Psst… we’re halfway through 2020 — and you know what that means! Another Town Hall Meeting! As always it was so good to see so many knights at the same time and this meeting was just as productive as any other!

As usual, the meeting minutes have been written up and laid out so you can catch up in case you missed the event — and a big thanks to Ailish for scribing this time around! Lots to do on our end, but if you’re interested in helping out scroll down to the Help Wanted section to how you can pitch in!

Horace was running a little slow lately, so we let him have a quick nap and he sprung back to life with new features!

What’s new in this update?

• More info terms!
• Various bug fixes.
• New !afk command for you to utilize.

Horace is an open-source Discord bot built by and for members of the KOA community. For details on how to get involved, click here. For the full run-down of existing features log in to the Discord and type !help. To suggest a new feature, visit Horace’s GitHub profile, check it’s not already on the list, and click New Issue.

…and with that, quarter one of the year at KOA draws to a close! We had a particularly busy Town Hall this time around and so much valuable feedback came out of it. The days following a Town Hall are always filled with new projects being born, old projects getting new life breathed into them and that true spirit of collaboration that makes KOA such a special place to be — all very exciting!

If you weren’t able to make it but still want to catch up on what we discussed, check out this page for the minutes — and a big thanks to Flower, GRK, LadyArtemisa and Linh for scribing. We’re all very excited about the forward motion after this one and look forward to what accomplishments we’ll see at the next Town Hall in June!

Horace, what’s that notepad?! Oh, you’re keeping track of a set of keywords? That’s pretty cool.
What else did you learn since your last update?

What’s new in this update?

• Updates to clan listings, the gathering and clockwork knights have new leaders, and this is now reflected in the clans command.
• Highlight feature! You can track keywords now, and whenever Horace sees them, he’ll send you a DM to let you know.

• Highlights no longer work  in secret staff channels
• Someone taught Horace about Mama Kugoi and Horace.. Use the !info command to see what he knows!
• Fixed a typo for when a channel was almost at its pin limit.

Horace is an open-source Discord bot built by and for members of the KOA community. For details on how to get involved, click here. For the full run-down of existing features log in to the Discord and type !help. To suggest a new feature, visit Horace’s GitHub profile, check it’s not already on the list, and click New Issue.

The moment you’ve all been waiting for…

After several weeks of designing, voting, designing some more and setting up shop, we can finally open our doors to the KOA Merch Shop! We’ve partnered with Spreadshirt to give you the best shipping options from warehouses in the United States (for our friends in the western hemisphere) and Europe (for everyone on the other side of the Atlantic) while also providing a nice cut to KOA. Please remember all donations will be reinvested to improve your KOA experience.

Huge thanks to Dawn, Ariheen and Red Wolf for being the brains and pens behind the designs, and to Shaur for assisting with the admin of setting up an online shop. We really couldn’t have done without you.

We love feedback! Any thoughts, questions, queries, or concerns — please send them through our Contact Form using the category ‘Merchandise’. And don’t forget to post a snap of you in your new swag on the snapshots channel of the Discord server!

A quick look at a few changes around KOA’s digital team!

Firstly, a big welcome to Jessica as our new Head of Web Development — she has already been instrumental in a few key changes we’re making behind the scenes and will be making more visible adjustments as we move forward!

You may be familiar with the current setup of engineers and website team, but with new projects and new blood coming into KOA there’s a few changes we’re making to make our teams more practical and efficient so we can get the best KOA experience to all our members.

1. Engineers
   Team Lead: Tekrus (Head of R&D)
   The engineers we know and love! Nothing’s changed, and they continue to blow us away with their skills working on bots, programs and new features around KOA and the Discord. We have them to thank for managing Horace, delivering our pom bot and the clan data tools.
2. Web Producers
   Team Lead: Jessica (Head of Web Development)
   A new role! The web producers are a subdivision of the website team that are focussed on building web features using HTML, CSS and Javascript and liaising between the engineers and content crafters. Ideal for beginner coders looking to cut their teeth on some projects to build their portfolios. They’ll be working on the COTW section, Resource Library and making sure the website runs smoothly!
3. Content Crafters
   Team Lead: Joshua (Website Manager)
   Our beloved writers, graphics designers and KOA artists fall to this camp. They will continue to contribute copy to the website, writing articles, contributing design features to tech projects, developing new merch designs and generally keeping things quite pretty (e.g. thanks Art for adapting Belle Lehr’s designs for this new post!) .

For updated and in-depth role descriptions check out our applications page, or reach out to the relevant team lead to toss your hat in the ring!

Thanks to everyone who joined us a few days before Christmas for a very merry Town Hall meeting! Many an exciting project was discussed including some well-earned promotions, the announcement of a new sector, upcoming Horace and bot features and (gasp!) a podcast tailored specifically for the members of KOA!

If you missed out on the Town Hall, never fear, the minutes are here! Please peruse at your leisure for all the details. Look forward to seeing you all at the next one!

Happy Day of the Sun!

Quote of the Day: What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

• Vincent Van Gogh

Challenge of the Week

Champion of the Week: @jwebdev

Our Next COTW: Keeping Your New Years Resolutions

KOA Newsletter

Challenge of the Week: Keeping Your New Years Resolutions

Book of the Month: Throwback Month Choose from past Books of the Month!

 KOA Ongoing Challenges

 Dev December by @StevenTNorris

 Hustle-n-Bustle December Edition by @HannahHannaB

 Phone Detox: An Introduction to Solitude by @Pedro2cb

 KOA Community Events

KOAI Solstice Event

When is it? January 3rd, 8PM UTC. Check here to calculate when that is for you: http://bit.ly/koaisolstice20 The winter solstice, the longest night of the year in the northern hemisphere and the longest day in the southern hemisphere, happens on December 22nd. In celebration, KOAI is hosting a gathering of storytelling in early January! We call on you to help bring myths and tales from your culture, or cultures that you’re studying and/or are interested in, and come and share them with the community. This event will be hosted in a voice channel (edited)

Interested in being a story teller? Contact @Art, KOAI Witch [he/him] for more information and to let him know you’re interested, and in the mean time check what time you’re going to come in, and create a brief outline of the story you want to tell We look forward to seeing you there! Haven’t joined KOAI yet? KOAI is KOA’s international server focused on learning more about the various languages and cultures of our world. Join here: https://discord.gg/PSmvrup

KOA Movie Night

When is it? January 5th, but the time is up to you! Please use the following link to let us know what times work best for you: http://whenisgood.net/movienight2020

Prepare your snacks, grab your drinks… and get ready for KOA’s first movie night of the new year! We’ll all be hanging out in a voice channel and watching a movie as a whole group. More information will be provided when a final time is decided upon. If you’re interested in joining us, be sure to keep notifications on for this channel as I’ll be following up with a poll to vote on a movie along with a finalized time. I look forward to seeing you all there!

The Future of Newsletters in 2020

Newsletters are getting a Facelift!

• In an attempt to consolidate and simplify our news at KOA, we’ve decided to use our News Page on our site as our one stop shop for all things new in the KOA world. Each of our department heads will specifically keep it updated, and all longer updates will continue to have their own separate posts, not pinned like the newsletter at the top of the page.

 Other News

Community Improvements:

• Led by @erschmidt, Academics is our brand new sector to discuss studying techniques and all things academics.
• Meditation is finally a club and is joinable in #front-desk!

Engineering Updates:

• Our Community Pom Tool is nearly complete!
• We’re beginning to work on a brand new bot to run Trivia Events in the near future. More on this soon!
• Our Podcast is now in production. Thank you to all who have been sending in their feedback and ideas to make this awesome.

That’s all for this week! Make today count and be well.

You know them, you love them…

*said with the same intonation as “Yaaaaaaaaaas”

We’ve finally released our updated clans page which lists all our clans with short descriptions, member counts and application forms all on the new KOA website. From here our website will send the applications over to the clan leaders which will make the whole process of applying for and being accepted into KOA clans much more efficient.

We’re also happy to announce that we have a new KOA clan: The Wolf Pack led by Queen Wolf with a focus on health and fitness! If you’re aiming to work on that summer bod, try a new physical activity or just want to eat a bit better, this is the crew for you!

The new version of Horace is out, thanks to everyone who has contributed!

What’s new in this update?

• CI changed from Travis to Circle to ease the life of our developers.
• Horace no longer reacts to every single message in accountability station, only those containing checkmarks.
• The raid command now informs everyone about who started the raid, time for that extra accountability!
• New info terms
  • Notion
  • Pom War
  • Donations to KOA
  • disturbedman
• Bookmark feature
  • You can now react to a message with the bookmark emoji and Horace will send it to your DMs for easy saving.
• Horace will now inform users if they’re trying to pin something with his pin feature and the channel has already reached the pin limit.
• Added reactions to COTW messages to confirm that the commands have been understood.

Horace is an open-source Discord bot built by and for members of the KOA community. For details on how to get involved, click here. For the full run-down of existing features log in to the Discord and type !help. To suggest a new feature, visit Horace’s GitHub profile, check it’s not already on the list, and click New Issue.