30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS

My daughter has come down sick this morning, so I'm at home instead of at work.

1. Brother Nature - Team Birds on a Wire - Elle : Did you take it upon yourself to get things started as team leader, or were you selected to the job? If you were selected, did someone other than you step up initially to get things started?
Well I took the initiative of setting up a message forum where we could discuss freely amongst ourselves, and emailed the rest of the team to let them know about it, but I also asked for volunteers for the leader position. I had some protests to the idea of it being anyone other than me, and I assured the team that I would be there to support, guide and help regardless of my 'official' position in the team. I wanted to give others a chance. I'm not bothered about having the 'glory' of the title, you know? But no one was especially keen for the role, and the team kept telling me to step up, so I did.

2. ElaineElaine - Elle, you are trapped on an island with your team. There are two trees close enough so that you can string a hammock between the trees and there is plenty of hammock making materials (more than enough for everyone.) Now how to you go about deciding what to do about the hammock situation?
First I ask if anyone has experience making hammocks, or special skills to contribute. It makes sense to have people working to their strengths, you know? Then I make a plan, taking suggestions from the rest of the team as we go (I know nothing about hammock making myself!) and then assign roles to people, hopefully utilising their strengths and minimising their weaknesses. It's about creating order, so the team works as one, rather than about being bossy and forcing your will on everyone.

3. Wordsmitty ✍️ - Elle, who on your team would be the best at writing a prompted blog entry if only given a hour to do so, and why? Who would have the most difficulty?
Ooh, a very good question. 💙 Carly- Hello 2025 and Lyn's a Witchy Woman have a lot of experience writing prompted blog entries. If you force me to choose one, I'm going to go with Carly, because she has less distractions. Poor Lyn is so busy.
As for who would have the most difficulty. Hmm... I think Kate - Writing & Reading struggles to find the time to blog regularly, so she might have trouble in a situation where she had limited time. MissTique is pretty new to blogging, but she's online a lot and has a lot of support, so I suppose I have to go with Kate.

4. Joel - Elle, What WDC communication tools (or others) did you employ to form your team?
We used a message forum (for discussion), polls (for voting), a group (for easy emails to the whole team), email and IM.

5. Joel - Elle, Who came up with your team image? Is the image an original creation or a sourced 'stock' image?
~ Aqua ~ created the image. She's the only one of us with a skill in that area, although I like to dabble. Actually, that's not true. ROSΣANNΣ|NaPoWriMo|WGT|JDI also has skills at creating images, but she doesn't have any image manipulation software at the moment, so it defaulted to Aqua as our only choice. I believe she used a stock image and manipulated it to create a unique signature. It looks good, huh?
I created a fun, unofficial image, but that was never intended to be our official image, I was just amused by the little blue birds I found on Google.

6. Elaine - Elle, if you were flying above a bunch of monkeys and saw a leopard stalking them, would you warn the monkeys? Why or why not?
Are we talking metaphorically or literally? Because metaphorically, I'd warn them. I did already, you may have noticed, when I let Skeason know the correct timeframe that posting blog entries in the forum was forbidden. However ridiculous it is to quote a chick flick like 'Bring It On', "I define winning as going up against the best and winning." I'm not interested in winning on a technicality. I'd rather win because we're the best in a fair fight. And if we lose fair and square, we lose. So long as we had fun doing it, I'm okay with that. But we won't lose, so... "LOOK OUT! LEOPARD BEHIND YOU!"

7. Smitty - Elle, If there are eleven members, why does the image have twelve birds?
Because we fully expect one of the rats monkeys to flee the sinking ship that is the other team, and come over to the dark side?
Seriously, we were focused on giving everyone a chance to suggest names and then vote on names, and suddenly I realised that if I was the leader I had to post in the forum, and since I'm not online between 4am and 3pm WDC time most days, we didn't have as long as we thought. We couldn't leave it until midday because the email said the leader had to post the message, so I had to do it before 4am WDC time, so we lost a few hours. Add to that the fact that Aqua and I are on different time zones. I asked Aqua to make a few minor changes to the image as it was, but deleting a whole bird would have taken more time than we had at that point.

8. Smitty - Elle, you banter well, but why are none of the birds predators?" (They sure don't look it to me anyway.)
Because we're not predators, Smitty. We're not here to screw anyone over. Read our mission statement - we're all about encouraging everyone to give it a go, helping the newest members and newest bloggers find their feet, and having fun. At least two of our members are teens, and one is a great-grandmother! We're sweet and innocent. Okay, maybe not, but we play fair and at the end of the day, we'd rather sing as a chorus than slaughter all the others and sing alone. If we can do a duet with the monkeys, all good and well. They're vegetarians anyway, so why can't we live and let live? Our aim is to sing the most beautiful songs, not the only songs. But thank you for the compliment on my banter.

9. Elaine - Elle, what is the best thing about being a bird? The worst thing?
For me personally, being able to fly. The sheer possibilities that open up. But that's assuming I'm not a kiwi, which is of course a flightless bird. Thankfully there are no kiwi on our image! I love exploring new possibilities and trying new things, so the lack of restrictions appeals to me. The worst thing? Worms. *shudder*
'Long slim slimy ones, short fat juicy ones, itsy bitsy fuzzy ones...'

10. Joel - Elle, (keeping in mind, this is NOT an elimination round) Did anyone on your team stand out as a strong contributor to the team effort?
Hmm... It was a real team effort. There wasn't a single person who didn't post in the message forum with an opinion. But I was most impressed with Taz_Koby and ROSΣANNΣ|NaPoWriMo|WGT|JDI who really helped organise the team while I was busy on the weekend.

11. Joel - Elle, (keeping in mind, this is NOT an elimination round) Was there anyone on your team, who was AWOL, or added less than expected to the team effort?
No one was AWOL. The differences between least contribution and greatest contribution were pretty big though. Do I have to name names? See, this is why I'm not a boss in real life. Ugh. MissTique and 💙 Carly- Hello 2025 were the quietest this round BUT they were NOT AWOL and they DID contribute.

12. Smitty - Elle, "If you contracted bloggorosis and were unable to blog or support your team, would they:
a) Flail at prompts and hope for the best?
b) Continue as if nothing happened (in other words, you aren't really needed)?
c) Use their blogs to spread rumors about you so others don't know you're contagious?
d) Challenge the other team to writing eulogies about you?"
I was absent for well over 24 hours over the weekend, when I was either away from a computer or asleep. At first they dithered, but then they started organising themselves. It was awesome. Do they need me? Ultimately, no. But I think it makes it easier for them to have me as leader. I don't like your four options, but ultimately I'd have to say 'b' because I know they could do it without me. How rude to suggest that I'm not necessary though. I mean, really!