Concert Planning Meeting on Aladren Commons

Zevalyn Ives

January 31, 2019 10:02 PM

Concert Planning Meeting by Zevalyn Ives

Zevalyn was the oldest of the three Aladren prefects, not to mention the Head Girl, so it fell to her to lead the organization of Aladren's concert planning meeting. To start with, she picked a Saturday late in September, when people ought to have had time to settle into Sonora's routine and the newest first years would have had a chance to at least get a little idea of what life in Aladren was like, before they were called upon to help plan a concert act representing it.

She'd also made efforts to be sure it didn't conflict with Quidditch practice or any of the club meeting dates and times posted on the bulletin board (if a club didn't post on Aladren's board they might be out of luck, but she was trying hard to make it easy for all Aladrens to make it if they wanted to be a part of it).

Her own announcement had gone on the bulletin board once she had decided on the when. The where was easy - the Aladren Common Room. Everyone in Aladren was encouraged to join in, so there was no easier spot than right there in their home. The common room was plenty large enough to accommodate everyone; Aladren wasn't all that populous. She put up additional posters in the girls' corridor, and wrangled one of the boys to do the same in their corridor, though she was banking on trust he actually did that since she couldn't check and all of the prefects were girls. Of course, if he didn't, the whole three boys in Aladren could still see the main bulletin board just fine.

It was now the day of the meeting, and Zevalyn still had no brilliant idea of her own to pitch for an act, so open brainstorming session it was. She had brought in a chalk board and had written IDEAS at the top of it in blue chalk.

"Hi everyone," she greeted the group that had gathered. "As some of you know already, I'm Zevalyn Ives, the seventh year prefect. These are Emerald Brockert and Amelia Layne, my co-prefects for our House." As they were both actually sixth years, Aladren not having any fifth years in it, she opted not to designate years to them. "Together we'll be organizing and leading this concert act."

"So as the Headmaster mentioned at the Feast, Aladren will be putting on one of the concert acts at this year's Midsummer Event. We're supposed to do something to showcase our House's qualities, which for us is a love of learning, logic, independence, willpower, and problem solving. So if anyone has any solutions to the problem of what we are going to do for our act, I'd love to learn what you have to say." She could not quite hold a straight face as she delivered that last line, but did manage to keep from laughing at her own joke. She dropped the attempt at humor, and continued, "Or even if you don't have a big idea for a full act, I'll take suggestions for what you individually would like to contribute, like costumes or set design or music or whatever. If we get enough of those, we can see what we can do about combining them into a cohesive whole."

"Yes, please, go ahead," she pointed to her first volunteer, and readied her chalk.

1 Zevalyn Ives Concert Planning Meeting 380 Zevalyn Ives 1 5

Gary Harper

February 05, 2019 10:46 PM

I've got nothing... by Gary Harper

Gary wasn't sure about this whole 'concert' idea. He certainly didn't have any ranks in the performance skill, and his charisma score was pretty awful. He had tried to forget about the whole thing, and was planning on pleading ignorance of any sort of planning meeting. The plan would have worked, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids. By 'meddling kids' he meant Zevalyn. She just had to ask him to hang up the notice in the boys area. Which means he had to know about it, and therefore show up. So, here he was now, she had presented a problem and he had failed his Will Save to resist, now his brain was uncooperatively working on a solution.

He listened to Zev's opening speech, and got a little confused. To the best of his knowledge, concerts were collections of musical performances, but it sounded more like it could be... a variety show type of act? He raised his hand to inquire, "I'm not sure if I have a full understanding of what we are trying to put together. Is it a musical number? What exactly are the parameters and criteria that we need to follow? Do you have any examples of acts from previous years?"

2 Gary Harper I've got nothing... 1404 Gary Harper 0 5

Zevalyn

February 06, 2019 7:46 PM

Yes, thank you by Zevalyn

Her first victim - er, volunteer - did not have an idea to share, but he did raise a good point. She was glad she'd only started two years late instead of three, or she might have been unable to answer his question. But as it happened, the Concert had been the first of the Midsummer Fair events she had experienced at Sonora, so it wasn't entirely new to her.

"Yes, thank you, Gary. Good question. Sonora does have a very loose definition of 'concert'. They use it as a synonym for 'performance'. Last time, four years ago, it was a club showcase, so each club did something representing their club. The orchestra played some songs, the choir sang some songs. But then the dueling club had a couple choreographed duels, and the baking club sold food, and the art club made decorations. I don't think we're going to get away with selling food or making decorations, but we can do some kind of play, a music thing, a stage magician act, some spell demonstrations, or whatever other ideas people have for something a group could do on a stage in front of all of our parents. There are no rules about it needing to involve specifically music. Does that make it easier?"

She herself was kind of leaning away from a music act, but if that's what everyone else wanted to do, she would go with majority rule. "So, I don't have any specific ideas, but we are the House associated with academics, one idea might be to introduce our audience to all of the subjects taught here at Sonora. Does anybody else have anything they might want to add to that idea, or you can introduce an alternative starting point to build from? If we get a few ideas, we can flesh them out and decide as a group which sounds the most interesting and fun to put on."

1 Zevalyn Yes, thank you 380 Zevalyn 0 5

Ness

February 07, 2019 3:04 AM

Let's get educational by Ness

Ness was excited for the concert. It was one of those school events that could have gone either way in terms of being interesting or not, depending on what they were asked to perform, but they were being asked to represent Aladren house so that meant their performance was obviously going to be fun and awesome and full of the things that the second year liked. As prefects were leading it, it also meant getting to hang out with Zevalyn, which was cool because Ness wanted to know Kir’s girlfriend better. The concert had also been the first time Ness had got to sneak a peek at Sonora life, as families got to come and watch, and even though he hadn’t really been involved in anything in the club showcase, they had all come along.

The second year joined the meeting, smiled with genuine amusement at Zev’s humour, and was ready to contribute ideas. Only first Gary got in and asked for some clarification, which Ness supposed was fair cos the choice of the word ‘concert’ could be confusing.

“I would tend to lean towards not musical,” Ness chipped in, “Whilst there are some good educational songs out there, I think it’s a lot easier to communicate a message through doing some sort of play or, like you said, a demonstration. I thought it might be cool to show some kitchen sink science type stuff - like, easy experiments that everyone can do at home, and maybe contrast it with some magic. Like ‘The magic of science, and the science of magic’ but I don’t know how that would entirely work,” pretty much there had been the thought that science was cool, and magical theory was cool, and that that was a really fun title, but Ness did not have a fully fledged plan behind that idea, “Or like… we could act out famous discoveries in magic. Or what you said, about demonstrating classes. I mean, those could fit together, but it’d probably be fun to teach everyone something they don’t already know about, including ourselves.

“Oh. And it’s parents and siblings. I came to the last one. Not that I’m saying we put on a kids’ show, but… just clarifying.”

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Amelia Layne

March 20, 2019 7:22 PM

And into problem-solving mode. by Amelia Layne

It was still slightly surreal to Amelia to hear herself being introduced to the group as a prefect alongside Emerald, but she raised her hand to identify herself as Amelia with a smile to the group gathered to try figuring out what Aladren should do for the Concert. Her dark gold hair was pulled up in a bun, and she didn’t wear any make-up, a fact she had never really thought about before she suddenly became A Public Figure like this. However, as Aladren was not exactly the frilliest of Houses, she suspected she was all right. At least as long as nobody found out that she wasn’t much of a genius or minded if they found out her family was a bit unusual. At the moment, though, she thought Emerald might be the only one in attendance who’d care much about that, so she was all right. Probably.

“I do think it would be a good idea to make – whatever we do – something that isn’t going to go over most of the kids’ heads, if we’re thinking about that,” she said after Ness McLeod chipped in some thoughts and ended up with the note about younger siblings being present. “Plus Muggleborn parents, they might be there, so it might help them understand what their kids are doing. Will we have time to do something from all the classes, though? It might be simpler to – I don’t know – focus on one or two, and the different levels of those – Beginners, Advanced, and Intermediate,” she suggested. “Or – how knowing your stuff aids in problem-solving,” she added, thinking of the dictionary definition of an Aladren. Independence would be, most likely, difficult to establish in a group project, but problem-solving and fun magic stuff could probably be put together without too much trouble.

16 Amelia Layne And into problem-solving mode. 360 Amelia Layne 0 5