Castle and Home and Garden Contest Opens

By Gemma Cleanslate

Sunday at 3:00 pm slt the Castle and Home and Garden contest had its grand opening.Be there! It is a bit late this year but well worth the wait!!!  I have been roaming the regions and am amazed at the gorgeous creations that are filling the sims. I will let you come see them for yourself! Everyone has been working so hard to make the regions look enchanting to the eye. 


Evo ‘KhrysT Neox let me take a picture of his tiny castles , surrounded by larger ones.
 The merchants are setting up their wares in the shops , and, Gotchas, raffles , auctions all set up for you . It is a wonderful event to visit. It will be here all week until the 31st of July. There is music and live entertainment going on every day. http://chgrfl.org/schedule/

 “The builds are displayed over a set of days, wherein both a set of impartial judges and the public at large can vote for their favorite castles. All proceeds from the Castle, Home and Garden Contest go towards Relay for Life of Second Life, a charity organization supporting the American Cancer Society.” So make sure you visit all the castles and look for the voting kiosk. 

Remember this event takes place on TWO levels. There is a ground level and an upper level!! Please don’t miss those entries up on the top level. There are prizes but even these go to the Relay for Life. I will be taking pictures during the week but walking in and looking for hidden room is much more fun so come over and do it!  

The Otter .. Rowena Dubrov is the founder and  small but mighty lead of this awesome event!

The sims were open at 2PM SL time. The main ceremonies took place at 3PM at CHG Main.  

See you there

Gemma Cleanslate

Editor's Note: This article was meant to go up Sunday morning, but thanks to Murphy's Law, it ended up in the spam folder. So here it is now. Better late than never. 

One can find a transcript of the opening speech here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16f5wSO7ESHHpnGlh1hrt2TcUTiSxZ4PI5qbYt-qsruE/edit

Castle, Home and Garden Contest

By Gemma Cleanslate

“Come explore the 12 sims- journey across the land of the Smurfs, join Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia, enjoy some merry shopping in Holiday World, believe in magic on Once Upon a Time, take a tale far far away in Brothers Grimm, join Snow White Anna and Rapunzel on Princesses, go to the land of the Mother of Dragons on Meereen, join the dragons on Dragonriders of Pern, go back into the world of Sherlock Holmes on Victorian London, join the hobbits in the Shire, find Harry Ron and Hermione on Godric's Hollow, and go down, down, down with Alice from May 23 to June 4th!”,  is the invitation from all those who have worked so hard  to make this experience a special one. Every builder has had contact with cancer.

I roamed some of the sims and am glad it is open until June 4 because there is so much to see! There are 29 builds of all different styles from small to large but all lovely. 79 merchants of fashion, furniture, breedables and more have set out their wares for you to shop with proceeds going to the Relay for Life. Check out the hunt going on during the event where you can find 50 gifts!!

There will be a judging of all the submissions with money prizes to the winners. You can also cast a vote for your favorites with a donation to the kiosks in front of each. The winner of that popular contest will get a money prize also.

The opening was very touching  to all and brought tears to many eyes when Rowena Dubrovna announced “ We lost one of our own builders this season. Zaphara Cazalet was one of the most loyal, dedicated and passionate builders we had. She was here with us two years ago, and again last year. She spent the entire year both last year and this year up until she passed away working on her build. She was a member of our team, of our family. We lost her and we mourn for her. However, her passion lives on at this event, and we will never forget. We have decided to set up an honor for Zaphara and start a tribute to Zaphara by way of honoring someone who has put in a lot of dedication, commitment and loyalty to the Castle, Home and Garden Contest.”

The dedication of all who worked on the project which has grown to a major event for the Relay over three years is to be commended. It is an amazing event . I wish the judges well because it is not going to be easy! I stopped in at every delightful region just to see the overview. Don’t miss it!! As Rowena put it, “We were once a seedling, now we are a full grown rose bush. Let’s see how we do becoming a tree”.

Speed building contests will be taking place during the week also and you can find the schedules of entertainment at the website  http://www.chgrfl.com/

You can enter here.   http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/CHG%20Brothers%20Grimm/79/179/24

Gemma Cleanslate