more activities and events organized by our members.

Hands Across Sims was an event to bring us together from around the world. 24 members from 16 countries came in traditional costumes and clothing to hold hands and represent their cultures. It was a fantastic experience. We learned that virtual worlds truly does make language learning very fun. Mystie Slade organized a talent show which happened to fall on my birthday. It was really fun to see people from different countries perform on stage; some great and some…well… I think we all had a good time. Thanks to Mystie for organizing her first event. Great job!

• We continue to grow however keeping up with growth and making Cypris an active learning community means more time managing. Thank you very much to our wonderful hosts and guides led by Mystie Slade our estate manager.

The popularity of Cypris continues to grow as does our active membership. I think our policy of joining the group only by meeting with an officer has really helped in keeping control of who can rez objects on the land and that everyone understands our principles and rules. However, because we have a large membership now, and we are filling the sim almost every practice time and event or activity, we may want to consider closing the sim to group members only. This way we can offer our members the comfort of knowing they can get in the sim during a lesson time. I’m estimating around 40% of our visitors are not Cypris Chat members. This is something to discuss.

• Many people are coming to Cypris to hang out with their friends. This is nice, but we need to make sure everyone is speaking in English and using voice to communicate. Text chatting should only be used when typing helps keep the voice conversation moving.

This is a voice “chat” community. Our name is Cypris Chat. We decided on that name because it promotes talking. Two things have backfired slightly. One, many people are chatting at Cypris. Of course this is great, but we hope the people who are coming to Cypris are here because they would like to practice their English or help others practice their English. If we become a chat destination then we see broken conversations, gestures, chat spam, and conversations that are constantly being interrupted and without any direction. Hopefully we can monitor and keep Cypris English learning VOICE focused.

• We have been having terrible lag issues and sim crashing when the sim is full. Recently these issues have subsided and seem only to occur during Practice Times. Remind everyone to wear low prim unscripted clothing when visiting the sim during busy times.

The last few months we have been having trouble with lag issues. After the redesign, script times were dropped to less than 2 seconds on the sim. The sim is running very well, but when we reach our maximum of 20 avatars we reach or capacity causing extreme lag and crashing. Until we are able to afford a full sim we will have to deal with this problem. Please remind everyone to use few prims and scripts on the land when busy.

• SLOODLE testing is going well for our new points system. You will all be able to continue with your previous point totals.

For those of you who remember, up until a year ago or so we had a point system for taking quizzes and joining activities. Points were awarded to active members. I then offered a reading class in which members could pay for the class with points. If they passed the class they were returned their points. This system is returning but it will be a little different. We will have the same kind of points system with a couple changes, but classes will be offered by tutors not affiliated with Cypris. If a teacher would like to offer classes through Cypris, they must volunteer to teach a 2 hour class at Cypris. This means if someone wants to start their own school and use Cypris to advertise their school they can, as long as they volunteer a portion of their time with us. The points system will first be used by myself as I test it, but could be made available to other teachers also. More information about this system will come in the winter.

• The sim did not turn in to a beach paradise for summer. Sorry. There were just too many other developments to take care of.

The sim has been redesigned taking away from the time I was going to spend making it summer themed. I’m still not exactly finished adding trees and shrubs but it’s pretty close to being done for now. In the fall we will see the ground changing and the leaves turning.

• Halloween and Thanksgiving is coming. Would anyone like to volunteer to organize a haunted house and party? The history of Thanksgiving lessons will be offered also.

My favorite time of the year is coming, Halloween! YAY!!! This when we dress up our avatars and do spooky stuff. SL is great for Halloween. Is Cypris going to have a haunted house? OF COURSE!! Do we have some volunteers who would like to be on the decorating committee for the sim. I’m thinking we can use 1,000 prims for decorations, house, and party. Let us know your thoughts.

• The websites are still waiting to be upgraded due to one piece of software being released. It should be released this week and then I will upgrade the websites.

Cyprischat.org gets around 3,000 pageviews per day. The addition of affiliate links to help support still hasn’t returned anything yet, but over time that should improve. The site is running pretty slowly these days so I need to do some upgrades. We are using WordPress as the backend software and Buddypress to add the social networking aspect. The long awaited Buddypress 1.5 should be coming out this week. I will then upgrade the main website and the vPortfolio website at that time. More info coming soon.

Thank you to everyone who helps to make this community a solid example of how language learning in a virtual world can be both educational and fun. Without you we’d have no one to talk to. 

Cypris Chat Newsletter
Volume III Issue 4 June/July 2011
Written by Professor Merryman

Cypris Chat Members: 522 (active within 120 days)
Money: L$ 229,225 ($916 USD)
Donation drive total: L$261,000 (June) YAY! We did it!
Land Status: Paid until August (we paid L$32,000 on July 8th)
We have enough money to pay for Cypris Village III through January

Statistics

Visits Cypris Village III in June:  10169
Unique Visitors: 1124
Returning Visitors: 692
Average Visit Time: 35:15

 

Our Mission

We strive to provide an educational yet fun and interesting environment for English learning and teaching. Our members have the chance to be part of a living community surrounded by others who are learning, teaching or simply interested in speaking English with people from around the world. We believe learning should be a way of life instead of a struggle to achieve.

 

What are the 4 principles of Cypris Chat?

Share

After joining our family, members should find ways to share what they have learned or done in Second Life. Tell us where you have been, what you have seen. Show us your safe toys, clothes, avatars and gadgets. Sharing promotes communication.

Respect

Second Life is very different from real life, but it is real for many of us. We all come from different cultures, different backgrounds and with different reasons for spending time in SL. We might not understand each other but we both have the same goal, to learn or teach.

Respond

Let us know what you think about Cypris. Help us make this community a better place for you. Your feedback is what makes Cypris so great. Your opinion matters the most. Help each other with learner/teacher feedback. Communicate mistakes and successes.

Be Active

Speak. Talk. Ask questions. Say something. We are not passive learners, we are active! In order to improve, we must practice. To practice we must participate. To participate we must SPEAK! Less text chat and more voice chat. We are here to help our members improve their ability to communicate in English.

What’s happening at Cypris?

Short Version

• We made enough money on the donation drive in June. Phew.
• The sim will change a little for summer: beach balls, sand, fishing, wet bar
• SLOODLE quiz chairs coming again…and points
• We need more event planners to make parties and fun
• Guides and hosts currently meeting Saturdays at 6am. We need more volunteers to help with growing membership.
• Cacy Karu and Mystie Slade will become bookkeepers for Cypris. They will produce reports on our finances every two months.
• We have three websites (community, writing, and scoreboard SLOODLE site). All of them will be updated this summer.
• See a list of our volunteers and their names. Would you like your name there also?

Donation drive for June 2011 Successful

Thanks to all of our wonderful supporters we were able to raise around L$260,000 Linden dollars. That’s over our goal of $1,000 USD. This is enough for us to pay for rent and expenses through January.

Plans for the next six months

Summer has arrived for most of us, that means we need to stay cool and enjoy the sun. The sim will be changed a little to become more of a summer playland. It won’t change much from how it is now, but you’ll see more sand, beach balls, the jet skiis will stay, I’ll add the innertube launcher, swimming animated gesture balls, and maybe even an underwater conversation area. I’ll also be adding fishing again with contests and trophies to the contest winners. I am also considering adding the movie theater again…if it works. We would be able to watch five new movies every week (not available in all countries).

Also, this summer I am planning to bring back the quiz chairs and scoreboard. This is if the SLOODLE team and I can make everything work. I do want to offer more learning activities though. I am working on it.

We need more people to plan events at Cypris. The purpose of having events is for us to visit with each other while practicing English. Because we are not a school, and we are all volunteering our time to help, wouldn’t it be nice if everyone was able to help also.

EVENT. I am thinking of organizing an event called “Hands across the virtual world”. This is just an idea, but I thought it would be easy to organize and a fun meaningful activity. Basically we just get people from different countries to stand in a big circle holding hands. Maybe each person wears clothing from their country and holds a flag. They could each say hello in their language while we take a video. Afterward, we can have a BBQ/dance/chat and maybe fireworks.

Guides and Hosts Meeting on Saturdays

Mystie Slade has started organizing a meeting on Saturdays for guides and hosts. We will probably use that time also for officer meetings. I would like to ask all guides, hosts, and tutors to wear your Cypris tags whenever coming to Cypris. We have many visitors who would like to become members but they cannot find an officer to invite them to the group. Would you mind offering membership to visitors if you think of it.

Accounting and Bookkeeping for Cypris Chat

I recently set up a new bank account for Cypris Chat here in Japan. It is a personal account, not a business account. I have also applied for a credit card in the Cypris Chat name so that we can get a PayPal account. Mystie Slade and Cacy Karu have volunteered to become bookkeepers for Cypris Chat. I will be giving them the usernames and passwords for all accounts including Cypris Texan. All transactions will be monitored by them. They will help in reporting Cypris Chat financial activity to the members. This should make everyone feel better about how we handle our money.

Website updates

I will be updating the website this summer to the latest versions of WordPress and Buddypress. I will also be updating the Mahara e-Portfolio website AND the eLearning Moodle website. So we will have three websites, one for public communication, one for private writing practice, and one for the SLOODLE activities like the quiz chairs and simulations. All sites are available for tutors to learn more about blended learning and web based learning management systems. Contact me if you would like more information.

Would you like to become a volunteer?

We need your help inviting new members to the group and organizing activities at Cypris. By becoming a volunteer you are joining the most active English learning community in the virtual world. You are living in English at the forefront of technology. Learn more, do more, be active. Talk to Mystie Slade or one of our many current volunteers who are always ready to help with any questions.

Here is a list of our wonderful volunteers. Please thank them for helping make Cypris a great place to practice learning English:

Founder

Professor Merryman

Manager

Mystie Slade – Co-founder

Tutors

DukeVan Acker – Mentor – Co-founder
Basho Singh
Feronymous Tremor
Bree Fairlady

Guides and Hosts

Cacy Karu – Bookkeeper
Vamp256 Merlin
Himiko Allen – Co-founder
Kazy Dover
PinkSamurai Fairlady
Yomisma Aura
Qisreen Elton
Christine Bonham
Leee Megadon
Lysh Eiren
Sapritas Arun
Raz Ronas

Cypris Chat Newsletter
Volume III Issue 3 April/May 2011
Written by Professor Merryman

Cypris Chat Members: 553
Money: L$ 2300 ($9.20 USD) WOW! We’re poor.
Donations for February: L$2300 (no PayPal donations)
Land Status: Paid until June 28^th (Land rental is L$8,060/week)
We will have to move to a smaller plot of land if we do not raise $1,000 USD (not L$) by June 30th

 

Statistics
Visits to Cypris Village III in April        9437
Unique Visitors:                                             981
Returning Visitors:                                     605
Average Visit Time:                                   26:49

Short Version

-        This is the slow season at Cypris – Vacations and school starting

-        Visits to Cypris Village III continue to increase – April +15% – 15-20 countries per day

-        Cypris Chat radio is a hit. Maximum bandwidth reached. No more money to upgrade. 77 countries listening per month.

-        Donation drive from May 15^th to June 30^th. We must raise $1000 USD.

-        Please say “Thank you” to our volunteers. Without them we would not be able to offer lessons, activities, and events.

-        Many visitors need help at the welcome. We need more volunteers to become guides, hosts, and tutors. If you are interested, please let one of us know.

-        Members not active in Second Life in the past 120 days will be ejected in about a week. Please let your friends know. They are welcome to rejoin again when they come back.

-        Professor Merryman will be concentrating on building an incentive system (awards system) simulation for real life students and Cypris members.

 

Long Version

Hello again!

This is our bi-monthly newsletter for April and May. These newsletters are written and delivered six times each year to keep members informed about how the group is doing.

This is our slow time of the year at Cypris. School is starting in Asia which means the founders and many volunteers are busy starting the new school year and taking care of members. There are also few holidays to celebrate and the weather is mild, it’s a good time to get away from the computer.

Although it may seem like there are not as many activities going on at Cypris, membership continues to grow. We are breaking records every month. In April we saw an increase in visitors of 15% with the average visit still hovering around 30 minutes. On average, we have people from 15 to 20 countries visiting daily. Great! There are so many people from so many countries to talk to.

On April 28th we reached or maximum bandwidth for the radio station, the music you hear on the sim is our own radio station if you didn’t know (CC Radio). During the month we had listeners from 77 countries. However, if we reach the maximum bandwidth I have to pull the plug. We need to upgrade the account. It would cost around $20 USD per month. I will see what happens this month and how much we raise in donations.

Speaking of money, we will be starting our bi-annual donation drive in the middle of May. We MUST raise $1,000 USD (not Lindens). I say ‘must’ because we will not have enough money to pay for six months of island rental fees plus expenses to keep the group active. If we do not raise $1,000 USD by June 30th then we will move the group to a smaller, less expensive, piece of land. This will make visiting very laggy and we will not have as many objects or space to play. Cypris Chat is supported through donations from its members.

We have some really fantastic volunteers here at Cypris. Since we started Cypris Chat in 2008, we have seen relatively few of the core volunteers leave our group. Please take a moment to say ‘thank you’ to these kind people. They are donating their valuable time to help the community.

There are quite a few visitors who do not know how to join the group, nor do they know how to become an active member. I am working diligently to provide the community with an incentive system and resources for tutors and activity/event organizers. However, without members being able to easily join the group and get information on practice times we are doing a disservice. We need to come up with a system for visitors to join, get involved, and make themselves known as wanting to become an officer in the Mile High Club.

It is time again to eject members who have not been active in Second Life for the past 120 days. This will mean that over 50 members will be ejected. They are always welcome to join again but they must contact an officer. This is to maintain our principle of being an active member. All Cypris Chat members are active in Second Life at least. By keeping our membership groomed in such a way, we can show accurate data to prospective sponsors and funding organizations. If you know anyone who has not been in SL for longer than 120 days, please let them know that they must log in. They do not have to visit Cypris Village, although it would be nice. J

Professor Merryman, me, will be starting classes in Second Life with my real life university students in September. Members from Cypris will be invited to join. This means I will be dividing my time between Cypris and real life just a little more for the time being.

Thank you all for making Cypris Chat such a fantastic place to come and speak to the world. It’s always so nice to know there is someone to talk to.