Welcome to new citizens and a question

I just noticed from our land page that we have had a lot of new citizens moving in lately.

I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you all to the city, if I may. Welcome Brian, Kevn, Moon, Patroklus, Rubaiyat and Salzie (and also welcome to those of you whom I never came around to welcome in the last few months .. yes that's you Cyberneticia, Lee, Lucid, Mezumi, Pelanor and my apologies to anyone that I may have forgotten!)

I'm a fairly new citizen myself as I have only been here for 2-3 months and my house in the far southwest corner of the sim is still being furnished (I keep running out of prims).

As Kevn mentioned in his introductory post, downtown Neualtenburg can seem pretty quiet at times, which is a bit odd when you consider how much has been going on in the forums lately.

I'd say much of the activity focus in Neualtenburg so far has been on the sides of politics, administration and building.

However, our population is rapidly approaching a size where it should be possible to broaden our focus to include a concern for improving the level of activity in the city. This is where _your_ input as new citizens would be greatly appreciated!

My question is this: What can we do in the city of Neualtenburg to make the sim - and especially the city centre - become an even more vibrant community bustling of life, culture, activities and sights to behold?

Here are some ideas of my own that I'd like to just toss out for all of you to grab and run with or to elaborate upon:

- GAMES: What about playing some games in the sim every once in a while. There are tonnes of funny games that could be played safely and without disturbing other people. Aliasi already hosts primtionary evenings on Tuesdays I believe it is. But what about: Capture the flag, roleplaying, geocaching, bow shooting competitions, racing, formation parachuting, joustling

- SCHOOL AND MUSEUM: What can we do to bring the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Neualtenburg School to life and engage them more as a promotor of cultural life in the local community

- SOCIAL EVENTS: "Come to my place and help me decorate", "Let's build this house together", "Housewarming parties", "A tour of the new homes of Neualtenburg", general gettogethers/chats/parties

- MICROJOBS: Can we invent some microjobs in Neualtenburg for example as event hosters, tourist guides or similar that would contribute to the feeling of there always being life in the sim? What will be our congenial response to the dancing pad/camping chair?

- THE NEW SIM: What do we require of the new sim in terms of facilities to support activities? How can it help us vitalise our community?

- CONTRIBUTION: What can the Representative Assembly, the Guild and the Scientific Council do to help promote more activities in the city centre? What can we contribute with as individual citizens?

I'd love to hear your ideas and thoughts in extension of the above. If I perceive there to be a general interest in helping to promote more life in the city centre I'd be happy to arrange some sort of get together at the Biergarten where we can brainstorm and plan this even further.

It's a truism that the way to keep a vibrant city centre is to have lot of people living there or in the immediate area around a "hub" of commercial activity. IMO then the proposed new sim is a crucial element in this plan.

I haven't been in on the discussion about where and when to put up the new sim until now, but I would say now that one of the main things to consider about it is simply residential space. I would like to see the new sim added on the "valley" south side of the current sim so we can explore the lower altitudes of SL.

An expanse of good wooded land, without clouds, thats perhaps flat or even extends to an actual shoreline would do much to envigorate our environment and encourage settlement. Having a large amount of people with Neualtenburg as their primary residence and as the place they live and work instead of just visit, would help tremendously in my view.

If that were to happen, then perhaps the city itself can more easily evolve into the buisness and commercial centre as well as the administrative hub of the system.

So instead of viewing the new sim as an extension of the city itself or as providing facilities and activities to support the population, I would see it as a place for a population to live.

Thanks to Diderot (and others) for the warm welcome to Neualtenburg! I'm looking forward to taking part in the public life of the community and I welcome the chance to provide some input on how we can revitalise the city centre and get more of a 'buzz' going.

I think that Diderot has kicked off the discussion with some excellent ideas. I also think that Dianne's proposal merits further discussion. For the purpose of this post though I'm going to develop an idea I had when I was wandering around N'burg looking for a plot to buy.

I love the Marketplatz. It reminds me of RL marketplaces in European cities (I'm thinking of Brussels in particular). What makes them a focal point for the city is partly the buildings that are there (often local government) and partly the bars and restaurants which offer a place to congregate but what makes them special is the street markets.

These usually take place regularly (say, first Sunday of every month) and have a theme - Antiques, Art, Food, Flowers etc.

I suggest we hold a street fair in the N'burg Marketplatz one day a month and invite SL artisans to trade from a market stall. You could hold a Fashion Market one month and invite the top fashion designers in SL to preview their newest items; we could invite SLs Gadget makers one month; or Furniture designers etc etc.

(I have seen a reference to 'regular Sunday flea markets' on the wiki so perhaps you have already considered this idea or something similar?)

To make the market 'special' it would be good if the products on sale were for sale only at the N'burg Marketplatz (or premiered there) and if we could get the designers to attend their stalls for at least part of the time.

Y'know, I was thinking the same thing. I know that it has been mentioned that the marktplatz is not supposed to have any stalls or carts present in the middle of it, however I think it would be much to our benefit to host weekly or monthly events in the space, to help invigorate it with both internal and external traffic. With the auctioning off of the plots on Haney-Linden Strasse (When is that occuring anyways?), there will be a much higher level of activity throughout the sim and in the Marktplatz in particular.

So in short.... Auction off those plots and let's have some festivals, flea markets, fiestas, and other shindigs that don't involve mindless dance pads and camping chairs, which have become much too pervasive across the grid and in the event listings, and are the epitome of the dire need for truly interesting and unique events. Perhaps this is something for a committee to be formed around, the Neualtenburg Events Committee, or more simply, somthing the Chamber of Commerce can get working on.

I have been in fact working on plans for a weekly "Flohmarkt" in the platz every weekend. Anyone interested in helping out IM me

Thank you for the kind welcome. I've been slogging my way through the N'Burg forums to get up to speed on things ~ and now have a terrible headache. Once I digest it all, I'm sure I'll have lots of ideas.

One thought though, have you considered renting out the church or Palace for weddings/partnering ceremonies? The marktplatz for celebrations? Marketing it to the wedding planners? That might help the church - palace to pay for themselves. I'm not sure of the how the partnering thing works, but perhaps some soft of a city registry for marriages? divorces? or birth certificates for those who have babies? How do people have babies in SL? Shrug, its a thought.

Also, the new sim. Most medieval cities were built on a river, how about having a river or stream meander through the two sims? That would connect them, and would allow for waterfront property.

With so many entrepreneurs entering SL due to the Business Week article and the like, perhaps N'Burg should think about marketing itself as the "serious" business/commercial center of SL? Come up with a plan to push the bank, notary, incorporation, etc.?

Hello everybody!

Wow thanks for the many replies full of ideas. I never realised there was so much potential in our existing sim but I guess it's one of the benefits you have looking at Neualtenburg with fresh eyes that you are able to see uses for existing structures, which we who have been here a few months have already begun to see as 'just being part of the furniture.'

So far I have noted the following suggestions and please do keep them coming:

THE CITY
- Themed street market / Flohmarkt in the marktplatz on a monthly/weekly basis and organised by the Chamber of Commerce headed by Kendra Bancroft
- Renting out the church for special events such as weddings, baptisms and the like and maintaining an official registry of who was wedded, baptised in Neualtenburg et.c.
- Implement the auctioning off of the plots around the Marktplatz that has been decided

THE NEW SIM
- Having a river or a body of water be part of the new sim enabling us to offer waterfront properties
- Maintaining an emphasis on the new sim as being mostly residential rather than an extension of the current city of Neualtenburg so that it may serve as a powerful 'hinterland' that can stimulate life in the inner city
- Making the new sim flatter and with less clouds

BUSINESS
- Leveraging the above initiatives to establish Neualtenburg as a serious commercial hub and centre in SL and support this by formalising and marketing the procedures around the Neualtenburg Bank, notary and incorporation framework.

I hope there will be an opportunity to discuss these ideas in the near future. Much of it seems to me to be Guild-related and would thus best be planned on an informal basis or through a Guild-sponsored meeting but there's nothing holding us back from simply discussing the ideas further in any of our informal or formal meetings. For example, there's a meeting of the Representative Assembly in the Rathaus today at 4 PM SLT where it would be nice if we had the opportunity to brainstorm and plan a little further.

Sadly, I probably won't be able to participate myself as 4PM SLT translates to 1AM in my timezone and I've been up late far too much these days already but I hope that as many of you as possible are able to participate.

I'll make sure to keep this conversation alive with further posts in the near future! And once again please keep the input coming

More thoughts - as a newbie N'burger, it would have been nice to have had a notecard in the kit from Sudane with Newbie information so you all don't get bombarded with questions like the one's I am asking; e.g., web addresses for info - e.g., this forum, the N'Burg website, the N'Burg study at the Law Society forum, and anything else out there which I still don't know exists. Is there a N'burg group? Do you all have a regular time you meet informally? Besides the posted gov't meetings?

Also a list of residents & their contact info - email addies, IM info? That is, if the individual residents wish to share that info. I can understand why you wouldn't want it on the website, but perhaps a "private" page on the website for residents with that type of information?

Also, to answer a question that I've been asked in a round-about-way - I'm not Ulrika's alt.

This isn't a new idea but I thought I'd revive it since we're brainstorming.

There was enthusiastic support for holding a Murder Mystery Roleplay on the Events forum a while back (see this thread).

The original idea came to naught but Frank Lardner suggested using Neulatenburg as a location and I think that's a brilliant idea. We have so many atmospheric locations and the clouds (or is it fog?) in the city centre would only add to it.

The problem is creating all of the materials needed . It's a big task for (potentially) not much return.

One more idea for the pot! I like Diderot's idea of a Guild-moderated discussion of all these ideas. I think we need to capture people's enthusiasm and direct it towards a few well chosen projects.

I love the Murder Mystery Roleplay!

Why not list NBurg as a micronation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation

Issue ingame/virtual ID/passports, stamps, whatever.
Yes it's nonsense - but it'll add some attractivity and charm to Nburg.
Make the city live!

Wanna open a bank with me? Anyone else want to go into business?

Oooh! I like! I can hold dual citizenships in FL & SL!

Well. As soon as i'm back from Thailand (around May10th) - i'll get back into SL.

Have a great trip!

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