Snowflake Challenge #15

[kate]

In your own space, Talk about Your Snowflake Experience.

What did you come into it thinking or wanting? Did you get that? Did you get something else? Did you learn anything new about fandom, others, yourself? Are you glad you did it or thought it a waste of time and energy? You can tell us. We’re all here to learn and grow. What did you learn? How did you grow?

I'm an old hat at snowflake these days, and while this was a good snowflake for me - I finished all of the challenges except one, which I should finish in another day or two - it wasn't my best snowflake. As my professional life gets busier and busier, the time I have available to continue interactions on the level I prefer is not what it used to be. I always seem to be saying "when x happens, I'll have more time" but even when x happens (which is maybe 50/50), it doesn't seem to bring the free time I expect. Which just means I have to be more and more careful about my time.

It's more about the interaction for me. I love looking over everyone's answers and commenting all over DW in places and on journals I might not otherwise. I like making connections and sometimes new friendships. So while I did some of that this snowflake, and it was pretty great, it wasn't as much as I have in the past and I miss it.

SO! That said - this is a pretty lowkey challenge for me, just enough for me to keep a hand in and have some nice interactions and not so much that I feel guilty if I can't participate at my maximum all the time. There is a similar challenge in the summer called sunshine_challenge, which is also fantastic and I can recommend, despite failing to do it myself (because I only remember snowflake because of when it happens - for whatever reason, sunshine_challenge hasn't imprinted itself on my seasonal memory yet).

Six months is a long time for me, though, and I miss the interaction, so I was thinking maybe we want to do a spring and fall themed challenge as well. I wrote a post on this and called for comments. I believe many hands make light work, so if we got enough volunteers to do this sort of challenge on a quarterly basis, it would be fun ways to increase interactions on DW and broadly across fandoms. If you have any interest in that (or ideas about it!) please comment over there.

Comments

[sjh2009]

I helped mod Snowflake for the first time this year and it is a lot of work, and I'm not the one running it. Admittedly, since taking early retirement to care for my mother, I have had more time than some other mods but it's been pretty time consuming. As well as acknowledging every post on each challenge we also make sure that one of us has commented on every journal too.

One thing I hadn't anticipated was the number of responses I received from participants. I hosted Challenfe #8 and in the two hours I was away from the internet to cook and eat dinner I came back to 187 message in my inbox. Although not all of those message require a response, many of them do. These are all things to consider when running an event like this.

I've signed up to mod for the Sunshine Challenge this year and planning is already underway for that event!

Snowflake is a wonderful participation event, but I think if it were run too often it wouldn't have the same impact and people might start getting bored. It's a shame that coffee shop one closed down, I hadn't heard of it but having a multifandom place people can drop into for a chat sounds nice. Maybe a coffee shop style comm with a quarterly or monthly challenge weekend would be fun, avoiding January and July but promoting Snowflake and Sunshine for those Months?

Certainly things to consider as I know from my own experience, I come out of the woodwork in January for Snowflake and then, despite my good intentions, I disappear for the rest of the year, just taking part in the odd reverse bang or secret santa.