The loyal minions of the House of L'Stok have been working tirelessly behind the scenes for the last four months arranging the next challenge for us! What can we do that's a real challenge? Wrestling crocs? Herding cats? Organising twelve Star Trek events simultaneously? Yeah! That was cool, I'll do that again!

Yes! It's that time of year again! The Twelve Trek Days of Christmas is on again for 2008! Last year's event was a major collaborative project between a wide variety of Star Trek fan groups to celebrate the season of goodwill and giving. It's primarily a fun activity by Star Trek fans however there can be no doubt that it not only generated a lot of publicity for the participants but created and maintained good relations between the groups. It certainly did for me! I made some great friends and struck up some valuable acquaintances during the last event.

Hunh? Christmas? In October? Unlike most fan productions, because this is a Christmas project, delivery of projects on deadline is imperative and one of the lessons learned from last year (the website for which is still online HERE with all the "presents" from it still available) was that you need at least a six month lead time for it and that the deadline for completion must be set for the start of December. The one thing that marred the 2007 event was the lateness of some of the "presents". So that's why I put the word out in June that pitches were open.

The structure of the event revolves around new lyrics that fit the traditional Christmas carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas". This was what we had for last year, ...

I thought that this was a very even spread of presents, covering most of the areas of fan production, however if you want to suggest something else - be my guest! Make a pitch! Participation in the project is competitive in that subprojects will go to the person or group that is best suited. Because of the importance of delivering the project on deadline, groups and individuals with a proven track record will be given preference.

Another lesson learned was that responsibility needs to be delegated, so this year, I am acting as executive producer and anyone who wants to take over one of the days will be given all rights, responsibilities and credit as producer of that project. All work will be fan productions and labeled copyright warnings in favour of CBS/Paramount or their licensees, all original work will remain the property of it's producer though who may reserve the moral right to be identified as the creator.

Pitches are also invited for the IT support of the project which will be totally revamped to offer the "presents" as downloads or streamed online in a variety of media. As an internet, virtual project, the webhosting of the project last year was a mixture of an excellent website provided for us by Commander Jayden Tyronian of the USS Atlantis NX-63546, that pointed to various decentralised projects which were downloadable from their own websites such as the podcasts from Hailing Frequency, Twerpcast, The Love Long and Prosper Podcast and Indiana Jim.

This all might sound ambitious and, frankly, it was a monster to organise last year! However it succeeded as well as it did because of the hard work, tolerance and kindness of dozens of people all over the world! Basically, all I did was to give people an excuse to give away their work to as wide a slice of fandom as possible ... which is what they do anyway! Whilst it was physically draining, it was also personally uplifting to see the way that people rallied around during the season of goodwill and giving.

Less than two months away from my appointed deadline and things are looking touch and go! I've had some great support from some areas and been totally ignored in others. Unfortunately it looks like a lot of it will be carried on my shoulders again! Luckily I have a few ideas for interesting "second string" presents that will make up for any lack of support from the larger fan groups!

When the going gets tough just remember what the Vulcan said: There are always alternatives!

Regards

Kirok of L'Stok,
Exec. Producer, The Twelve Trek Days of Christmas