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Dear all,

So this is the article I re-scheduled from yesterday, as I didn't want it to be in the way of more pressing news events in the light of the treasury theft. It's launching two new initiatives that, hopefully, will be with eIreland long after my time in this ministry is done.



The first involves a new org, The Irish State Community Fund. This is, basically, like a co-op bank account for the citizens of eIreland. The government will not decide how the money in the account is spent - we, the citizens, will. When a little money has gathered in the account this newspaper will be used to gather the opinions of the eIrish as to what it should be used on/put towards. If at the time everyone thinks the money should be bundled into small packages and given away in competitions that's what'll happen. If the eIrish want a new high-Q hospital, or a new defence system then that's what'll happen. The eIrish will also get a fair say in where said hospital or defence system is put, given it's communal money, if the hospital or defence system is what they choose.

The org will be funded in two ways. The first I will detail for you in just a moment and the other is through community donations. I have myself added 1.05 gold and a little more than 1 IEP to it. All citizens are invited and permitted to contribute to the fund at any time though none are expected to. For my part I donated the decimals I had in IEP on two different days, .43 one day and .53 another. This is small change to many of us, barely noticed if it's gone, but it would soon add up to a great amount if even a small percentage of us were doing this on any kind of regular basis. The gold I donated because I hit hard worker and level 16 on the same day, which I wasn't expecting to do, so I had a little to spare (I'm just sorting my finances out after running headfirst at reaching the Captain rank lol).

So, if you have a few pennies kicking around that you wouldn't miss too hard please consider transferring them to the fund. I was also thinking that foreign currency could be donated...I had 0.05 ATS someone gave me in support of an article I wrote, which I transferred. Again that's a very small amount but over time it all adds up, and it can all be translated to gold...

Larger donations are also welcome, of course, though not expected. Like I say all donations to the fund are entirely voluntary.



In my first article I said I would be bypassing anything resembling a lottery for the timebeing. This was, naturally, due to a desire to avoid any negative associations with the last time that we had one of those. I worked on my other projects first (I've been pottering away at the wiki, friending the nation, setting up the community awards, the article comp etc.) but the more discussions I had with the Finance ministry the more I relaxed around the idea of having an eIrish lottery. In fact now I think it's a good idea, given I would like to continue to give decent prizes out for the competitions here in the Community Ministry but I'd like to be self-sufficient about it.

This org, in the interests of fair disclosure, we have decided to cap at 500 iep of its own funds. That money will be used to fund prizes/giveaways. The lottery will partially recoup the costs, and levels of non-lottery prizes will be adjusted in times when the money in this org is running low.

The lottery will occur at least weekly (possibly twice weekly if very popular, but just weekly at first). Citizens and residents of eIreland are eligible to participate. A ticket is bought by a citizen/resident when they donate 5IEP to the Ministry of Community account, then PM it choosing a number from 1-100. The subject of the PM should make clear that it's a lottery pick. If a person makes a donation but doesn't PM me I will assume the money is a donation, though I will try to PM them to prompt them for a lottery pick first. After the closing time of the lottery a random number generator (there are countless online, no pun intended) would be used to select a random number from 1-100. Citizens may buy as many tickets as they wish, and may submit all their number choices in one PM to make life easier (for them and me/my successors).

Any citizen holding that number would win the prizefund. If two or more citizens won the pot would be divided equally between them. If no citizen did then the person(s) with the closest number would win half of the prizefund, divided equally between them. The other half of the prizefund would ‘rollover’ to the following draw. If 1-100 proves to give us too low odds of having a winner it will be reduced to 75 or 50 etc. as appropriate, we'll have to see how many people participate before we know what's best.

In the first week the prizefund will be guarenteed as a minimum of 100iep by the Community Org. Thereafter the total takings will be divided like this:

75% of monies received in that draw period given to the prizefund, and then onto the winner(s).
12.5% to the Community org (unless the Community org is at its 500IEP cap)
12.5% to the Irish State Community Fund.
(In weeks where Community org is at 500IEP 25% to ISCF)

In weeks where no-one picked the actual number:

37.5% to prizefund, divided equally between winner(s)
37.5% added to the following draw’s jackpot (which would be thereafter advertised as a rollover)
25% to SCF, or half and half to SCF and Community Org when Community Org is below cap

In this way both the SCF and Community Org should be not only self-sufficient but also beneficial to the eIrish community.

And on that note? This week's lottery is officially open. Tickets can be bought up until next Thursday (September 24th) at 8pm GMT/noon eRepublik time and the draw will occur later that evening (i.e as soon as I've checked and double checked that everyone who bought a ticket was entered). Winnings will be immediately transferred to the winner following the announcement of who won in an article in this newspaper.

You won't have to claim it or risk losing it like in the real world.



Before I sign off on this article I think now's a good time to recap on my last one. As you are likely aware in my last article (which you will find here: http://www.erepublik.com/en/newspaper/the-irish-community-189477/1) I launched three prize-giving events arranged by the Community Ministry. I will deal with the simplest (and the only of the three where the competition is closed) first.

In order to publicise the article I asked people to shout it and, in return, they would be entered into a draw where three people would win - one a Q5, one a Q3 and one a Q1 weapon.

Well, without further ado, here are the winners!

Q5 Weapon
Biffo3000

Q3 Weapon
DashRiprock

Q1 Weapon
Caladbolg

Congratulations to all of you! I haven't sent your prizes to you because you never know in wartime when someone's at the start or at the finish of their daily battling (and I wouldn't want you to feel you'd wasted a weapon when your wellness is low). If you please PM this account to let me know you're ready for your prize (or with your org name if you'd like to store it) then I will get them to you as soon as I can.



I also launched the article-writing competition, which as of yet has had no entrants. For details please see my prior article (http://www.erepublik.com/en/newspaper/the-irish-community-189477/1). The prize is a Q3 weapon and 2 gold.



I've also had a fair few nominations for the eIrish Community Awards, though there's still five days left to get your nominations in. As it stands we've no candidates for Newcomer/Up and Comer as the two that were nominated were both passed level 10. We have only one candidate for Irelander of the Month.

If you'd like to nominate people for the awards please check the categories here: http://www.erepublik.com/en/newspaper/the-irish-community-189477/1 and post your nominations either on that article or via PM to this org. Please do not post your nominations to this article as they may be missed.

Please vote up and subscribe (and shout if you're feeling generous, though there's no prize incentive this time)!

~einberliner
Minister for Community, TD for Southeast of Ireland