InWorldz/Second Life Connection Center Closes - Statement From Zia Larina

On December 7, Amore Crux suddenly announced the InWorldz/Second Life Connection Center was closing. Taking place less than a week after the discussion in Second Life about InWorldz which it helped organize, and about a day after the article on the event was published, this move was a complete surprise. Amore made a short anouncement, and deleted the center's regions in InWorldz and Second Life. The groups themselves are still up, though word is many people have already started leaving them.

Zia Larina, the manager of the Connection Center group and places, was not online at the time. Today, she made the following statement to the group in InWorldz and Second Life.

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Hello A/all,

I had some things happen in my real life that needed my attention starting about a week ago.  I needed to give up the IRT management position because I have real-life schooling.  Because of some issues concerning classes I needed to let that go and just focus on the Coaching which allowed me to be more random in my schedule; focused around my real-life classes.  I am in my BS/MS degree program right now and that is my primary focus in my real life.

I was in SL when Amore decided to close the centers and send word in group chat here.  I received some IM's in SL saying to get to IW.  When I went to IW I was given many NC on the conversation that happened in the group chat.  I will attempt to answer the main questions that were being asked and didn't get addressed.

1)  I sincerely apologize for what happened yesterday and the choice of Amore to close the connection centers down.  It was a big shock to all of us and to be fair I am not sure what really happened.  He has officially closed them down and there is no going back from that.

2)  All of you that have been volunteering your time to help people link and get set up here in IW and making their expansion of game and business we can still help and I am leaving lm's at the bottom.  Any terminal can be used as a linking point to help people get connected.

3)  For those of us who wish to still have a help group in case this one gets shut down.  Contact Nydia Tungsten.  She has created a group here and in SL for those of us still wishing to have a help group for each other.  This is their attempt at participating in helping us in this new direction.

4)  Elenia did a clean house and removed 6K from the welcome center group last week it is in the forums on the website.  Elenia did have a private discussion with Amore and made and official request that he stop a certain provision (check certificates).  To be fair she has never said anything against the centers, the group, and sat on a stage with us in SL answering questions in the meeting last Saturday.  If her official stance was in distancing the founders away from connection to us and our group then she would never have sat on that stage and would have done official IW answers based on the Feed after the meeting was done.  I had been speaking with her last week about getting connecting link to help people know solidly the reporting  people if they had issues with specific people at the Welcome Center and how to navigate that.  This was going to be included in the Coaching staff pieces.

5)  InBiz is a viable and established business and the terminals are working and linking and transfer of fund is still running as it has always been available.  You are able to use any atm terminal in IW at any location to access InBiz market place and to transfer lindens to IW.  There is an InBiz HQ on SL side.  ......Ellesmere (173,26,147)

**when using any terminal that will take money from your account whether it is a store or an ATM use the ctrl+alt+T if the prims are NOT red they are safe to use.  Use the Ctrl+alt+T to turn off again and shop or transfer funds.

In Conclusion,  I did not agree with the decision and I can understand if there have been stresses on Amore that maybe we don't know about.  I am at a loss as to how I can help on a personal level and that can not be helped.  I so sincerely apologize for all for all of the upset.

There are some options for all of you if you wish.  I will continue to help people if they need it and be available for questions the best I can.  I am sorry that Amore chose to close the centers and I apologize for the closures of the physical center locations.  If you have any questions please IM or send a NC and I will do my best to get answers to you as soon as possible.  For those of you who were coaching please IM me you are still very much needed and we can stream line this process a bit more if you are willing.

Sincerely,

Zia Larnia ~~ Ex Manager of the Connection centers.