September Newsletter

[Arianna Stonewater]

Welcome students and staff! A new school year has begun and we are as excited as ever!! For those who were away this summer, or who are new here, please look around! HOL5 is live, and it looks amazing!!! Our staff did such an incredible job updating the site, and they're still working at it! For more info on updates, visit the forums here.

For those who don't know, HOLLERS is a fun club open to all the houses! We have a points system called "HOOTS" which you can earn by completing activities! At the end of the month you can earn the aptly named "HOOT Award."

Looking for more awards? Those who are particularly active in the HOLLERS Forums are eligible to win the "HOLLERS Award" which is given out with staff discretion; sometimes we give one out every month, sometimes a month or two is skipped! Finally, if you check out the Inspirational Categories section in the Creative Outlet, there are multiple awards to earn!!

Each month we will post the current House Point standings. Since the term has just started, we are all at 0! You can check out the current standings here on the HOL Main Page.

Hollers News
With each new month, we will post 3 new puzzles in our Monthly Challenges and different prompts in the Creative Outlet sections of the HOLLERS Forum!

House News
As a reminder, every common room must be signed up for separately from the main HOL Forums. You can join every common room, though you will only have full access to your own house's forums. There are still many fun things you can do when visiting others though:

Ravenclaw has just finished up their summer activity and is getting ready for the start of the term with an upcoming Ravenclaw only Bingo Activity! Fear not Badgers, Lions, and Snakes; they will be accepting items for the first issue of their house newspaper, The Alte Sententiam, from everyone soon!! (See previous issues here!) Everyone is also invited to join their Debate Club!

Gryffindor has also just finished up a summer activity, and will be continuing their monthly "Gone Questing" activity with a Deep Sea Diving escapade for ancient artefacts!! In the meantime, you can always stop by Peeve's Place in their common room for some fun games!

Hufflepuff had an awesome summer camp which has ended, but they're not taking a break! Very soon A NEW THING IS HAPPENING in the Sett starting Sept. 10 through Oct. 8th! In the meantime, everyone can head to the Department of Hufflepuff Games and Sports for some hard challenges and the chance to win some shiny diamonds (the Hufflepuff House points system)! If you stop by The Fireplace there are some cool games you can play like this HP Character Game or this Quidditch Team Game.

Slytherin is getting ready for their big fall activities and all snakes are invited to join either the Green or the Silver team for some fun competition! Everyone is welcome to wander the dungeons, so why not stop by the Puzzle Exchange or our new GOBstones Club?
You can also join in with our read-a-long; we're starting off the year with Book 5 and it's a great way to earn scales (Slytherin's house points system.) Don't forget to turn in your submissions for the next Serpentimes, due October 15! (See previous issues here)


News From Around HOL

Quidditch
The Summer Quidditch League had an amazing turnout, and we determined that Transylvania won the first Quidditch World Cup in 1473, just beating out Flanders! This month be on the lookout for some pick-up matches open to all! They will soon be announcing the 2018-2019 match schedule, but in the meantime check with your house teams/quidditch captains! They may be looking for new players, and every team could always use people for practice matches!

Book Club
The Book Club is starting off the year strong! For September's Monthly Book Discussions, they are reading The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley! They also have a very exciting adventure coming up, so check back often! As always, you can still read (and write!) book reviews and discussions in the various other sections of the Book Club; lots of chances to earn beans and add shiny awards to your trophy shelves!!

Shout-out to my special correspondents, Prof. Tarma Amelia Black, Gail Allen, Will Lestrange, and Sky Alton!