Dreamhaven Park Update #18

Hello Dreamers!  This week I'd like to talk a little bit about the Castle portion of Dreamhaven Park.  This module of our park is meant to be comprised of three particular aspects, The Castle, Banquet Hall and Conference Meeting/Breakout Rooms.

As you can from the bubble diagram, it is centered off to the left of the main entry and plaza.  This will help keep the plaza and handmade shopping mall the center of the park for small businesses.

We've added in a parking lot to the left of the Castle so that wedding parties, office events or other groups have a way to access only this area for their special occasions.

The Castle: We are looking toward a castle that elicits a little more fantasy and a little less medieval in appearance.  To the left here is a sample picture of what we might consider.

The interior of the castle will have a limited amount of private VIP sleeping rooms for rent with an open kitchen for public use by the guests.

This would be the perfect place for the Bride & Groom, their wedding party, parents, VIPs and Guests of Honor for conferences or tournaments, Kings and Queens with their courts for SCA and Renaissance Faire style events.

Inside there will be a selection of amenities such as hot tubs, pool room and more with the potential for rooftop activities.

The Great Hall: This area shall be adjacent to the castle with private and public entrances.  The large open space will contain a commercial kitchen for use by caterers or other parties renting the facility.

The Great Hall will be the perfect area to host large assemblies, dinner parties, receptions, tournament gaming and more.

With the versatility for meeting, conference or banquet standards, it is great for the grand ceremonial feasts, bazaars, seminars, balls, and other events your company or gaming party may wish to host.

Conference Rooms: Smaller break-out rooms are adjacent to the central Hall in order to accommodate workshops, panels and team-building or pre-qualifying events.

Role-playing groups will have the ability to host their major events in the hall with private gaming rooms for smaller scenes, combat rooms, or tangent storylines.

Artists, Crafters, Trainers, or other instructors can use these facilities to host hands-on workshops, classes or sessions as suits their particular business.

As a reward for taking the time to read all that, I'd like to just offer you this week's Giveaway from Hennatopia for a hand-made, henna-inspired felted gift box!  FREE to enter!

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Dreamhaven Update #17

Last week we had a meeting with COUPE Architecture to go over the first draft of our bubble diagram.

We spent the better portion of December streamlining the concept for the park, omitting superfluous elements and categorizing the attractions that we are set on, in order of priority.

The next step was to get these modules into a bubble map, the purpose of which is to get a generalized idea of the Dreamhaven layout, and to illustrate the adjacencies between various park features.

This first bubble diagram shows our Entry and Public Plaza concept, highlighted in the yellow circle.  The plaza is where the public market will be located.  Here are some of the features of the plaza:
     1) All 3 market strips open directly onto the plaza for shopping
     2) Meandering pathways leading in and out of the plaza
     3) Lawns and Benches for seating
     4) Mounded, Earth-scaping opportunities
     5) Hardscape
     6) Serves as a secondary (rooftop observatory)
     7) Artist work-live spaces are located here

The Plaza is defined by an open "center" with three market rows. Each market row caters to a particular type of shopping: 

     1) Permanent Handmade Market
     2) Farmer's Produce Market
     3) Day-stall Merchant's Market

Permanent Handmade Market
Our permanent shops are steady fixtures in Dreamhaven.  Owned an operated individually, these stores are sub-leased to high-quality artisans, crafters and costumers! Each permanent storefront has living/storage space above the retail outlet so that our artists may live or keep their studio on site.

Farmer's Market
Located adjacent to our community P-patches and homesteading garden plots, is the Farmer's Market. This row of stalls and shopping are dedicated to food products, general produce, flower vendors with an emphasis on providing a retail venue for our on-site gardeners and community farmers.

Tend your garden plot and sell the fruits of your labor to campers, over-nighters, our customers and the general public. Campers staying on-site can pick up a few fresh groceries to take back to the cabin or campsite!


Day-stall Merchants 

The Day-stall market strip is conveniently located off the main plaza. It features a daily variety of vendors and artists based on a first-come-first-served basis. If you would like a place to host vendors for your event or gaming group during your stay, this is it!

Looking for the perfect cosplay accessory? Did you forget your best earrings and necklace? Did your sword frog break? Wand holster left at home?....Did you leave the soap in your shower?? Worry not!

The merchants in our plaza have what you need to outfit and supply yourself and your merry band of intrepid explorers accordingly for your time with us at Dreamhaven.

Grab your mug, get your growler and head out on that quest. You'll want it at the tavern for a tasty flagon of mead as you boast about your conquests of the day!

                  

Faeries for Nature Giveaway

Hello my faerie friends! This week's giveaway is brought to you by Faeries for Nature.  Faerie Queen Rose features enchanted hand-crafted jewelry, accessories and find gifts for every faery and mermaid's fancy.
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Once of a kind designer originals including steampunk, faery, mermaid, renaissance, gothic and woodland styles.  Put some magic in your life with enchanted jewelry, candy filled enchanged roses and other magical gifts from Faeries for Nature.

Dreamhaven Update #16

Slightly late on announcing the news, please pardon the delay! Our relationship with the Black Knight Society has been sealed.

This is an exciting partnership that mutually builds our community by donating a portion of our proceeds toward supporting their organization.

The Black Knight Society is an organization developed to foster a love for education and exploration through the field of interactive recreation.  Hailing from the Wenatchee Valley in Washington state, they are visible in their community often volunteering or hosting mini-events and fundraisers.

Each year, the Black Knight Society produces the Wenatchee Renaissance & Medieval Faire (#WenRen), which is held at Wenatchee Valley College.  2015 dates are: April 25-26!

They performing and putting on educational panels and workshops that demonstrate various aspects of medieval life, combat, dress & fashion, and more!

A portion of the proceeds from every Coupon-Fairy Booklet goes to support this non-profit organization.   This year (2015), you can save $3 off your Gate Ticket by purchasing a copy of our Coupon Booklet!

If you're interested in checking them out more, or looking for information on how to join up, you can find them either on facebook, or contact them directly at: ncwblackknightsociety@gmail.com

Dreamhaven Update #15

In the news this week we've got a little peek from Coupe Architecture. These bubble-diagrams on the left are initial sketches of the park layout, as per our last meeting. A charette is a collaboration where design solutions are brainstormed and then proposed for a project. \

It is quite a bit different from our original concept map (which was to be expected), and reflects the overall concept a bit better in regards to the "Fantasy Village" layout. We should be seeing some more formal drawings as time goes on, as well as an updated color map.

We'll be using these sketches to create a large-scale modular map of the park as we move into the phase of collecting relevant business data in order to do our financial analysis.

The coupon-booklet continues to be both a growing success and endeavor. We've already got some excellent names signed up for the next edition like Jasmine Beckett-Griffith!

Our Pinterest Board for the booklet is also another new addition to this version of the book. It conveniently shows which businesses are offering what sort of discounts. It is our hope to develop a phone app for the next incarnation (fingers crossed). 

In other news - this week's giveaway comes to us from Herb Leonhard Art! 10 Pairs of Tickets to MythicWorlds in February! Get your entries in and enjoy. :) a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fairyblossom Update

In Fairyblossom Festival news this week, I am most pleased to share a few highlights.  We've included the festival in the Coupon-Fairy Booklet 2015.  What this means is that with the purchase of the booklet, you get 1 Free Pass to the festival AND coupons and savings at over 100 vendors, events, indy-authors, musicians and more!

If you purchase before February 6, you ALSO will get a FREE PASS to Riona's Cave of Treasures coming up in Portland, OR.  RCoT is an artisan craft faire located at the Doubletree Hotel Lloyd Center in the wonderful and weird City of Roses.  If you're local, we definitely hope to see you there!

On the DIY adventurous side of things, Ion the Leprechaun and I got industrious over the weekend!  We had collected some free pallets with the intention of deconstructing them as pallets, and reconstructing them as stages for the Festival.

This is my YouTube short documenting our experiment.  It turn out SUPER great so...this weekend we'll be making more!  The part that just pleases me all to pie is that A) pallets are free, so we are saving BIG bucks to build our stages and B) the leftover pallet frames that we tear planks off of are still in working order so they get to now become our walling and backdrops.

I LOVE it when a plan comes together!

Dreamhaven Update #14: 2015 Coupon-Booklet is Live!

The big news in Dreamhaven this week is that the Coupon-Fairy Booklet 2015 is live and ready for purchase! 

In Q4 2014, we had almost 50 participating vendors/events in the booklet and it was our goal to at least double that for 2015.  It's great to say that we have roughly 120 participating businesses now.  This incarnation of the booklet includes stores from overseas in the UK and France, the addition of musicians, authors, new events and hundreds of dollars in savings.

If you're not familiar with what how it works, it's like this: the coupon booklet is packed full of coupons from small businesses and events.  You buy the booklet and then get to redeem the coupons inside for savings at the participating stores/places.  Most of our vendors are online sellers so you can shop from anywhere for the interwebs cover the world!

The awesome part about the booklet is that it not only supports the vendors and small-business community, a portion of the proceeds get donated to Dreamhaven Park as well as the Black Knight Society (historical re-enactment & education non-profit).  Last year, this stream of our fundraising efforts brought in ~$250 - not bad for a first time effort that only had a couple months to get out there. :)

Righto, my wingéd friends -  until next time!