Between Christmas and New year’s Eve, with the kind help from Thoria Milgrove and Astro Balut, the new welcome center was able to opens its doors in Our Town. This also meant a farewell to the old welcome center, a great build by Dartagnan Nakajima, affectionately known as the Globe. And a farewell to many of the great builds found in Our Town of 2011. Not necessarily a permanent farewell; all buildings and structures were photographed and carefully taken into the vaults of Community Bank, keeper of keys and grounds for the community.

The new welcome center is built on the remains of Freddy Thumbtip’s original fortress. As you all know, it was around 1362 BC that Freddy Thumbtip, the fearless leader of a large posse of bandits, first arrived in the swamps of what is now known as Our Town. Through the use of superior weapons, namely the stone club, Freddy quickly conquered the local population of Primitives and put them to work for him. His first project was of course to build a fortress from within he could safely rule his empire. Cunningly Freddy T. built his fortress right over the crossroads of the two main rivers in the area, alongside Lake Cometpuddle. 

When the remains of this fortress were rediscovered by the 3RG Archeology Department early in 2011, the community decided to build a new multi-functional center on top of them. The famous architect Crispen Castelinot, well known for his award winning design of the Centre of Fine Rocks in Marsupia, was asked to design and build this new center for us….

The new welcome center is designed to be very newcomer-friendly. New residents arrive on the landing deck, a few meters above the main deck containing free, complimentary aparel items from the community. On their way down the stairs they can pick up a translator gadget, kindly donated to the community by Kristen Mynx. On the main deck the new arrival can’t miss the starter kits and general grid info kit. And they will immediately see that the female free/gratis items are to the left, the male to the right. The starter kit for child avatars will be added soon. Jimbob Ross is working hard on that. And also on complimentary items suitable for child avatars in a separate section on the main deck.

Our collection of gratis items will be maintained by Zinnia Frenzy, our Elder for the Welcome center. Initially she will be helped by Alia Soulstar who is working hard to create better display pictures of a uniform design, and is doing a final quality check of all items on offer. Soon we also hope to offer multi-item vendors created for us by Nikki Navarita and IEVL Vita. 

Also clearly visible from the landing deck are the community info corner, the global shopping directory, and in the back, the group information section on the main deck. These will all be completed soon. Looking around even more, the new arrival will also see the restaurant from the landing deck, the MapRoom, the music and dance venue, and the Showcase displays donated by Astro Balut and showing places to visit in 3RG.

The MapRoom of the welcome center is certainly worth a visit. Although still being worked on, it will be a great source of information about events, places of interest and more all around community core and the grid as a whole. The map room shows all the regions of 3RG with little markers indicating places of interest (yellow), or upcoming events (orange, red when the event is running). Green markers on the community core map show the location of other avatars. Click the map, or the markers to get more information about them. Double click the map to tp to a location (community map only atm).

Right on top of the MapRoom, you will find the ‘Broken Disc’music venue, with the ‘Crap Tools’ bar, where we hope to offer you live and DJ-music right in the heart of community core. 

And this all is only the beginning. When you take one of the stairs down from the main deck, you find inside the welcome center first of all the offices of the community Elders., together with a comfy library, a lounge, and more. The community Elders are there to help you with problems and questions. The office shown below, as an example, is the office of Sunny Tomorrow, our Elder for community property (land). Drop in at any time, even if Sunny is not there, you will find lots of usefull information in her office. The other offices are for our Elder for Education, Alia soulstar, the Elder for Welcome, Zinnia Frenzy, and her team of friendly greeters, the Elder for Information (vacant at the moment), and the Elder for Events, sadly also vacant at the moment. If you know anyone with a passion for events, or are that person yourself, please get in touch with us. The offices are of course also intended for the Seniors who teamed up with their respective Elders to make 3RG a better place for us all.

Going down the stairs again from the office level, you arrive in the harbor. Inside the welcome center is a harbor from which we hope to run a real ferry service in the near future to other areas of community core and beyond. 

But it is more than just a harbor. You will find the office of our Master-at-Arms there, and of course a prison cell in case someone oversteps the boundaries of decency. The master control room for the welcome center is on this level too, together with ticket booths once we get our ferry service (tickets will be free, don’t worry). The harbor master has his office here. Even a boat lift is provided to execute small repairs to boats. 

  

And it doesn’t stop there. For your convenience, Francis Famine will run his Wall-Of-Snacks in the Harbor area, offerring anything from slices of pizza, hot-dogs, to healthy salad sandwiches. You will find Damion Ghoul’s magazine, newspaper and beverages kiosk in the harbor, and Helga Schwefel’s Sauna and Massage parlor. Did I mention the large indoor swimmingpool?

I hope you will find the new welcome center an exciting place to visit, to find information, to meet up with friends, to enjoy some music, or just to explore. The community will work hard to complete everything over the coming months. Please let us know what you think, or make suggestions to improve the center even more. Many from the community have contributed to this project, are contributing, or will contribute. If I forgot to mention any of them, I do apologize.

When you venture outside the welcome center, there are two more places in the Our Town region worth visiting: Just to the North of the welcome center you will find the community museum, where our curators: Aldo Alchemi and Juana DeAsbaje will present us great expositions on art. The first I believe on the Impressionists and coming soon.I

To the South-West you will find the Designer Showcase mall. An initiative by Kristen Mynx that allows the great Designers, Creators and Brands present on our grid to show there wares through (free) samples.

Hope to see you soon in the new welcome center on Our Town …
Kira Tiponi
(Community Project Manager for welcome)