NBRC: Tower Teams Read 2013, Round II discussion
Purple Mountain's Majesty
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Captains' Chat
Categories is it then? I agree on the TITLE one - personally, it seems like I don't have any books that would fit in. If we two/three are having that problem, it might be an indicator that the whole team would be the same. Therefore, I'm for a wider category.
Well, maybe a list of possible categories would help to choose?
+ Spell - it -out: "August", "Summer" or longer words ("Let's challenge the summer!")
+genre challenge (could be an alternative overall theme): Read as many genres as you can.
+ Title (If we do Rebecca's alternative idea: Summery covers): Summer in the Title
+ Black / Green Covers (if we do SCs, two cover challenges might be too much)
+ 8th: Everything with an eight.
Did I forget anything? Which categories do you like best?
Plus, do we want to have an inner-team challenge as well? (like team goal: reading as much as we can, inner team goal: the one with the most books in different categorie wins... Though that might be problematic in regards to our slow readers..)
[You're not alone with overthinking :D]
Since our awesome team was motivated to read over 50 books in 2 weeks and finished the challenge already, maybe we should do another challenge for July? Or part of July?This could be an opportunity to for our TBR challenge. Or would that be too much?
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For the August challenge, I think this looks good. I think 2 cover challenges would be ok because it would give more options. We can certainly do an inner team goal if people are up for that.
Here's a possible draft for a TBR challenge. We can certainly make it more specific if we want to.To-Be-Read (TBR) Challenge
The 7% Challenge really motivated our team to read more books and we finished over 50 books in less than 2 weeks!! This TBR challenge is another fun way to motivate everyone to read as much as they can and move our team up the ranks.
Have any books you've been wanting to read, but somehow never seem to get around to reading them? Well here is a little push to cross some books off of you "TBR" list.
So brush the dust off those neglected books because.....We captains challenge YOU, Purple Mountain's Majesty to read as many books that have been sitting on your shelf.
Challenge: Read books that have been on your TBR/want-to-read (goodreads or "mental") list for more than a year. If you don't know how long they've been there, you can use your goodreads shelf or take an educated guess. (Use books that have been published over a year ago).
Duration July 1 - July 31, 2013
This is for fun so we've not going to grill you about how long you've wanted to read a book, but feel free to add how long you've had the book / wanted to read it!
Great idea, Rebecca! I don't think the TBR Challenge would be too much - there are at least two weeks between challenges and That Awesome Team might be inspired again!I like your draft, too. There might be some commas missing, through :)
Looks great! I think having a challenge for July will help keep the team motivated and reading!
In regards to the August Challenge:It was voted that the challenge will last for the entire month of August. Thus, the Mods have decided that the goal must be 75 books. So we need to make sure our challenge is broad enough for that many books!
I think the categories is good. We did the 49 books in 2 weeks! It is a GROUP challenge, right?
Yup! I think the categories we have so far are good and should definitely give the group enough options to work with.
And I just saw that we can continue the categories for the seven percent challenge for cupcakes?
So far we have these categories we need to fill 75 books:1. Spell - it -out: SUMMER FUN? or FUN IN THE SUN ? or something longer
(the Mods said at most 24 for the spell it out challenge)
2. genre challenge:
-Mystery
-HF
-Thriller
-Young Adult
-Memoir
-Chick Lit
-Fantasy
etc?
8 books?
3. - Summer covers Summer colors?
8 books?
4, - Black / Green Covers
8 books?
5. 8th: Everything with an eight.
Maybe Titles and/or authors
8 books?
6. -A for August Authors/Titles that start with A? Maybe this is too close to the spell it out?
8 books?
Mod
Should we bring this over to the PMM group so we can get some input from the team members? I think some other teams are doing it as a group and we could use the ideas :)
Yes Rebecca-Lets bring it to the whole group. Are we calling it the eights challenge? If so we should probably have 8 categories?
Yeah I think that's a good idea. We can see if our team members have some ideas to add to this.
Slowly but surely a grid forms itself with various formes of "Great idea"! .... :D
Captains,Now that we can do the 7% challenge a 2nd time and this will most likely extend into July. Do you think we should still do the TBR challenge (maybe a shorter version) or save it until another month?
Hi guys - been snowed under past few weeks. Hardly had an evening in the house to get catching up on everything. Just noticed a post on the weekly updates - I must have misread somewhere about the mods updating that thread.
I'm sorry you've been so busy Vikki!! Nancy's done most of the weekly updates so we're caught up on that. Not to worry we're here to help since we all have busy times :)
Should be more or less back to normal again now. Away next Thursday to Monday though (27th - 1st).
Rebecca-Can we combine the challenges? Maybe have everyone try yo find books on T BR that fit the seven percent? We keep pushing that one back!
@ Vikki -Totally understand how life gets busy! My computer has been out of commission for days now. Rebecca's been great w/ updating the spreadsheet and giving updates to mods.
Let us know what you think of the August challenge if you can! We have to submit soon for mod approval.
@7%: Combining the challenges seems like a good idea... As we finished the first round extremely fast, maybe we could make it a bit harder for the second round... I'm thinking along the lines of books counting for the second round 7% have to be from everyone's TBR lists?@Vicky: Are you talking about RL? I heard there was this thingy, but it's only ever in the way... :D
No, seriously, life's crazy busy whenever. I'm sorry you've had what sounds like some seriously exhausting weeks!
Combining challenges is good! We just need to figure out the logistics. Should we tell people to do that starting now? Or wait until July (because I know people are currently working on the 7% challenge).I just posted out Sunday update, and I think we are up to speed with the cupcake puzzles.
I wish I'd read that post a little earlier! I'd just went and checked everything & was just about to PM the mods with an update. Trying to get back on top of things again.Nancy - I'd seen posts about the August challenge and looks good. I'll take another quick look tomorrow and see if anything springs to mind. I'm not always the best at challenge ideas though.
Update: we are only 5 books away from finishing the 7% challenge again. So maybe once that's finished (probably by July) we can just go the regular TBR challenge.We have some fast readers!
We can either have it as an "open" TBR challenge, or we can say...try to have everyone read something from 2003, 2004, 2005, etc.
I like the year idea! Maybe it can be a book first published in the year and/ or how long it's been on the TBR pile........but maybe go further back, like to the 1990's??!!
Here's a possible draft for a TBR challenge. Please please please feel free to make adjustments. Just looking for a fun way to motivate the team to read :)To-Be-Read (TBR) Challenge
The 7% Challenge really motivated our team to read more books and we finished over 50 books in less than 2 weeks!! This TBR challenge is another fun way to motivate everyone to read as much as they can and move our team up the ranks.
Have any books you've been wanting to read, but somehow never seem to get around to reading them? Well here is a little push to cross some books off of you "TBR" list.
So brush the dust off those neglected books because.....We captains challenge YOU, Purple Mountain's Majesty to read as many books that have been sitting on your shelf.
Challenge: Read books that have been on your TBR/want-to-read (goodreads or "mental") list for more than a year. If you don't know how long they've been there, you can use your goodreads shelf or take an educated guess. (Use books that have been published over a year ago). This is an inter-team challenge.
Bonus Challenge Try to read a book published in various years in the past. This will help you eliminate some older books that have been sitting around for a while! Lets see how many years we can cover!
Duration July 1 - July 31, 2013
This is for fun so we've not going to grill you about how long you've wanted to read a book, but feel free to add how long you've had the book / wanted to read it!
Possibl Template
1990: Book - Date finished - Approximate time on "TBR" shelf
1991: Book - Date finished - Approximate time on "TBR" shelf
1992: Book - Date finished - Approximate time on "TBR" shelf
....etc.
Or start in the 2000s.
2000: Book - Date finished - Approximate time on "TBR" shelf
2001: Book - Date finished - Approximate time on "TBR" shelf
2002: Book - Date finished - Approximate time on "TBR" shelf
....etc.
Looks good Rebecca! How about we create another thread/ folder for this challenge and reserve enough spaces in the beginning of each thread so each participant can update their progress using the template/ format you used in the example. Not sure we need the specific years....maybe challenge to read as many different years as possible but use the format and have them list in year order?? Otherwise I think it looks great!
Sounds great! I'll make a new thread now so we can get ready for July.
I'm not sure if we can make a folder within a folder for that.Should we just say that if you want to participate go to the thread and reserve yourself a spot in the beginning for updating your books read?
Here's the thread I made. I'll post it in the PMM thread today sometime.http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...
People are joining the TBR challenge! Woohoo!Also I won't be around this weekend (roommates birthday) so I don't think I can do the Sunday update this time.
I will try to do it. I can click and update......spreadsheets are a little difficult on the kindle but will see what I can do!
@ Rebecca: Thanks so much for stepping up and getting the challenge posted. I think we may end up getting a new laptop.....it is very frustrating not having a working computer! I feel really bad that I cant be as active as I was. Next week I will be away but will have access to my parents working computer!
I'm in difficulties for updating as I'm away until Monday evening. Have limited internet access from the laptop and it's a nightmare trying to get doing much here from the phone. :o(
Mod
Thanks ModsMy visit has turned into a bit of a debacle. Should have been home around 6pm on Monday... but I'm still in Inverness! Car trouble. Fingers crossed car will be back on the road tonight, so we can travel down towards Glasgow, and then go on to the docks tomorrow. At least the weathers been nice...
Mod
I hope your trip has improved Vikki!I am going to be away from Wed (this afternoon) to Sunday evening. I may be near a computer Sunday, but I'm not positive so I may not be able to do the Sunday Update. If not one else can get to it, I'll try to find time for it.
The July TBR challenge in underway!!Also, I just submitted the August challenge to the Mods for approval :)
Great Rebecca! I realized I am having family over Sunday to celebrate my son's 5th birthday. I will do my best to click and update spreadsheet Saturday night but will definitely be unavailable when updates are due on Sunday.
I'm leaving my trip early so I was able to do the Sunday update from my phone on the trip home! Hope you son has a great birthday!
Nancy, I just saw you updated the Mods yesterday, thanks!!
Our trip didn't really improve... eventually had to fly home, and leave the car in Scotland. Last I heard it still wasn't quite finished. 1 problem after another. Grrrrrr
@Vikki- so sorry to hear of your troubles.@ Rebecca- not a problem. We are going to be getting a new laptop in the next week or two so I should be back up and more helpful soon!
Nancy wrote: "@Vikki- so sorry to hear of your troubles.@ Rebecca- not a problem. We are going to be getting a new laptop in the next week or two so I should be back up and more helpful soon!"
Hoping I'll get to be a bit more helpful again too!
Hey Captains! I will be away again this weekend and don't think I'll be able to do the Sunday Update.Since we haven't heard from Wendelin in a month and she hasn't posted a book in over a month, I sent her a PM to see if she was okay and is there was anything going on. I haven't heard back from her. The Mods will probably want an update on that in the Sunday Update.
I can take care of Sunday update. Thanks for letting me know about Wendelin.....hope everything is ok. Have you seen the Sept. challenge? Looks like a lot of planning and deciding which challenges to do....how do you think we should do it? Leave it up to the group to decide or should we narrow it down and try to pick the ones we think are easiest and then present to group? I think it's definitely doable. Just hard to even think about with the August challenge coming up!
Yeah I was just looking it over actually. I think it may be easier to look through ourselves and pick out a few that look easy/broad. I think we can wait to pick which ones we want to do until later in August, so as not to stress out the team with worrying about two semi-complicated challenges in a row.I know the A-Z challenges should be easy. The "animal A-Z" and "Spices A-Z" are super broad and you can fit every book you read pretty much.
Also I'll be on vacation at the beach for the week of August 4th-11th. I'll have access to GR via my phone, but the app isn't the easiest to use; as I'm sure you know Nancy with your computer broken! I should have lots of time to read tho hopefully :)
I like the categories Nancy mentioned. The only one that may be the most difficult is the TITLE one (I can't find many that would fit but other may be able to).
Maybe we could do a cover challenge, where instead of the TITLE having those words, maybe read books with a "Summery" theme on them? Or is that too broad?
Also we've been having a lot of green cover challenges, so maybe we could add sardonyx color (black) because that is also sometimes recognized as an August birth stone.
Sorry if I'm totally over thinking this.