On Friday, November 4, the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life welcomes JaJay Zifanwe, the School Manager of the Physics University of Western Australia (UWA) and the owner of the UWA presence in Second Life. Winner of the 2008 Google Earth 'Build your Campus in 3D' Challenge and shortlisted into the top 10 for the 2010 Linden prize, Jay Jay and his team have been driven by expanding the focus on Teaching, Research, Art & Architecture in Virtual Worlds.

The UWA "open art challenge" is awarding over 1 million Linden dollars to virtual artists this year, bringing public attention and funds to many innovators in 3D digital artistic expression.

Come find out about this innovative arts program in Second Life. That's this Friday, November 4, starting at 8:30 PDT. Click image for teleport link below.<!-- Begin Second Life Destination Link -->

Nonprofit Commons

Take a horse-drawn carriage tour of Nonprofit Commons, an area that contains more than 150 nonprofit and social benefit organizations in Second Life.

Visit in Second Life

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On Friday October 28, at 8:30am PDT, we will be joined at the Nonprofit Commons by RJ Muni, a licensed psychotherapist who has been practicing in both the real world and in Second Life. We will talk with him about the New Ways Counseling in Second Life, and how it helps people with various psychological issues in both their "real" and "virtual" lives, and where those intersect. It should be a very interesting discussion on the therapeutic uses of virtual worlds.

Here's how RJ Muni describes his practice:

In Second Life I'm known as RJ Muni, owner of the Sunshine Therapy Garden. In Real Life I'm a licensed psycho/hypnotherapist in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. When I first learned about SL, about 5 year ago, I was immediately interested from a professional perspective. How does a virtual world affect people? What tells the representation in SL about the RL person? How can a virtual world help to make people feel better? The Sunshine Therapy Garden offers an environment to make people feel better. It has personal activies, group activities and one on one counseling. The garden is my personal initiative. No fees are asked for garden activities or counsellng. The cost of operation is partly covered by donations.

Read this 2009 interview  with RJ in the Alphaville Herald for some background.

That's this Friday, from 8:30am PDT, at the Plush Nonprofit Commons amphitheater http://slurl.com/secondlife/Plush%20Nonprofit%20Commons/88/126/26). See you then!

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NewWays Counseling and Mental Support

Your SL experience may raise questions related to your RL/SL relations, identity or other personal issues. Maybe you find that your SL is less ideal than you expected, or you discover SL is an escape from RL more than you would like it to be. Perhaps some aspects of your personality confuse you. Join the session for non-judgmental listening. From 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. (Pacific) Tuesdays.

Visit in Second Life

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Please be aware that from October 20-23, TechSoup.org and many of TechSoup's online resources will be unavailable. The Nonprofit Commons blog and other web resources will remain online during this period.  Here is the complete message from TechSoup's Patrick Duggan:

Beginning at midnight on Thursday, October 20, TechSoup.org will be unavailable while we move several of our back-end systems to a new, long-term datacenter. We expect TechSoup.org to be back online and fully functional by Monday morning, October 24.

During this time, TechSoup's product donation programs and learning resources, community forums, and the TechSoup blog will all be unavailable. Also, users will not be able to access their account or donation request history information. Rest assured, this information will be unaffected by what we're doing.

The ability of TechSoup's Client Services to address any questions or concerns from our members will also be limited during this time, as they rely on the same systems that we'll be moving. For any pressing matters, please contact Client Services via email at customerservice@techsoup.org, and your question will be addressed as early as possible the following week.

Please see this page for more information.

Daniel Moshel, director of the new virtual world documentary "Login 2 Life." to the Nonprofit Commons. Here is the full transcript of the meeting.  Thanks everyone for participating!

AGENDA

1.  Introductions
2. TechSoup Announcements
3. Mentors Corner
4. Daniel Moshel, "Login 2 Life"
5. OpenMic/ Announcements

This Friday, October 7, we are pleased to welcome Mr. Daniel Moshel, director of the new virtual world documentary "Login 2 Life."  Daniel will be appearing along with Gentle Heron, one of the main subjects of the film and longtime member of the Nonprofit Commons, and Draxtor Despres, award-winning machinimatographer and musician who helped make the film.

This will be at our regular Nonprofit Commons meeting that starts at 8:30am PDT. As always we will have introductions, tips from our Mentors and other announcements prior to talking about "Login 2 Life". To participate teleport over the Plush Nonprofit Commons amphitheater at this teleport link.

We look forward to seeing you there!

[For my own review of the documentary, see Betterverse.org.]