All About Tower Teams V

[Moderators of NBRC, Challenger-in-Chief]

    

May The Fourth Be With You

What are Tower Teams?
Essentially it is small groups of members in a team who read and discuss books, record them for "points" in order to compete against other teams.
It doesn't matter if your yearly goal is to read five (5) books, fifty (50) books or five-hundred (500) books. Anyone can join! We are still balancing the Tower Teams Reading Challenge by Total Books read.

IMPORTANT
This is NOT a read-a-thon and WILL go for a few weeks, so please only sign-up if you are a consistent goodreads user and are willing to discuss books with your team mates over a period of a few months. Unlike our other team challenges, the Tower Teams Challenge is a marathon, not a sprint!

Goal: Read! Read! Read!(Check our winner categories)

When: Starts May 4th, at 4 PM (WEST Time) and goes for 12 weeks, ending on July 29th.

How: We will take all the people who sign-up and divide them equally - by book goal - into SMALLER groups, taking into account the number of books they read per week. Otherwise we will be using a "ramdomizer" to assign.

Challenge requirements
To be a part of this challenge you need to be able to:

◈ Create a special shelf for the challenge for the books you are reading

◈ Check-in on your team's discussion thread at least once per week

◈ Have fun!

[Moderators of NBRC, Challenger-in-Chief]

For reading books
Books between 100 and 160 pages (100 pages or 25,000 words is the minimum) = 5 points
Books between 161 pages and 350 pages = 20 points
Books between 351 and 500 pages = 40 points
Books between 501 and 650 pages = 60 points
Books between 651 and 800 pages = 80 points
Books between 801 and 900 pages = 100 points
Books over 901 pages = 130 points

For current BOM (Book of the Month) discussions
Writing a day's worth of discussion questions = 40 points
Participating in a current BOM (participating in discussion) = 20 points
NOTE: We will accept one team member per book per team for writing a days DQs. If, by three days prior to the BOM starting, we don't have enough volunteers to write all DQs, then we will let more than one team member per team write questions. If we have more people than days sign up (prior to 3 days before start date) we will randomise the volunteers to determine those who can write DQs

[Moderators of NBRC, Challenger-in-Chief]

◈ Those people who want to keep their Profiles Private, must be willing to "Friend"
    their Team Captain(s), the NBRC Mod account, or one of the Moderators, to allow
    page count verification and to assist you if you are having difficulty with your
    bookshelves.

◈ Teams will be similar in size to other Tower Teams or Wheelathon challenges. We haven't decided on the exact number, as we are going by books read, but we are shooting for 10-20 members.

◈ Books must be started after the start date of the challenge to count towards the challenge

◈ Books must be />100 pages. NOTE: This number is lower than our other team challenges!
    For page number questions, please check with your captain who can ask in the Captains group for verification.

◈ Audio books are allowed. (For page numbers, use the "default" GR book page numbers.)

◈ No graphic novels. (Sorry.)

◈ Boxed sets are not considered as "one book" and need to be shelved as separate books

◈ No little children's books less than 25,000 words.ArBookFind is a great site to double check. If in doubt, ask your captain.

◈ Any genre counts.

◈ Any book in any language will count, as long as it meets the criteria.

◈ "Re-reads" will be allowed, if it has been six months since you have read the book. This includes listening to the audio version, if you've already read the book.

◈ This challenge involves adding a special bookshelf to your personal
    GRs bookshelves other than "read." You may choose a preexisting one.

◈ Please wait to be told to which Team you are assigned. It might take awhile; however,
    you will be able to count the books you have read from the START date of the challenge.

◈ Once you actually join, please check-in with your team discussion thread by posting the name of your bookshelf.
    Remember to add a HYPHEN between words for your bookshelf.

◈ Helpful Tip: Knowing about Sticky Shelves may help you put your assigned
    bookshelf near the top of your dropdown box.

◈ With MOBILE DEVICES there have been major problems when trying to
    add books. If that is all you have to access the Internet, or you don't know how to Cut & Paste
    on it, then this challenge probably is NOT the right fit for you.

◈ Discussion threads will be in the regular NBRC group. (No secret groups allowed this time)

◈ You do NOT have to join the discussion, if you don't want to; communicating
    via posting a book is good enough. Nevertheless, Your Team wants to know if you are
    still participating. We understand Real Life gets in the way. However, please plan to
    "check-in" in some manner at least once every week. If we don't hear from you for two weeks, you may be replaced with another team member

[Moderators of NBRC, Challenger-in-Chief]

Team Captains:

◈ We need people to volunteer to be Team Captain(s) whose duties include:

- Keeping a Google Spreadsheet that all members can view (we will provide you with a template)
- checking team members books read and page counts
- communicating with a NBRC Moderator
- communicating with all Team Members
- making sure Team Members are staying active
- notifying the NBRC Mod if someone drops out
- have effective and kind (this is a game, remember) on-line communication skills to help members having trouble
- making sure Team Members belong on your team
- posting weekly status updates/reminders
- dealing with minor issues that arise
- post little challenges within challenges, if desired.

    You may rotate/share these duties. We would suggest you have at least one Co-Captain.
    You may have as many Captains and Co-Captains as you like.

◈ Please let us know, when you make a request to sign-up, if you are interesting in being a
    Team Captain.

[Moderators of NBRC, Challenger-in-Chief]

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To join, we are using a Google Form to collect the below data. Click this link to complete the form:

★Name
★Goodreads User ID (see under spoiler for how to find this)
(view spoiler)[To find your Goodreads User ID, click on your name (or go to your profile page). In the URL bar you will see something like ....reads.com/user/show/5674827-kelly. In this example, your User Name is 5674827-kelly) (hide spoiler)]
★Approximate number of books read
★Your continent (so we can try and match time zones)
★Your shelf name (for books read during the challenge)
★ Do you prefer a "chatty" team? (NOTE: If yes, it would be expected that you will check in to your team thread daily)
★ If you are willing to be a team captain or co-captain

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[Moderators of NBRC, Challenger-in-Chief]

To check that your signup form submitted, you can see the sign ups here

[Moderators of NBRC, Challenger-in-Chief]

Sign Ups received from this point onwards will be put on a reserve list.
That means we will add you to a team when a spot becomes available, or we will create a new team if/when enough new sign ups are received

[Moderators of NBRC, Challenger-in-Chief]

Countdown to the start of the challenge

Main cities, FYI:

London 4pm, 4th May
Sydney: 1am, 5th May
Tokyo: midnight, 5th May
New York: 11am, 4th May
San Francisco: 8am, 4th May
New Dehli: 8.30pm, 4th May
Singapore: 11pm, 4th May
You can find your city and do a conversion (from Lisbon 4pm, 4th May) here

[Moderators of NBRC, Challenger-in-Chief]

CHALLENGE ENDS TOMORROW

Here's the countdown

Main cities, FYI:

London, United Kingdom Sat, 29 Jul 2017 at 11:59 PM, BST
Sydney, Australia Sun, 30 Jul 2017 at 08:59 AM, AEST
Tokyo, Japan Sun, 30 Jul 2017 at 07:59 AM, JST
New York, USA Sat, 29 Jul 2017 at 06:59 PM, EDT
San Francisco, USA Sat, 29 Jul 2017 at 03:59 PM, PDT
New Delhi, India Sun, 30 Jul 2017 at 04:29 AM, IST
Singapore, Singapore Sun, 30 Jul 2017 at 06:59 AM, SGT

You can find your city and do a conversion (from Lisbon 11:59pm, 29th July) here


We're giving the captains/members a few days to update spreadsheets. Results will be posted on Saturday August 5th.