Good evening and welcome to a new Bell Tree Direct! We have many different things to announce tonight including two upcoming events, staff changes, a long list of items to clean up on the forum, and a new integration between our forum and Discord server.
Celebrating Diversity Event, Coming This Week!
Our Celebrating Diversity event is coming back this Wednesday! It will take place from June 7, 2023 - June 17, 2023. In this event, we'll come together to celebrate our diverse community by completing a single creative task. We look forward to seeing your inspiring creations again starting this Wednesday!
Returning Soon, Camp Bell Tree!
In other event news, our next major event is also coming soon. Camp Bell Tree is returning July 21, 2023 - August 20, 2023! In this event, the community will be split into multiple "cabins" that work together as teams. The cabins compete against each other by earning points in a variety of different tasks. Which cabin will end on top this time?
While the event's official end date is August 20th, the tasks to complete will actually end about half a week earlier. As we did in 2021, early signups will be opening before the start date, so be on the lookout for that in the coming weeks. This year's camp will also have a theme... any guesses about what it might be?
Staff Changes
Many of our staff members are changing roles. While Kaiaa, LaBelleFleur, Laudine, Nefarious, and pandapples are switching to project staff, Mairmalade is moving back to the moderator role.
Moderator
Project StaffKaiaa
LaBelleFleur
Laudine
Nefarious
pandapples
Project Staff
ModeratorMairmalade
Finally, Murray is retiring from the TBT staff. Murray has been a staff member since 2015 when he started as a forum moderator. In 2018 he switched to the project staff role where he continued to help with events. The events he helped run over his eight years as a staff member include The Bell Tree Fair 2016, TBT's Fifth Annual Easter Egg Hunt (2017), The Bell Tree Fair 2017, The Bell Tree Fair 2020, and TBT's Season of Giving 2020. Thank you, Murray, for your hard work and contributions to the TBT community over those years!
New Forum/Discord Integration
Over the next week, we'll be making many changes to our Discord server. To start, we'll be connecting the forum and server together. This will allow for new features such as:
- Linking your forum and Discord accounts.
- Forced username matching.
- New role and other perks for connected users.
- Optionally receiving forum notifications through Discord.
- Forum thread promotions to relevant channels.
- Role syncing with events.
Board Changes
Before spring is officially over, we're doing some spring cleaning by making many changes to our boards and stickied threads across the forum. The Turnip Stalk Exchange and Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival boards will be removed and replaced with prefixes. The Airport is also getting another prefix for new users looking for help. The Basement will be given a more distinct purpose - only forum games. The more chatty discussion threads that are currently there will be moved to Brewster's, but will be magically excluded from earning bells.
| Board: | Action: |
|---|---|
| Island Journals | Move under General AC Discussion and add a field to select which game the journal is for |
| The Airport | New Getting Started prefix (for new users looking for help with fruit, items, etc.) |
| The Airport | Remove filtering box from the top of the board |
| Turnip Stalk Exchange | Remove and merge into The Airport board with a new prefix |
| Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival | Remove and merge into General AC Discussion with a prefix |
| Nintendo Treehouse | Add prefixes for more games (feel free to make suggestions) |
| Gamer's Lounge | Add prefixes for more games (feel free to make suggestions) |
| Brewster's Cafe | Perfect the spelling, Brewster's Café! |
| The Basement | Move non-game threads to Brewster's Café (they will still be excluded from earning bells) |
| The Cellar | Potentially merge into The Basement (TBD) |
Thread Changes
Next, we went board-by-board through our stickied threads. A lot of them are outdated and some were even created an entire decade ago. We figured it was time to freshen things up around the forum. Over the next few weeks, many will be removed, while others will be updated or recreated.
Thanks to Mick for helping me organize the long list of things to clean up into this usable format. Also thank you to all of the staff members who gave their input about these changes. We still have a few decisions to finalize, but we'll begin making these changes very soon.
Discord Changes
In addition to the added forum integration, we'll also be making some changes to the Discord server's layout so it will look like this:
Town Hall
- #announcements
- #rules
- #general
- #gaming
- #memes
- #creative
- #new-horizons
- #pocket-camp
- #general-ac
- #room-1
- #room-2
Going forward, we'll also try to utilize more of Discord's features by making use of events, our Announcement channel, and a new Rules channel. The new integration with the forum will also help us utilize roles and other features more often.
Free Bells!
Your free Bell Tree Direct bells are back! Redeem them before they expire next week.
Click here to receive your 60 Bells!
And that concludes the Direct! As you can see, we have a long list of changes to make, so we figured it would be easier to announce them first. We'll go through each of these changes over the coming weeks, so expect things to look slightly different over that time. We hope to see you at our two upcoming events! Thanks for reading!
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I'll be busy for a chunk of the camp but I hope to support my cabinmates the best way I can!! Can't wait! 
