A set of new rank pipss have been made available in the recruitment office in Galaxy Sims by GFC member Richmerk Resident (merky).
A group announcement was sent out today, it read
"A set of rank pips have been added to the uniform vendor in the Recruiting office. Regular price of the set is 50L$, but is free as usual to Recruiting officers to give out to people. At the moment, the Enlisted Crew pips do not exactly match the rank system used in GFC, but rather match the system actually seen in the series and movies. Officer rank pips adhere to standard Trek canon."
The summers GFC ball time has come round again where we celebrate the achievements of our members with rank promotions and awards for their activities over the last six months in the group.
This years theme was Vulcan "Live long and prosper" and very much a dedicated to Leonard Nimoy who played Spock in the original star trek Series, he sadly passed away this year and it was only fitting the group thought that this ball in some way honoured him.
Pre-Ball area and shuttle pad
Over the last few weeks and months people have been pointed to the location area around the Roddenberry center as the arrival point of the event.
What you would of actually saw when you arrived on the day was a circular area with draped banners which had Summer ball written on it with a red carpet going towards the Roddenberry building entrance. You would walk up a few steps where there was a landing pad for the shuttle which was going to take you to the actual location which this year was going to be held in sovereign.
Pre-Ball Party
Pre-Ball area where guest congregated before setting of to the ball location
Around an hour before the official start time of the ball members gathered in the circular area build over the plaza to chill out and dance. It gave them a chance to loosen up and chat about the up and coming event.
Shuttle taking guest through the wormhole to Mount Seleya
Shuttle ride Around 15 minutes before the ball start time the shuttle rides appeared on the landing pad which was a quick walk from the plaza and up a few steps to the shuttle platform. Once someone got in, the little shuttles would count down 10 seconds and leave to fly to the location of the ball. The next shuttle would appear to take the next group. These shuttles flew two members at a time, their flight path took them from galaxy into constellation sim where they were piloted low over some of the rental homes, then the shuttle crossed into sovereign sim where it headed up towards the wormhole. Upon entering the wormhole each ship was sent directly to Mount Seleya and would continue to fly down to a landing spot to drop the guests off.
Arrival at Mount Seleya
The Mount Seleya set consisted of mountain regions surrounding the main activity areas. the background depicts a hot barren like planet populated with small sections for use at the ball, there was a dance area with a fountain in the middle, chairs, tables and a bar for those who simply wanted to sit and relax, huge statues where placed around the scene and the actual area where the majority of the ball will be held was right high up on a mountain top accessible via a winding staircase. Ball RP Once everybody had arrived safely at Mount Seleya a small RP event was performed, below is the script of the role-play event
RP in action
Promotion & Awards
Members waiting for and delivering their speeches
The end of the role play event took our guest straight up to the promotions and award area. There were blocks of our guest to sit down on, Fleet Admiral Katrina Bixby and Vice Fleet Admiral Cobramax Mechanique took their places on the higher stage. For the Promotions and Awards members were called up in groups, they would stand at the bottom of the stage waiting for there names to be called up to deliver their speeches directly in-front of the senior admirals as been par the course for years at this event.
Video
A GFC 10th Anniversary video was played over a giant screen
Many speeches later it was time to congratulate each other, but before going down to the After Party a giant video screen was erected to show a video Fleet Admiral Katrina Bixby had made to celebrate the up and coming 10 year anniversary of this group
After Party
Once the video had been shown it was time for guest to make their way back down the long mountain stairs to the dancing area where those who remained danced and sat around polishing their medals, updating their rank tags and relaxing to some music.
Another GFC ball comes to an end, congratulations all those who where given promotions and awards and may the next 6 months be as fruitful. More Pictures - HERE
Credits: Social Events organisation - Richmerk & Debbydo New Vulcan& Dress Uniforms - Richmerk Building Richmerk & Wolferein Foxdale Posters/Ads/notices - Richmerk, Debbydo, Snapper Desade, JD Matova, Katrina Bixby RP - Robobby McMillan - T'Lara Ektal (melodyparis), Richmerk, Debbydo, LKG01A Duke Video - Katrina Bixby Promotion hosting - Cobramax Mechanique, Katrina Bixby Land Stream - Snapper Desade
PROMOTIONS
Ai Kikuchiyo-Stine - Capt - Medical, StratOps, Command
Richmerk Resident posted a notice of some of the pictures he and taken recently for GFC Engineering and Social Events projects, he wrote...
"Over the years, the GFC Engineering and Social Events groups have created some fantastic builds and events. I recently went through my old screenshots and decided to collect the best ones into a GFC Flickr page. So take a walk down memory lane with me. Enjoy! :-)"
The GFC celebrate a variety of events throughout the year, some related to the group itself, some sci-fi based and others associated with real life events. Today was commemorate fallen American during the countries many wars as Memorial day.
A GFC member standing at the memorial for passed members
The GFC celebrated the event starting on Sunday at noon when members of the group were invited to stand in honor at the GFC memorial area where we remember our members who have passed on. The vigil lasted until 12 monday when am air show had been arranged.
AAC Pilots, master of ceremonies and the on looking crowd
A podium had been at the AAC airport where I as the master of ceremony talked a little about memorial day (link HERE) before the Air Corps took flight in a air display. Members watch as the AAC pilots lit the sky up with their coloured smoke trails in a sortie of formation flying display.
Air show in action
Hopefully we all took time the think about those who perished to make a better world for all of us.
Pictures of the event are available from a variety of sources
My pictures --> HERE
Songlord Pictures -->HERE
Falatapus --> HERE
I’d like to thank all those who have attended this Memorial Day air show and wish all Americans a happy anniversary.
This week saw the official invites to the GFC summer ball sent out via group notice and clickable from devices place around the GFC sims.
Ball Invitation Giver
The theme for the next ball is "Live Long and Prosper" base on the Vulcan location Mount Seleya, partly in memory of the passing of Leonard nimoy this year and a fitting location for any event. An elaborate set has been build for the event as can be seen in the invite and poster designs which breaks from using ancient note cards traditions to delivering the invitations as more creative textures.
The social events team will be revealing more about the ball and offering some surprises before ceremony on July 18th at 2pm.
As usual the ball will promote our most worthy members to their newest ranks and be awarded medals for their work over the last 6 months in the fleet. There will be side events with speeches, dancing, fireworks and a few other activities for that day.
So put that date in your diary for an evening of fun and festivities.
On Wednesday 22nd April 2015 was ear marked as Earth Day. thousands of organisations, groups and individuals in hundreds of countries take this opportunity to push awareness of our planet plights and offer better ways we can look after it and those who live on it.
This year the GFC decided to take part with a week long celebrations from 18th-25th April 2015.
GFC divisions were encouraged to setup booths showing something about themselves or promoting Earth day like matters.
Recruitment, engineering, research,communications, security, medical and tactical all had booths for displays in the north east corner of Galaxy's Sim.
The kick of the celebration Katrina Bixby tooks to the podium to open the event, with same guest speakers
Log below.
GFC Earth Day Opening Log (scroll frame below to view log)
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After the opening, a dance was held at phoenix stations bar in sovereign, Vice Fleet admiral Cobramax Mechanique took the opportunity to deliver a small speech, but letting people lose on the dance floor to boogie their earth day blues away.
Later a competition was held, for those lovers of the game "Greedy", to see who was going to be the Earth Day champion, which feel to hydregion Resident (Sophie Johnson).
A video screen was erected near the booths to show a documentary called "home" about how we exploit the earth natural resources. You can watch the video from this link HERE
Research division had video playing in there booth which took a difference stance on global warming.
on the last day of the event RoBobby McMillan gave a lecture called "Star Trek as an Inspiration" which looked and the vision of star trek and how that could be used to improve the way we treat the earth.
Log of Lecture below (scroll frame below to view log)
That pretty much rapped up the week long events for Earth Day in the GFC, hope people enjoyed the activities and maybe learnt something.
Though some people may not know it yet, but its one of those sad defining moments in SL with the announcement of SL GO shutting down.
This is what was posted on their website (while it still exists)
To our SL Go community:
It is with great sadness we must announce that OnLive’s SL Go service will be coming to an end. Sony is acquiring important parts of OnLive, and their plans don’t include a continuation of the SL Go service. However, your service should continue uninterrupted until April 30, 2015. No further subscription fees will be charged, and you can continue to enjoy SL Go on all of your devices until that date.
In our year of SL Go service, we have become quite close to the Second Life® community. Thanks to your patronage and constructive feedback, SL Go became one of OnLive’s most successful services. We know how important SL Go is for many of you, and it saddens us to bring the service to a close. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to you for being a part of “SL Go by OnLive” and wish you all the best. For more information, please see our FAQ section.
For those who may not be familiar with the system, what SL Go did was allow people with less powerful computers to run Second life at high quality by using their own computers to host SL (using their onlive service) and streaming the graphics/sound in a viewer window back to your machine.
You were able to for the most part control it like you would from your own computer with a few limitations, but it worked pretty well on deskstop, and you could use it on your android tablets and Ipad, even on smartphones (SL GO service).
Their Onlive service allowed for the streaming play of a selection of computer games which could be enjoyed on older machines which wouldn't be able to play them or play at vastly reduced graphic quality.
They charged around $10 to use it for the month or a little under £7 or 9 Euros with other options for hourly use.
I already had membership and though I didn't use it all the time, when I wanted to take high quality pictures or experience somewhere i know would be laggy due to high numbers of people or prims, it was great to use as lag pretty much disappeared and you were able to enjoy SL how it was intended.
But nothing last forever and Sony has just acquired the technology for the patent, they'll probably use the tech for inclusion with the PS4 game console so they can run I expect old PS games through this system without the need of using an emulator and possibly other applications as well.
Of cause petitions are already being drawn up, but in reality I doubt if Sony will care much as SL wouldn't have anything to offer them.
We would all like to wish our Vice Fleet Admiral a very happy 10th SL birthday anniversary. We would like to thank him for all his work over the 10 years in making GFC what it is today, with our Fleet Admiral Katrina Bixby.
We wish him best wishes and look forward to working with him in the future.
This years sci-fi convention is already in full swing, for those who may miss it or just want to be reminded of what's there this season a cool video has been made. Even the GFC booth is seen in the first few minutes.
Once again cupid his pulling the string back on his arrows to shoot love in the heart of the masses. Yep, you've guessed it, Valentine's Day has come round again and as is traditional Social Events will be putting on its annual bash of dancing in a plush ball room.
The GFC has boards all around the sims linking to the landmark which well hold the event that is be on going throughout the day.
So if your free on Saturday February 14th from around noon onwards then come check the party out.
Sometime ago a google+ community social media page was set up to help spread GFC activities and information. Two groups were made, one for members only and another which the public can join and comment on.
Those who join are free to post articles, pictures, videos or link to something which maybe of interest to others in the group. As its social media these can be accessed via your computer, phones and tablets easily. Its usually set up that when your signed into to these devices messages are sent automatically when new posts are submitted making it easy to keep track with was being said without missing anything.
This week the public G+ community page passed the 100 member mark, so thank you to all those who have joined and hope we are keeping them up to day with some of the goings on in the GFC sims.
Remember members can contribute to these pages so always feel free to post about your experience in the group.
Stepping on the round sensor to will extend the bridge
Some of you who walk or fly around sovereign sim may have noticed the island in the middle of the lake, but what they may not know is you don't have to fly or jump in a boat to get there. A simple way is to walk across on foot. Once you stand or walk on the pressure point at the shore an automatic bridge will extend across the water for you to stroll along to the center.
The bridge has a detector so after a few second of no one standing on it, the bridge will detract leaving the lake clear again for sailing and speed boating.
With the 2014/15 Bi-Annual winter ball not even cold (well a weekish) certificates have started to be sent out to those lucking members who have been promoted to their shiny new ranks. Vice Fleet Admiral cobramax was tasked with getting all those certificates written up and sent out via email, skype or what other means those who haven't embraced technology required as their delivery systems, carrier pigeons I heard was a very popular choice for many.
Myself and debbydo had ours sent already, they will have pride and place....erms somewhere, not sure where yet, we can put it with our other medals, accolades and death threats.
Congratulations for all those who were promoted at the ball and have received their well earned recognitions, may 2015 be as fruitful as 2014.
UPDATE
Admiral JD Matova has also started sending out certificated for the awards given out through emails or what other delivery system is needed.
If you have a powerful PC or get a chance to use SLGo/SL onlive then you can push secondlife's graphics to the max with shadows, water effects, focus and light sources all switched on. If you get a chance to do that when the sim is set to night you get to see how peaceful and beautiful the GFC can look, just check out these pictures below and the web album link.
Bi-Annual ball ad unit curtsey of Communication Division
The time of year has rolled round once more and the winter ball is again upon the members of the GFC, this years theme as voted by the group is the Orion house as seen in the Original Star Trek series pilot episode "The Cage".
The Bi-Annual ball is GFC's opportunity to award its members for their hard work and dedication over the past 6 months in the group, its where they hand out awards and promotions (promotions from the rank of ensign upwards).
The ball will start at 2pm SLT, but before the start of the event debbydo and Robobby will be on the land stream radio entertaining you from around 10am upto the start of the ball. The dress code will be either Orion theme dress with vendors available to get Orion like skins and outfits curtsey of Kendra Mollsen (Koreeah Resident) for 50L$ or if you have the GalaxyFleetCommand group tag you can pick up a green skin for free from GFC medical.
Dress uniforms can also be picked up for free from the recruitment office or medical, again main GFC group tag required for access.
For those not picking up awards, promotion or who are guests, suits and evening dresses tend to be a popular choice of attire.
As usual the main event will feature the acceptance of award and promotions. Members will be able to stand up and give a short speech when receiving their achievements. A RP is also planned, as are fireworks and the dance party at the end which snapper Desade will be hosting.
The event is once again scheduled to be held at the Roddenberry centre in Galaxy Sim, congratulations for all those who are up for awards and promotions, we hope everyone will have a truly great day.
2014 was another busy year in the GFC, many things happened, some of which we recorded in this blog, I've picked a few stories to remind you of it, so lets jog down memory lane again and reminisce about the year that was 2014......
Tactical's New Building
A new tactical building was created in Sovereign sim, an opening party was held for it.
Snow once again fell on the ground in the GFC, to get in a festive mood an ice rink was laid down, snowmen plotted around and all the sims had a nice Christmas feel about them.
For those who didn't witness the opening of the new HQ a few weeks ago missed a new creative way to cut the ribbon, some of our engineers found a totally over the top approach to unveiling a new building by creating a giant replica of the TOS episode "The Cage" fortress class phaser which when activated cut the ribbon and open the new HQ officially, above is a short video capturing that moment.
GFC Tram ride video by Katrina Bixby
GalaxyFleetCommand Fleet Admiral Katrina Bixby made a video which highlighted the tram which has been build to commute members around the sims taking a more scenic route. In the video she also points out other relevant locations in the sims people may like to visit. Video above.
Winter Bi-Annual Ball
Andoria was the theme for the winter bi-annual ball. Based in an ice cave scene, members
sat at ice tables and chairs, awards and promotions were handed out as well as a radio play,
