SO I invited Lizzie Stark to Chimera

Auckland Chimera
#1

HI all,

Some of you are aware of Lizzie Stark, larper, blogger, cancer survivor, author of Leaving Mundania.

So I tweet with her on occasion, read her blog etc. and it occurred to me that I should invite her down here for some larp. Particularly Chimera. SO I did.

Her response was, yeah, I’d love to, she loves travelling… but she has a strict budget for such things… and here in lies the obstacle…

So my question to the community is, given that nzlarps is not for profit and can’t really pay for that kind of cost, would you all be interested in raising some funds to fly her down here?

It represents an interesting opportunity to get her perspective on larp and show her our own.

#2

i would love that and contribute dosh/accomidation/food ect.

idd also like to send a prominent NZLARPs member overseas to for us.

#3

So as I said, Lizzie is actually keen to do this. We just have to get her down here.

Ima going to float this with the national committee but if we want to make this happen we’ll need to chip in.

#4

Who is she?

#5

She wrote a book called Leaving Mundania about larp. Review here.

#6

Would there be a possibility of hooking up with some Australian groups and splitting the cost of travel? That’s what the science fiction conventions sometimes do.

#7

This is going to sound cold, but … why? What does NZlarps or any of us get out of her coming here and is it important enough to be worth it? Return flights to here are expensive, more than the cost of the proposed gear storage for a year, to use an example.

I’ll pay money to get someone here who is teaching a skill I don’t have, like the Alex Hansen workshop I did last month, and I’ll pay money to support worthy causes like the kid’s burn ward at the hospital, but I’m not seeing the point here.

#8

I agree with the cold hearted one :mrgreen:

I wouldn’t want to see nzlarps funds go on something like this. If people wanted to donate privately that’s another thing.

I’m sure she is a lovely person and everything, but I am not at heart a fan boy. I don’t squee when I see actors or authors.

#9

Lizzie has a number of perspectives to offer. She has an understanding of US larp and is quite keen on Nordic larp. I suggest her on the basis of intellectual discussion on larp theory of which I think we could learn something from. She can offer workshops, discussions, and run larps herself.

I agree that nzlarps shouldn’t pay for her to come visit. Crowd funding is the way to go for sure. As for shared costs, well maybe that might work.

And in saying that I am not suggesting this is a huge priority for nzlarps, as people have argued, we have other issues that might be better to put resources into.

As for being a fanboy, my interest here is more to do with sharing what we do down here with the rest of the world.

So if some people would like to see this kind of thing happen then cool, we need to fundraise.

If not, well then that’s just how it is and such is the will of the community.

#10

Is Chimera the best time/opportunity to maximise the potential of her visit?
What Lizzie could contribute to Chimera is the decision of Anna, the lead organiser of Chimera.

An idea was raised of a mini-convention, where theory of larp running etc was being mooted. Would that be more appropriate?

Considering the timeframe between needing to confirm/book/pay for cheap airflights, and needing to organise fundraising events etc. would 2014 be a more realistic date to aim for?

#11

This.

#12

Hey Jared, if you’re putting out feelers like this, it can be helpful to provide a bit more info as to what you expect people to do. I think a lot of people who might be keen won’t pipe up unless they know more. So, maybe give an idea of how much money you’re looking to raise, how you’re planning on doing it (straight up cash solicitations? Running auctions on Trade Me? Bake sales…).

Might make it easier for people to want to commit. :slight_smile:

It’s not something I’m personally interested in, but I’m all-for people following their hearts and taking action on things that are important to them.

#13

Is Chimera the best time/opportunity to maximise the potential of her visit?
What Lizzie could contribute to Chimera is the decision of Anna, the lead organiser of Chimera.

An idea was raised of a mini-convention, where theory of larp running etc was being mooted. Would that be more appropriate?

Considering the timeframe between needing to confirm/book/pay for cheap airflights, and needing to organise fundraising events etc. would 2014 be a more realistic date to aim for?[/quote]

Yeah Hannah this could be appropriate. I would personally like to see some actual larping done with Lizzie than all larp theory but that is just me.

#14

[quote=“amphigori”]Hey Jared, if you’re putting out feelers like this, it can be helpful to provide a bit more info as to what you expect people to do. I think a lot of people who might be keen won’t pipe up unless they know more. So, maybe give an idea of how much money you’re looking to raise, how you’re planning on doing it (straight up cash solicitations? Running auctions on Trade Me? Bake sales…).

Might make it easier for people to want to commit. :slight_smile:

It’s not something I’m personally interested in, but I’m all-for people following their hearts and taking action on things that are important to them.[/quote]

Ok well I had ideas such as:

Cash solicitations

Raffles for kit (such as costume, weapons etc.) which would require donations of kit or kit supplied for this purpose.

Auctions for kit would work too.

As it stands, 2014 is looking like a better target date and that requires some interest from the community as a whole. I have sent my email conversations to Anna, as of course this needs to go through her as well.

And to restate my purpose, I had an idea which I thought the community might like… I made a general inquiry to Lizzie to see whether she would be interested and she is but can’t do it out of her own pocket.

SO sink or float, it’s just an idea I thought might be cool.

#15

So are people keen to see this move ahead? Lizzie is keen, I guess we just have to decide whether we want to see her come down this way because we’ll need to fundraise if we want to get her down here.

Is Chimera the right time? It is a busy weekend however Lizzie suggest she can run discussions, run nordic style larps and workshops.

On this subject, are there other larpers who we would like to see come to NZ to see us?

DO we see value from this? To make it a reality we have to raise $2500…

#16

I see no value in it (or at least not $2,500 of value). But obviously if others do, and they want to try fundraising for it, then feel free.

#17

$2500 is this many long swords…

I’m not judging, I’m just observing…

#18

[quote=“Jared”]So are people keen to see this move ahead? Lizzie is keen, I guess we just have to decide whether we want to see her come down this way because we’ll need to fundraise if we want to get her down here.

Is Chimera the right time? It is a busy weekend however Lizzie suggest she can run discussions, run nordic style larps and workshops.

On this subject, are there other larpers who we would like to see come to NZ to see us?

DO we see value from this? To make it a reality we have to raise $2500…[/quote]

I don’t think this is any way a good use of the community’s fund raising efforts. I’m sure Lizzie is a lovely and interesting person, but I don’t see her as someone whose opinion I’d seek out on larping (beyond reading her book) I don’t see her as someone who has meaningfully or significantly contributed to the hobby. $2500 is a lot of money to raise for our community, and there are many areas of greater need. We have ongoing gear storage issues, as well as gear shortage and repair issues. That money would buy roughly 50 items of soft kit from Epic Armoury. We have ever-increasing needs to pay large deposits up front for events, now up to 18 months in advance. Auckland is looking at investing in a cage trailer. While I know the idea here is for the community to fundraise independently of nzLARPS, people only have so much spare cash - I would personally rather any fundraising pocket money was spent on fundraising efforts that brought long lasting gain to the community.

I’m not keen on the community expending its limited resources on bringing some journalist to Chimera, especially as I’d rather we weren’t ‘rewarded’ for our efforts with a less than favourable/snarky write up in some book somewhere. I apologise if that seems negative, that’s my two cents.

#19

Derek!!! Appreciate the point but that’s as bad as animated gifs on a mobile phone!!! :smiley:

#20

My opinion is that it isn’t something of value.

If I am going to contribute to helping another person attend a larp, it’ll be someone I already know. As an added bonus to giving a gift to a friend, I may even get to see and roleplay with them.