#merrockadmin

ON THE CALENDAR !

June 5th -- LAST DAY OF SCHOOL -- school's out for summer!

June 5th -- DONUT DAY -- head out to find special discounts or even some freebies on donuts!

June 8th -- WORLD OCEANS DAY -- visit the Aquatic Conservatory to learn all about the oceans in and around Merrock.

June 12th - 14th -- PRIDE WEEKEND -- more info here.

June 21st -- FATHER'S DAY -- hit up the Supply Shack to make dad a free card and have fun!

June 27th -- SUNGLASSES DAY -- purchase a pair or just show off your all time favorite sunglasses!

CHANGES & UPDATES !

Please take the time to read over our rules. I know it seems silly, but rules are important to any group -- while I'm going to be lax about stuff like posting too many muse posts, I'm not going to be lax about diversity rules or activity standards, so we always want you guys to make sure you know what you agreed to follow upon joining.

we have a new task for the month of June! A moodboard task, but with the fun twist! As usual, tasks are not mandatory, and you have two whole months to work on it, so don't stress or rush.

keep an eye open for a plot drop update early next week! While we are taking a small break to enjoy Pride Weekend and then our big carnival, we'll soon have an announcement about planning for the next big town-run event to help raise money and awareness.

GOALS FOR THE MONTH !

let's try to bring back the good ole two week goal. it's not a rule, I'm not gonna look for it on checks, but keeping your threads replied to in a two week window helps others keep up muse for them and just as importantly, gives others activity! work in order as much as possible, older replies just get older, and skimming off the top helps you, but doesn't help your neighbors.

make sure you're responding to messages! not everyone can reply back within minutes, hours, or even days, but please don't deliberately ignore messages. since I've had a few writers mention to me as an admin that they've struggled with messages, let's just make sure we're not letting people sit on read.

A WORD FROM THE MOD !

Browsing the tags recently, I got caught up in discourse about why the RPC is struggling on Tumblr, and what brought that about. Someone said something that really stuck with me, which is that everyone wants to be a part of a village, but no one wants to be a villager.

I've talked about this before, in regards to making a group what you want it to be by putting in the effort yourself. That you can't sit on the outskirts, can't break rules, can't shrug it off and say 'not me, though' but still expect a group to be what you want it to be. The "I don't owe anyone anything" mentality hurts a group a lot more than you think. Real life comes first, yes, definitely! It's a hobby, not a jobby -- but it's a collaborative hobby that, upon joining any group, you agree to be a collaborating party to.

Put into a group what you want to get out of a group. Do you want to see an active dash? Be active. Do you want to get replies to your open starter? Reply to open starters. Do you want others to keep up their threads with you, to plot with you? Keep up threads with them, make an effort to plot with them. Wanna see others interact with your socials, your tasks, reply to your OOC posts? Do those things for others. We can't care about these things only when it's convenient for us, we have to care about others, just the same.

Treating one another with basic decency, kindness, respect and honesty goes a long way towards building a good village -- and I think that we have one here and a lot of great writers who do just that. We all just need to remember to be the villagers OOC as much as we are IC, and that's a good thing to keep in mind. xx

The Spring Fling is a new event in Merrock, hosted to raise money to buy that plot of land and make sure that it doesn't end up in the wrong hands! As such, the event is run by those in the community, and will be in search of:

food and drink vendors. if your character owns or works in an eating or drinking establishment, consider opening up a tent or food truck for the weekend!

shopping. work at a place that offers some fun goods? consider running sales with a certain amount of profits going towards the land for the weekend!

music & entertainment. The Mirage will be charging a cover fee to come watch shows and share a few drinks, so if you're into music, book a slot or two!

fun things to do. if there's something that you can offer to help make the spring fling that much more fun, please let us know!

If you need some fun ideas of things that you can do or volunteer your time towards, how about considering things like:

face painting.

setting up & running a game stand (duck hunt, pick a pop, bingo, get creative).

selling crafts or goods that you make & are willing to donate proceeds from to the good cause.

sidewalk art / mural painting.

baked goods.

arts and crafts for kids.

a coloring set-up.

helping out with local businesses (note: if this business has employees/an owner already, check with them first).

Think about what your character does for a living -- can their work place somehow get involved? Is there a hobby or something that they do for fun that they could somehow incorporate into the fun? Please send me a message or an ask with your ideas or how you would like to get involved, and that will be it! That'll be our fun time for the spring fling -- this is 100% community run, both out of character and in character, so let's make it great. Ideas will be taken up until May 22nd.

Please note: no suggestions here are the be all, end all, any ideas that you have are completely welcome!

CURRENTLY TAKEN:

live mural painting -- Harley Hua.

a lucky prize wheel -- Bardales Inc.

raffle for free services at garage -- Takato's.

selling crystals to keep away bad spirits -- Universal Rocks.

tent of goodies -- Cobblestone Cafe.

rock painting activity -- Celestial Foundations.

dance performance -- Darcy Jessops.

baked goods tent ($10 purchases go to charity) -- Cherry Amour.

spring art lessons & coloring books -- The Color Wine.

food truck offerings -- Ojichan no Sushi Reshipi.

library booth -- Oliver Sutton.

lucky dip -- Page Turners.

food truck with light bites & snacks -- Overlook.

band performance -- Cosmic Riot (Tae Suh).

DIY flower arrangements -- Kennedy Warren.

student dance performances -- Slippers.

home signs -- Creekside Carpentry & Construction.

face painting -- Samuel Kwon.

20% proceeds donation -- Rocky Ridge Hardware.

petting & feeding animals, pony rides -- Animal Sanctuary.

baked goods & hot drinks -- Pause for Paws.

sidewalk art -- Cassidy Landry.

premade picnic sets by Taste.

jams and preserves by Newman Family Farm.

singing by Chetan Gupta.

ON THE CALENDAR !

JANUARY 1ST -- polar plunge. come join your fellow Merrockites at the beach for a plunge into the icy cold water to kick off the new year fresh.

JANUARY 10TH -- houseplant day. head up to Lavender Lane for a houseplant sale, and also have the chance to plant your own to take home with you!

JANUARY 15TH -- hat day. Benny's and Bella's are both running sales on hats. which means that you should buy one, and then take a selfie in it. or just share your favorite hat!

JANUARY 17TH -- Bryan & Natasha's Wedding. a beautiful day celebrating one of Merrock's couples!

JANUARY 20TH -- cheese lovers day. -- stop in to Taste to get some of the most yummy, scrumptious cheese that you will find in town, and pair it with some other good snacks and drinks!

IMPORTANT STUFF !

moving into the new year, we will have slightly fewer big events happening in town. this is to encourage threads to last longer, and mostly to cut myself a little slack. events are hard work, participation is key to make them great! we will have two galas, a potential trip (highly, highly dependent on dash activity and group morale!), some Benefactor related plot drops, town festivals, and lots of fun things -- including many fun mini events!

& we are open to you hosting your own parties or events! just contact me to find out more.

we'll be doing a short, simple task to start the year off, all about your character's new years resolutions!

RULE REMINDERS & CHANGES !

For the year ahead, there are some rules that are changing, or some rules that we want to remind you guys of to help make the group a better, more balanced place:

moving forward, muse cap is eight (seven, but you can have eight if one of your muses is 50+, disabled, or trans/nonbinary). if you currently play more than seven/eight, you are grandfathered in, but if you lose roles due to inactivity, they cannot be reclaimed (they can be swapped out). this decision has been made based on feedback from current, past and potential future writers, as well as admins examining their own activity & what is and is not feasible.

if your first muse is not filling a wanted connection or a local (can also be someone who moved a while back, and has established connections to town) to Merrock, your second must be! we're making 2026 the year we get back to a close-knit community vibe.

starters need some work! you should always reply to open starters before creating your own (the one and only exception is if you are new to the group!), and you should not create an open starter if you do not have the time or intention to reply back to people. in general, everyone needs to put in a little effort to be inclusive and reply to open starters. you do not have to reply to every open! but you should make an effort to reply to some!

activity rules will be staying the same. everyone gets three activity strikes. on the 4th, you receive a message from admins. if things are not fixed, the 5th strike means the character gets removed. at that point, you must re-apply for them when you're able.

things like bubbling, hail mary replies (meaning you are only logging in on Thursday evenings) get marked on my chart. three marks in a short amount of time will result in you getting a strike.

warnings will be removed with good activity (and fixed issues!). strikes, not often. our requirement is so low (two threads per week), that we feel it's fair to toughen up a little bit, and make sure people are putting in the effort to be fair to their fellow writers.

because of this, you are reminded that you are responsible for your activity -- if you find yourself ending up on check or with a lot of warnings, please evaluate what you need to do to fix these issues.

AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT !

one of the biggest areas of improvement within the group is communication. Whether this be with us, as admins, or even more importantly: with each other. If people reach out to you to plot, need help with a plot, ask about threads, please respond to them. We're not saying everyone needs to respond to a message within an hour. Sometimes it may even take a few days! But we need to work on being better at communication as a whole. If I, as admin, reach out to you, please respond as well!

timeliness is the other area where we would love to see a bit of improvement. A goal I'd love to see met for 2026 is that no thread sits longer than two weeks without getting a reply back. Are you going to get in trouble if that doesn't happen? No, things happen, people get busy! But to keep muse fresh and threads flowing, let's work on seeing if we can make that happen.

A WORD FROM THE MOD !

I for one am excited for some of the fun things that we have in store for the 2026 year in Merrock! But I also love our down time in this group, and the camaraderie that we build with one another, the plots that have nothing to do with events, the fun, random things that happen on dash, and we'd love to see more of people building connections with one another, strengthening bonds, all of that good stuff. Like I said, small town vibes! Let's make that our focus moving into the new year.

As admin, I am going to work on being better about my boundaries and avoiding burn out this year. If you need something from me, as an admin, contact me here on main, and please remember and understand that I am also a writer in the group -- sometimes I am online to just write and be a writer, not to be an admin, and also... I'm a human with my own triggers, my own struggles, my own busy times, or bad days -- just like you guys!

I know that there has been some tension, some rough patches, ups and downs this past year. A lot of people had a rough go of it. Let's head into 2026 with an open mind and start fresh. Let bygones be bygones. Drop grudges, take a deep breath, and make this place really shine. xx