Participating in a Community
I've chosen to join the NCI Second Life group as it was recommended to us by Clare if we didn't know what group to join.
NCI (New Citizens Inc.) is a long running and well established group that was founded as early as 2005. NCI's main goal is to ease new residents into a virtual world and teach them the basics of Second Life while encouraging them to participate in in events and community. NCI is definitely a friendly, social and educational group that encourages all its new comers to explore and have fun.
This is NCI Island one of the main Locations where classes and other events are held
Activities you can participate in as part of a group include, socializing, attending classes, contests and more. Almost everything you can do in Second Life is at some point shown to you and there are many freebies and other things to do and find. The whole operation is self run by the NCI community and survives on donations and sponsors, everything you see and do here was created by the NCI Group which is quite the feat especially since they maintained the land for such a long time.
Here is me participating in a dance on NCI Kuula
I wanted to participate some of the classes but I didn't know what time zone they ran on, I later found out that it was GMT-7 by talking to other residents this meant that most of the classes were already finished by mid-day my time which made it difficult to find an event that was running when I was available.
NCI encourages all its residents to learn and grow either by classes or by experimenting (the sandbox area is available for everyone to hone their skills). I did find other things to do during my time at NCI which included riding an underwater roller coaster and playing bowling which I assume had all been made by residents of the NCI community, it really shows you what is possible within Second Life.
The NCI community reaches further than Second Life's virtual world. The group has their own website, forums, wiki and blog which really reinforce the sense of community and education, The website and wiki serve as a large knowledge base for newcomers and the forum and blog act as a way to keep in touch with other residents and seek NCI related news.
If you'd like to join NCI yourself or just learn more about the group itself you can visit them HERE