Prof. Sky Alton

The scoreboard has been updated! You can view it here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TSQu_U55FF5fcpb_0h_hob8yw8H0jeJ9PGXHBYauBuo/edit?usp=sharing Congratulations to Prof. Will Lestrange, Katherine Laurier and Ellie Vernez for earning the first bonuses of the activity. :D

Remember there's just over 24 hours to go before the cut off for the first scoreboard update (23:59 HOL-time on the 21st). If you've done a task but not claimed your cards yet, now's the time. And if you have a possible snap you're considering, it could be time to make it to be in with a chance of swiping a juicy bonus. Remember though, you don't have to choose or snap your cards now. It's entirely up to you.

Thank you all so much! <3

As this activity is partly about games, we thought it’d be fun to play some. For this task, we’d like you to post 5 times in a couple of the games we have over in Peeves Place – Would You Rather and Word Chain. How many times you post in each game is up to you. https://gryff.net/index.php?/topic/1358-would-you-rather/ https://gryff.net/index.php?/topic/480-word-chain/ Remember not to post back to back - you need to wait for someone else to post before posting again. Once you’ve made your posts, reply to this topic to say how many times you posted in each thread. You’ll earn 10 rubies and the chance to pick cards for this task if you do it before 23:59 HOL-time on the 18th of August. The cards for this task are Ten of Diamonds, Three of Hearts and Nine of Diamonds. Once you’ve completed the task, please pick two (2) and let us know which via the Exploding Snap message chain you should already have with us.

We couldn’t talk about wizarding sports without spending some time on the greatest of them all: Quidditch. Throughout its almost thousand-year long history, this game of 14 players, 6 hoops and 4 balls has demonstrated a unique power to draw people in. Please complete the following Quidditch themed jigsaw (make sure you keep it set to 117 pieces!). Take a screenshot of your completed puzzle, including your time and piece count, upload it to an image sharing website and post the link below. https://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=2c0015a002fc You’ll earn 10 rubies and the chance to pick cards for this task if you share your completed puzzle by 23:59 HOL-time on the 18th of August. The cards for this task are Four of Hearts, Nine of Clubs and Seven of Spades. Once you’ve completed the task, please pick two (2) and let us know which via the Exploding Snap message chain you should already have with us.

One of the most gruelling wizarding sporting events is the annual Broom Race. This involves flyers from all over the world completing a 300 mile course across the skies of Sweden. And they don’t just have to contend with tricky weather conditions – the route takes them over a dragon reservation! Let’s tune into the Wizarding Wireless Network and catch up on the commentary for this year’s race… Please create a written transcript of what the commentators might be saying while the race is going on. You could have them describing the action, talking about the competitors or providing interesting details about the location for the listeners at home. Your transcript should be 100 words long for full credit. To earn 10 rubies and the chance to choose cards for this task, please post your submissions below by 23:59 HOL-time on the 18th of August. The cards for this task are Five of Diamonds, Three of Spades and Ace of Diamonds. Once you’ve completed the task, please pick two (2) and let us know which via the Exploding Snap message chain you should already have with us.

Welcome to Exploding Snap! Between July 15th and August 18th, we’ll be playing the wizarding world’s favourite card game. You can join in at any point. Get ready for competition, explosions and fun! How it Works Every Monday (for 5 weeks), we’ll release 3 tasks themed around sports, games and competitions. By completing tasks, you’ll earn rubies and playing cards for the snap portion of the activity (which is explained in more detail in the instructions topic). If you need an alternative task for accessibility reasons, please let us know and we’ll work with you to find something suitable. Each task is worth 10 rubies and there will be a 30 ruby bonus if you do them all, meaning a total of 180 rubies. There will be prizes in the form of beans for people who do the best in the snap portion of the activity - how well you do at snap won’t effect how many rubies you earn. For more information about how the snap part of this works, please head over to the instruction thread: And to sign up, please head over here: Timeline July 14th: Sign ups open. July 15th: week 1 tasks posted July 22nd: week 2 tasks posted July 29th: week 3 tasks posted August 5th: week 4 tasks posted August 12th: week 5 tasks posted August 18th: All tasks due. August 21st: Deadline for choosing and snapping cards. As you can see, we’re leaving a 3 day window at the end (after the task deadline on the 18th) for people to make any final card choices and snapping decisions, although staff will make any possible snaps for you before the results are calculated if we don’t here back from you. We’ll be aiming to get the final results out by the 23rd at the latest. Have fun!

Here’s everything you need to know to join in with exploding snap! :D Group PM and Spreadsheet When you sign up (by posting in the sign ups thread), we’ll send you a link to a spreadsheet where we’ll keep track of your score, your cards, the snaps you make and the rubies you’ve earned. Your spreadsheet is unique to you – only you and the Gryff staff will see it. You won’t have edit access to your sheet. If you think there’s been a miscalculation, please let us know and we’ll look into it for you. We’ll send your link to you via a group PM with all the organisers included. Please use this thread for all activity related messages, like submitting puzzles, telling us your card choices and requesting snaps. Points You’ll start out with 500 points. The ultimate goal is to have as few points as possible by the end . If your score goes down beyond zero, we’ll use negative numbers. You can decrease your score by snapping cards, obtaining wildcards and by earning weekly scoreboard bonuses. The people with the fewest points at the end of the activity will receive a prize in the form of beans: 400 beans for first place, 300 for second place and 200 for third place. Where you place will have no effect on the rubies you earn. Rubies are linked to tasks, not to points or snaps. Cards We’ll be using the traditional 4 suits of playing cards: diamonds, clubs, hearts and spades. However, we’ll only be using the numbers 1 (ace) to 10 – no jacks, kings or queens. The task cards will be drawn from multiple decks to give you a chance of making perfect snaps. You’ll start out with five (5) cards in your hand. These starter cards are randomly drawn and are unique to you. Each task has 3 cards associated with it and these will be listed in the task topic. When you complete a task, you’ll pick 2 (two) and let us know which via the group PM. Two of the cards are ordinary cards, whereas one is the wildcard. If you strike lucky and pick the wildcard, the card’s value is knocked off your score. You don’t get to keep the wildcard though (so you can’t then snap it). If you pick an ordinary card, your score increases by that card’s value and that card gets added to your hand (meaning you can snap it) This is how that looks in practice: A task offers the 4 of hearts, the 9 of diamonds and the 3 of clubs. The 3 of clubs is the wildcard. If I chose the hearts and the diamonds, my score would go up by 13 points and those cards would be added to my hand (so I could snap them if I had suitable cards or got them later on). But if I chose diamonds and clubs, my score would go up by 6 (9 -3) and I’d only keep the diamond card in my hand - I wouldn't be able to keep and snap the clubs card. Snaps If you acquire two of the same card (IE: you earned 2 versions of 2 of hearts), you can make them snap. This not only decreases your score by their values but also by 50 points as a snap bonus. Three of the same number can also be snapped for a snap bonus of 30, while 4 of the same suit can be snapped for a bonus of 20. So if I snapped 2 2 of hearts cards, my score would go down by 54. If I snapped the 5 of diamonds, 5 of clubs and 5 of spades, my score would go down by 45. You can snap your cards at any time but you can’t change your mind about a snap once made. It also goes without saying that you can’t use the same card twice. You also can’t snap 3 of the same card together – perfect snaps are for a pair of matching cards only. Scoreboard and Scoreboard Bonuses We’ll update the scoreboard every Monday. Your card choices and snap requests must have been received by 23:59 on the previous day (Sunday) to be reflected in that update. Any choices and snaps that come in after that will be accounted for the following week. At the end of the activity, you’ll have until 23:59 HOL-time on the 21st of August to make any outstanding card choices and/or snap requests. If we don't here from you, we’ll go through and make any possible snaps for you before announcing the final result. Each time the scoreboard is updated, we'll give a points reduction for the people with the 3 lowest scores – 50 for the person with the lowest, 40 for the person with the second lowest and 30 for the person with the third lowest. So it could pay off to snap your cards as you go rather than waiting to snap them all at the end. Remember, your snap requests must have come in by 23:59 HOL-time on the Sunday to be counted for that week’s update. So if you want to snap your cards to improve your chances of qualifying for the first bonus, you’ll need to send in your snap request by 23:59 on the 21st of July and so on. As a heads up, we won't be doing bonuses at the end of the activity and the scoreboard won't be updated until the final results are ready. So, there will be no update on the 19th of August. Good luck!

If you’d like to sign up for Exploding Snap please reply here and we’ll get you set up! We’ll send you a link to a spreadsheet where we’ll keep track of your score, your cards, the snaps you make and the rubies you’ve earned. Your spreadsheet is unique to you – only you and the Gryff staff will see it. You won’t have edit access to your sheet. If you think there’s been a miscalculation, please let us know and we’ll look into it for you. We’ll send your link to you via a group PM with all the organisers included. Please use this thread for all activity related messages, like submitting puzzles, telling us your card choices and requesting snaps. We’ll try to be quick sending you your sheet but please be patient. :) You can sign up any time until the task deadline: 23:59 HOL-time on the 18th of August

If you have any questions about the activity, please ask them here and we'll get back to you ASAP.

Approved Amelie Sparks - First year

It’s award time! But first, I’d like to say a huge thank you to all of you who earned points, joined in here on The Den or contributed to the community in numerous other ways. You really do make Gryffindor and HOL what it is - somewhere worth coming back to time after time. A huge thank you to our staff (including the current members and those who took a step back this year) – your efforts to make The Den a fun and cosy place to be have not gone unnoticed. <3 And now, I mentioned awards, didn’t I? Onto the shinies! The Brave award is for anyone who earned at least 500 points during the school year. Well done to... @Chasen Carter @Cut Yuna Davie Diggle @Dibyarup James Potter @Doubhee Pevensy @Ellie Vernez @Emily Hughes @Harmony Potts @Janne Halla @Lorainia Riverrider Nargola Hawthorne @Quinn Marshall @Reign Grey @Reyyan Azkendra @Sophia Williams The Determined award is for anyone who went a step further and earned themselves 1000 points in the year… Chasen Carter Davie Diggle Dibyarup James Potter Doubhee Pevensy Ellie Vernez Harmony Potts Janne Halla Nargola Hawthorne Quinn Marshall Sophia Williams The Daring award is for those hardy folks who went even further and achieved 1500 points this year…. Chasen Carter Dibyarup James Potter Doubhee Pevensy Ellie Vernez Harmony Potts Janne Halla Quinn Marshall Sophia Williams And finally, we award the Minerva McGonagall prize to those marvellous lions who manage to net themselves over 3000 points. There are two of them this year and we are in awe of their point hording prowess…. Dibyarup James Potter Janne Halla Now onto the awards specifically for this term…. Our Platinum Quill award goes to the highest point earner for the term and with a staggering 2201, Janne Halla is the worthy winner! Considering that Janne managed this all while teaching a class, planning the Wizardvision Song Contest and helping out around The Den, he really is this term’s Gryffindor MVP. Next up are our very sparkly ruby based awards, the Phoenix for the Gryff with the most rubies and the Lionheart Award for the visitor with the most. Congratulations to Dibyarup James Potter and @River Fenwick who both earned 430. It’s been wonderful to see you both putting so much effort into activities around The Den this term! And we’ll end with a couple awards decided by the staff … Studious Simba goes to someone who has distinguished themselves in their classes and we’re delighted to hand it to Quinn Marshall this term. Quinn put a lot of heart into their assignments and that hard work definitely deserves to be recognised. Speaking of hard work, we’d also like to give an honourable mention to last term’s recipient, Sophia Williams, who has kept up their sterling work as well. Next up is The Golden Snitch. This is an old award, handed out to a particularly enthusiastic member, and we’re reviving it so we can recognise a truly extraordinary achievement on the part of one of our lions. Lorainia Riverrider threw herself into the gruelling challenge of the OWL exams and emerged with 11 outstandings. Very well done, Lo! An honourable mention also goes out to @Emerald Wolvenhowlfor her 3 outstandings as well. That’s all the shinies for this time round. Now let’s crack open that butterbeer!

Tree tourists aren’t too common but imagine if they were? What kind of services would savvy business people create to cater to this unique market? For this task, we’d like you to create a poster or a written advertisement for a service that would appeal to tired tree tourists. A sunlight bath, a quick twig trim… The possibilities are endless. If you choose the written option, please make your ad at least 80 words long. If you choose the graphics option, please keep your image to 600X600 pixels and upload it to an image hosting website. Share your submissions below by 23:59 HOL-time on the 31st of July to earn 10 rubies.

Approved Lexa Winslow - Slytherin Visitor

Approved Charlie Mincraf - First year