Thank you for One Billion Rising in Second Life!

One Billion Rising in Second Life, photographed by Wildstar Beaumont

I’ve said something like this before … but it bears saying again … because I just want to let everyone know something.

There’s an awesome bunch of people out there who will organise a huge one day, four region event to raise not money but awareness for a campaign that seeks to end violence against women and girls.  They will start planning months ahead, work hard for weeks, work frantically for days and miss quite insane amounts of sleep to make sure it all comes together with beautiful stages on beautiful regions.

You can see their names here …

One Billion Rising in Second Life, photographed by Wildstar Beaumont

There’s an awesome bunch of people who will enable events in Second Life. “Sure!” they said. “We’ll give you the money so that you can have the regions. And we’ll give you gifts, plants, information, people to help you research – and a bunch of other things you need as well. Including four regions on which to hold the event. We’ll be your sponsors.”

You can see who they were here …

One Billion Rising in Second Life, photographed by Wildstar Beaumont

There’s an awesome group of artists in Second Life. “Sure,” they said. “We’ll create amazing artworks that can be placed all around the edges of the regions. Sure, we can do breathtaking, beautiful, moving. We will make you laugh. We will make you cry. We will make you think.”

And you can see who they were here …

One Billion Rising in Second Life, photographed by Wildstar Beaumont

There’s some awesome musicians in Second Life. “Sure,” they said. “We’ll come along and mix and spin tunes and play. We’ll give you beautiful, quirky, familiar, unique music, music to sing along to, music to inspire you, music to lift you up and bounce you around, music to dance to.”

Check out our musicians here …

One Billion Rising in Second Life, photographed by Wildstar Beaumont

There’s some awesome performers out there in Second Life. “Sure,” they said. “We’ll give you fantastic, inspirational dances that will make you cry, or grin, or have you dancing in the aisles. Or maybe all three together. And we can definitely blow your mind with particles.”

You can read about the performers here …

One Billion Rising in Second Life, photographed by Wildstar Beaumont

There’s an awesome writers and poets here in Second Life. “Sure,” they said. “We’ll come and share our work with people and reach out to them through the power of words. And we’ll look for inspiration to write more.”

Find out about the poets here …

One Billion Rising in Second Life, photographed by Wildstar Beaumont

There’s some awesome camera people out there in Second Life. “Sure,” they said, “we’ll film the event. We’ll set up a studio and a small band of us will Livestream a huge chunk of the event – even when you throw things at us like three events to be filmed at the same time.”

There’s some awesome volunteers out there in Second Life. “Sure,” they said. “We’ll come along and help out. We’ll organise or take special training courses. We’ll be there to welcome the visitors, to encourage the newbies, to confront (firmly but politely) the griefers. We’ll be your security. We’ll be your greeters. We’ll take time off work and be there for you to depend on.”

One Billion Rising in Second Life, photographed by Wildstar Beaumont

There are some awesome researchers in Second Life. “Sure,” they said. “We’ll find out the information that you need to put in your kiosks. We’ll make sure that there’s details of good places and organisations trhat people can donate to. We’ll point them to places where they can find out more. We’ll draft advice and reassurance for those in a bad situation.”

There’s some awesome media people out there – in many countries including The United States, Japan and the United Kingdom. “Sure,” they says. “We will re-organise our regular schedule and head over to your regions to shoot and record special shows and discussions so we can help to get the word out about your event to as many people as possible.”

There’s some awesome bloggers and photographers out there. “Sure,” they said. “Give us the details and we will give the pictures and the words that will bring people to this event.”

There’s some awesome people with fingers on the buttons out there. “Sure,” they said. “We’ll get you some lovely robust regions. We’ll put you on the front page of the viewers. We’ll get you in the destination guide.”

There’s many, many awesome people out there. “Sure,” they said. “We’ll be there at this event. Or if we can’t, we make sure that the issue is still talked about, that the issues are raised and discussed – in Second Life, in the real world, on the net and in the streets.”

One Billion Rising in Second Life, photographed by Wildstar Beaumont

You are all, as the song says, beautiful, beautiful creatures.

Thank you. Thank you all.