Five years ago, in late 2006, a group of avatars in Second Life®, including my alt Hawk Lightcloud, met to discuss building a center where fans and researchers alike could find good information about science fiction and fantasy. The result was the Portal to Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Chris Reitveld designed a saucer-like building that hovered over Info Island to house the Portal.
For five years, the Portal housed art and informational exhibits, and it hosted events such as author appearances and group discussions. At the start, all of us founders were involved, but over the years, one by one other activities took over our lives, except for one of the founders, Franja Russell, who has labored tirelessly to keep a steady schedule of events and exhibits.
Franja has now retired from the Portal, very much in need of some personal time after years of single-handedly keeping the Portal running. The new caretakers are ReneeiLene Spiritweaver and BrianA Corleone. If you've visited the Portal in the past, you'll find its now completely changed. The familiar saucer-inspired building is gone and in its place, a Stonehenge-like structure, shown in the picture.
I confess that I'll miss the old structure, but ReneeiLene and BrianA are doing some good design work. It will be interesting to see how it evolves. I encourage you to visit and to support them. Second Life members can visit the new Portal at ttp://slurl.com/secondlife/Info%20Island/197/98/23.
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