Reader Submitted: Scenes From The Relay Weekend

 

 Pictures from Kamida Delec

 

 From RFL Healing, "Dinky sim, including the Crystal empire castle from MLP Gen 4."

 

 

 

"I found a Disney forest."

 

 "And I went back to take a picture of my Dads memorial."

 

Pictures by Kamida Delec 

 

The 2022 RFL Sunbeamer Camp

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By Bixyl Shuftan

 

For most of its history, people have held Relay for Life events in Second Life. As a chapter, the Relay for Life in Second Life, has proven one of the most successful ones, during the Pandemic becoming the one that raised the most money. Made up of over a hundred teams, there is something of a friendly competition to raise the most money. But the teams also cooperate, the "one team" principle. 

 

The team yours truly is part of is the Sunbeamers. Growing out of the folding of another team, the Passionate Redheads in 2013, the "Sunnies" have gone from a respectable start to being a top performing team every year. Last year, we were 13th of over 130 teams, just missing the top dozen, having raised over a million Linden dollars. 

For the Sunweaver community, who make up most of its members, the team is a source of community pride, in addition to a way to do something about cancer, which has affected a number of its residents.

 

The camp was at RFL Prevention, on the east side, or to the left side of the track, traffic on the Relay Weekend moving south. The Memorial Garden was on the left side, featuring noted personalities over the years who passed away from cancer. In the middle was the Hall of Heroes, this year's feature. To the right was the Hope Lodge. 

 

Cynthia Farshore and Shockwave Yareach did most of the world on the camp (each will tell you the other did more work).

 

 Cynthia would show me around some in the camp's "Hall of Heroes."

The heroes in this case were doctors, nurses, researchers, and others in the struggle to combat cancer. 

And Relayers were counted in this exhibit.

Beside the Hall and the Memorial Garden was the Tower of Prayer.

And there were a number of signs providing information, some were about American Cancer Society apps.

There was a pond, and a couple inner tubes to cool off in.

Another part of the camp was the Hope Lodge.

A Hope Lodge offers cancer patients a free place to stay if they need treatment away from home.

Sorry to say while I thought I took some pictures of the Memorial Garden, I only found one (at the end of the article). I was likely distracted as I was reminded of some sad times.

Personal commentary:

 

Sadly, for me it was a reminder of some friends who had passed away from cancer over the years,

And at the start of the month, so had my Mother, who passed after nine months of surgery, recovery, and relapse. 

 

 So last year, I joined the ranks of the many thousands who have been caregivers. While the exhibit showed them as heroes, I myself didn't feel like a hero, just someone who was taking care of one who had taken care of him when very young. 

For me, the Relay Weekend has usually been a largely happy time, celebrating with friends, while taking a few moments to reflect on Artistic Fimicloud and others whose fight with cancer came to a sad end. While this year was still mostly happy, I often thought about friends who had passed away in the previous year: my real-life next-door neighbor, Jessicabelle Dayafter, fellow Relayer Alleara Snoodle, and now my Mother. 

But I wasn't alone, I was around friends and offered much support.

So here's to our friends and family who have helped us become what we are, and to our future, which hopefully soon will have cures to all forms of this dreaded disease. Perhaps next season will raise the last few dollars that makes it so.

Go Sunbeamers, go Relay,

Bixyl Shuftan 
 

The Sunbeamer Camp for 2017

By Bixyl Shuftan

The Relay Weekend is the high point of the Relay for Life fundraising season every year, and although some of it's areas are "designer sims," most of what people see on the track are the various exhibits of the teams. Since the members of the team meet up at these places, they've gotten the name "campsites." While some are often nature scenes, often they're buildings or something else.

Made up mostly of members of the former Passionate Redheads when starting out, since 2013 the Sunbeamers, the team of Second Life's Sunweaver community, have been part of the Relay. And every time, several of the people have come together to build an exhibit. Over time, the Newser has written about most of the camps in 2013 (2014 picture), in 2015, and of the 2016 camp which won an award for it's educating the visitors while telling the story of a farmer's daughter discovering she had cancer. So how to follow up on an award-winning build? That was the challenge the team, notably the top builders Shockwave Yareach and Cynthia Farshore faced.

"Shocky was the head builder for this year," Cynthia Farshore told me, saying it was "his idea to make an airport terminal, and he laid out the model on my dinning room table. From that we then took things to a build platform the same size as this camp over (Farshore Field),  about two thousand meters, and began piecing it together. He was able to get the size and placement worked out before it came to here." The camp would be at RFL Celebrate (185/130/22).

Around the main build was a parking lot with a few cars, and a couple airliners and a baggage carrier. The entrance would have people going through a security checkpoint, which included an x-ray machine. Before going in, there was a HUD for a game they could pick up. "Gives a passport," Cynthia told me, "You look for the stamps around the camp, Most are in rooms." One stamp, that of the Sunweavers, was somewhere in the entrance area. Past the entrance, there was a round concourse with a number of rooms around it, as well as one in the center. In each a stamp for the game was placed. Finding all of the stamps would get the resident a small prize.

On the walls were a number of posters of locations, but only a handful were what one would expect to find at a real airport, "In true Sunweaver fashion, we just couldn't put up straight posters." One of New York city was a cartoon picture of someone in a taxi getting robbed and two grinning people looking over a deed to the Brooklyn Bridge. Another showed a "Star Wars" Stormtrooper in an icy place, inviting people to vacation in Hoth. Still another "Greetings from Baghdad" showed a plane dropping a bomb as it flew behind two unknowing tourists. There was also a poster titled "United," which made me think of the airliner which had gotten in trouble a few months ago for forcing a passenger off it's plane. In between the comedy and comedic references were more serious statistics, stating how much money various activities in the treatment of cancer took.

Each of the six rooms represented a real-world location: New York City, Bejing, Rome, Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles, and Mexico City. In most of the rooms, information about cancer was placed appropriate to the setting. For the traffic scene in New York, there was information about carcinogens. For the sunbathers on the beach in Rio, there was information on skin cancer. For the nude male statues in Rome, there were facts about prostrate cancer. For the food and outhouse in the Mexico area, there was information on colon and rectal cancer.

There were a couple details from previous builds. One was the prayer tower, which launched balloons towards heaven, people able to place names of those they wished to honor. There was also a memorial garden, with a pink fox statue for Artistic Fimicloud, a resident of the Sunweaver community whom had passed away nine years ago. There were a couple smaller pink foxes in the fountain in front of the airport as well, which when clicked gave some information about "Fimi" as she was called.

They were limited with how much could be built, "land is misleading, shows (it) supports 4687, but turns out they limited us to, what is it, 2500? Guess need room for all the million prim furries that will be coming through." Some last minute work on the build, such as placing another couple panels, was postponed until after the judging of the camps due to Cynthia and Shockwave's real-life work schedules, "when I got on I was so tired after doing an all nighter and working all day. Shocky was no better, so we said we're done." Still, they were happy with what they had accomplished. So was team captain Rita Mariner, "I am happy with the way the build came together. I think our builders did a great job and had some fun doing it."

Skylark Lefavre commented, "I think in my own honest opinion this is the best one we did in a long time. Its in it's own rights a competitor, with teams like 'Aliens Love Tatas Too.' It's not only informative and educational, its also entertaining and visual, something you can participate in, almost like a tour. Using the airport take the tour is a nice touch since an airport represents a way into any part of the world it also shows the education of cancer prevention and treatment can reach any place as well."

As it turned out, others would be impressed with the campsite too. It would be awarded second place for "Best Themed Decorated Campsite." Rita was happy, "Second place and fun doing it." Shockwave was very pleased, especially considering the quality of some of the other camps, "Against THIS level of expertise? I'm ecstatic! Couldn't have done it without all of you!"

And so, once again "the little team that could" made a big impact in the Relay for Life in Second Life, thanks in part to the skill and persistence of it's builders.

Addition: Wildstar Beaumont took several pictures of the exhibit, which can be seen here. 

Bixyl Shuftan

RFL Courage 2016: Null Aries' Designer Sim

By Bixyl Shuftan

The Relay for Life brings out many talented creators whom over the course of the season use their skills to create some very artistic and detailed builds. This is particularly the case for the Relay Weekend, in which not only the various camps show of what they can do, but also some artists whom get to work on special "designer sims," usually having a whole sim to work on. For this year's Relay Weekend, Null Aries got to work on the designer sim of RFL Courage.

With the theme being "Once Upon a Cure," I had adopted the look of a "dragonkin" fighter to look around the place that day.

RFL Courage was on the east side of the Relay Track, with the suggested direction of traffic going east then south.

Looking around on the right side of the tracks (right going clockwise on the course) was the "Lake of Despair." But where there is despair, there is also courage.

 Not far away was a small shopping area with a few wares.

The area had much detail in the scenery. I would check out things out in more detail later, but I had heard about a cavern I wanted to explore first.

On the left side of the track was a stairway leading up the hill to the "Trail of Tranquility."

 The trail itself is a peaceful one, a path through some woods.

 Next to the path was a hole, which led down to the "Cave of Unknowing."

 At the bottom of the entry ladder, things seemed a little slimy and sluggish.

The cave was very detailed, with features such as mushrooms and this fountain, fed by water coming from above.

 There were dark, misty, passageways between rooms.

 "Courage to be aware."

In the middle of this cavern of fungi, a monster lurks.

 And the monster has a name: cancer.

"Courage to find out."

 The monster can take different forms, and names.

 "Courage to fight."

Fighting cancer isn't easy, needing the right medicines and care.

It's a disease that can strike both the old, and young.

 "Courage to Triumph."

 What everyone fighting cancer thinks of is the victory, of finding out the monster is defeated.

 Support, Courage, Faith, Determination, all are needed to beat the monster.

"Courage to Endure," After the victory, it isn't necessarily easy going on.

 "Courage to Accept." One has been through a struggle.

It soon dawned on me the journey out of the caves looked just like going in.

In the aftermath. one looks back at the journey they went through, but one finds the "Courage to Survive."

And the caves end like they began. It probably was"U" shaped with two mirror ends, with the other sides of the passage signs with a different set of letters

"Immerse yourself in our fairytale quest. Locate a book. Then travel the Trail of Tranquility. Help us give courage in Second Life and real life."

 Getting out, it was back on the trail.

The Cave of Unknowing was worth an article in itself. But there were other sights in the sim yet to see.

 The Brook of Encouragement.

 Nearby. also on the left side of the track,  was a small village.

One could pick up a notecard with a small Fantasy tale.

Back on the right side of the track, I decided to check the trail up "Triumph Mountain."

Like most everything else about the sim, the trail up was well detailed.

 At the top, I found a heart, and a little something else.

There was a freebie display case for a hunt. This was for nine geodes hidden about the trail. I just had to find them.

 So I began looking.

 And I began finding them

 At the base of the mountain was a farmer's building with a few piggies.

 Sometimes you wonder what else is in the area besides you.

 The search for the geodes continued.

 Eventually, I would find all nine geodes.

The 2016 Relay Track, and its RFL Courage designer sim, are now gone. But I still have the the nine geodes as a souvenir. For now, they're on display at the Newser office building.

Go Relay!

Bixyl Shuftan