The Citizens and Scribes of The Orient met on Saturday May 8th to introduce themselves and discuss ideas for improving our city. Here are the results of our meeting:

• Announcements and Things. Suggestions were made for expanding the announcements thread to include such thing as information on Orient groups, city activities, contests, requests for Acta articles, and posting minutes of any chats for those citizens that are unable to attend. Sankira Qin volunteered to act as chat secretary and summarize this meeting, hence the following report is respectfully submitted by the above named scribe.

• Bardic College. Lady Inari Kotoku suggested that a group or board be created to provide the citizens with a place for studying and trying their hand at the various kinds of Oriental poetry and storytelling without limitations to haiku. The suggested example was The Bardic College in Celtia. It was further suggested that a group would probably be the least likely to take focus away from the public haiku thread (which gives The Orient a higher profile throughout AW). A group might also be expanded to cover other forms of art, should the members so choose. Action Item: Field interest for a group and group leaders on the suggested groups thread.

• Link Exchanges. Lalita Ashoka suggested that groups such as Clouds of Legend seek out other like-minded groups and create link exchanges that would provide members with information about other groups they might find helpful or interesting. (For example: The Scribe's Palette would be a good group to exchange links with for any of the role play groups.)

• Monthly chats. Lady Inari suggested that a monthly chat might be scheduled, perhaps on the first Saturday of every month. Regularly scheduled chats would open lines of communication between the largest audience possible. Said chats would be open to anyone who was available to attend or had an idea they would like to discuss. Minutes of the chats could be summarized (such as this one) and posted for those who are unable to attend. It was further suggested that the monthly chats be set up on a staggered scale so that more people could attend. (i.e, Lalita could hold one at 5:00 in the evening (Bahrain time) for citizens in Asia, then Ningyo could take over or begin another at 5:00 (Portugal time) for people in Europe, and finally Sank could take over or begin another chat at 5:00 (AWT) for people in the States. The ideas from all three chats could then be combined in a Chat Minutes post for everyone to read.

• Monthly or bi-monthly contests. Lady Inari also brought up the possibility of holding small monthly contests (or every other month) that everyone might participate in and enjoy. (Perhaps something like little monthly "festivals" based on actual festivals in the Orient, which small groups of citizens could volunteer to put together?) This would also give us great, continuing practice for coming up with fun activities for the two major festivals of the year. Hui Li Wu made the very excellent point that at least some of these contests should be ongoing activities so that everyone could participate regardless of the time zone in which they live. Action item: Need to see if we can find volunteers (2-3) for a MiniFest Committee to be charged with coming up with a list of first contest suggestions.

• Dueling Haikus Lalita Ashoka mentioned that the live online haiku challenge, which occured on the evening of May 4th, might be a fun activity to schedule on a regular basis.

• The Library of the Orient It was suggested that we create a place for citizens to post recommended reading lists of books with an Oriental theme.

• Pit Your Wits Hui Li Wu suggested that we look into inter-city contests. Inviting teams from other cities to come to The Orient for friendly competitions. Lady Inari suggested that inter-group competitions might be considered as well.

• The Search for Bao Bei. It was pointed out that Bao Bei was originally intended to hide out in people's home or may be in groups. By having the Search for Bao Bei as an ongoing competition, it would create more traffic through homes and groups — hopefully serving as "publicity" for those places he visits. Action item:Lalita and Sankira need to get back to work creating the logistics of the contest.

• Citizen Awards. It was suggested that we create a Citizen Award to be given to those people who consistently work so hard to help build the Orient. It could be based on posts, contributions to the Orient, ideas, hard work, helping others. Or it could be a contest for writing about any one culture in The Orient in your article feature. We will assign judges, and award a cool graphic badge for the homesite, and feature that article. Action item: Need to come up with suggestions for how to choose the awardee and how often the award would be given out. Every month? As needed?

• Highlighted Culture of the Month Lady Inari suggested that we might highlight a different culture of the Orient every month. Lalita Ashoka pointed out that we have so many different cultures, that highlighting them would let folks understand more about them.