Concert group meeting on Magical Arts Room and Sports

Henny B-F-R

November 30, 2013 5:17 PM

Concert group meeting by Henny B-F-R

If it wasn't for Henry Carey, Henny could have held this meeting in the Aladren Common Room. Not that she minded Henry being there at all. She wasn't really sure why he'd joined her group, seeing as she had barely spoken two words, if that, to him in her time at Sonora, and she wasn't exactly a respectable Pureblood group figurehead. But, whatever the reason he was welcome, as the most trouble he was likely to cause was having a confusingly similar first name to her and an identical surname to one of the other group members. Andrina and Alicia being in... well, not so much close proximity, as they shared a room, but... forced co-operation was the more interesting issue. Nothing explicit, that she knew of, had ever happened between them but they definitely didn't click. Still, 'forced co-operation' was a fairly apt description of their last five and a bit years, so perhaps they would be fine. She was very pleased with her group on the whole; she was working with her closest friends and a few others, none of whom she objected to. And most of the friends she wasn't working with had groups of their own anyway. Really, it was pretty good.

She had been tempted to choose the library as a setting for the meeting but it didn't seem neutral territory, and the meeting was likely to involve a lot of talking, so MARS seemed safer. She had opted for the dance room, in the hopes that it might be inspiring (though she couldn't imagine they were going to be breaking out vast amounts of jazz hands in this group) and sent messages to all group members to meet her there.

“Thank you for coming,” she greeted, once they were assembled, “For our concert performance, I want us to come up with something that reflects us as a group, as well as giving everyone a chance to participate in a way they are comfortable with. I thought today we could just pool our skills and our ideas. Let me know if there's anything you feel particularly confident in doing – be it on stage or off – and any ideas you have.” She had been torn for a while between her usual urges to be democratic and the fact that she felt a need to lead. In the end, she had reconciled herself to the latter being able to mean chairing meetings, rather than coming up with all the ideas. “I don't have a lot of experiencing acting. I can hold a tune okay...” Arts, of all kind, really weren't her forte. “In terms of ideas, I'd wondered about acting out some famous discoveries, or elements of the lives of our favourite famous wizards.” She felt that this would be suitably performance-y for the concert but also appeal to the academic tendencies of her group.

“But that's just one idea...” she added, opening up the floor to the next person.

13 Henny B-F-R Concert group meeting 211 Henny B-F-R 1 5

Alicia Bauer

December 05, 2013 3:56 PM

Happily met. by Alicia Bauer

Alicia was still a little annoyed, when something occurred to bring it to her mind, not to be in a group composed entirely of her friends, but as she entered the art room for the meeting Henny had called, she had to admit the group she was in would do. The Carey boys were unknown quantities to her, but would likely follow Thad’s lead, as would Evan, and Andri….

Well, she had no hopes for Andri actually playing nicely with others, but frankly, she was not bad enough to threaten the success of the overall group, and there were bigger things than just the current thing. If Andri was as much of a passive-aggressive pain in this group’s collective posterior as she had been in the challenge groups two years ago, Alicia thought there was every chance that by the end of the year, Henny wouldn’t like her anymore, which would be worth putting up with a lot for to Alicia. She didn’t interfere in her friends having other friends, since she thought this was more likely to drive her friends away from her than from the interlopers, but she never liked it much, and she and Andri actually disliked each other, unlike her largely neutral relationships with Evan and the other girls in Cepheus’ life. Having her out of Henny’s life would be a welcome improvement to seventh year, and what was better, Andri would do all the work herself.

Hopefully. If not, well…she had put up with her for this long, she could do it for another year and a half, and Andri didn’t register as a threat anymore. Two years ago, sure; back then, enough had still been going wrong that Alicia still hadn’t really trusted her friends. Now she knew better. She would have rather had Cepheus on her team than on Alex’s, but because she enjoyed his company and it made her happy when they were all together, not because she thought he would abandon her after spending a little more time with Theresa and Alex than usual for a few weeks. As she sat down, she smiled at Henny, then at each arrival in turn – more warmly at Thad than the others, but as cheerily at Andri as anyone else. Everything would work out, one way or another. She wasn’t worried.

She wondered for a moment whether or not to change that as she listened to Henny’s proposal for a group act. If Henny picked a political witch to act out, that could be…awkward. They all politely ignored Henny’s politics because they liked her as a person, but parents might not understand that. Henny, however, was, she thought, both smart and kind enough not to put them in that position, and the idea itself was good, so she dismissed that thought as a stray bit of paranoia.

“If all else fails, there’s always debates and old stories,” she said lightly when it came to her. “I think your idea’s better than those, though.”

Without a doubt, actually. Old stories were overdone, and as for the other, even having that in her head was probably why she had suffered from a stray bit of paranoia for a minute. There were plenty of safe topics to debate about, she had a whole list she had composed during the search for a paper topic over the summer, but even they could get out of hand under the wrong circumstances, and the others might not see why they needed to stick with something boring. Privately, she'd like for all her friends to sit down and talk through things and figure out what the truth was so there would be no conflicts of that kind between them, but doing so in front of their parents was a bad, bad, bad idea.

16 Alicia Bauer Happily met. 210 Alicia Bauer 0 5

Thad Pierce

December 23, 2013 11:54 AM

Likewise by Thad Pierce

Thad arrived, not early as he would have preferred, but actually late. Not so late that the meeting had already begun, but late enough that the minute hand was past the meeting time given in Henny's note. He would have liked to blame Evan for this as Evan wasn't entirely known for his punctuality, but his roommate was quite blameless this time. Thad had been so close to finishing his potions essay that he'd decided that it would cost more time in the long run to put it away and then figure out where he'd left off than it would to just finish it and be a couple minutes late to Henny's concert meeting.

"Sorry," he apologized as he entered the Dance Room, nodding a greeting to all present (but with a slightly wider smile for Alicia). "I was finishing up an essay for Fawcett." Most people here would understand the relief that went along with that, even if they weren't in the RATS level course where the feeling was exponentially intensified.

Soon after that, Henny got them started with a request for skills and an idea. Alicia also offered a couple of ideas. He felt compelled to contribute as well, though his idea stack was pretty slim.

"Well, I can't sing well, but I won't break windows," he offered, "And I acted in the last concert, so I could try that again." The skit his group had produced had not really been the pinnacle of theatre art, but they hadn't been booed of the stage at least. He tried to think what else he could do that might translate well into some kind of performance. "I can also ballroom dance, fly a broomstick, and memorize things."

"As for ideas, being a historical figure sounds interesting. Maybe not just discoveries, but maybe we could reenact a historical scene from the Vampire Wars or the Goblin Wars or one of the first Quidditch matches" - this was partly offered because almost half the group here was on his Quidditch team and he'd mentioned broom flying as a skill - "or even the founding of Sonora."

1 Thad Pierce Likewise 213 Thad Pierce 0 5