This is clearly a weekend packed with events. In addition to Earth Week, today NCI is celebrating its fourth birthday on Caledon Oxbridge with a string of good things.
NCI (or New Citizens Incorporated) has, in fact, just won the “Favorite place to HELP NEWBIES” award in the Second Life Resident Choices Awards. It is designed primarily for new residents, but open to all, offering in-person advice from a team of NCI Helpers and NCI Land Officers classes, contests and social events, interactive tutorials, freebies, help notecards and landmarks, sandboxes for building, a new residents mall, Ginny Gremlin park, games, and newsstands with free in-world publications. Not sure if they feature Prim Perfect or The Primgraph though!
NCI’s offers an extensive schedule of classes and events (over 60 a week), held at campuses throughout, and at venues of partner companies. NCI classes include basic and advanced building and texturing, clothing and accessory creation, scripting, and land ownership. They also hold other basic SL classes, such as Intro to SL, Using the Search Menu and Maps, Avatar Makeover, and SL Consumer Skills. NCI events include Show & Tells, Parties, Blitz Building contests, New Player Q&A, and fun events too!
NCI runs four Second Life campuses: NCI Kuula (the original and largest NCI location), NCI South (at Hamnida, directly adjacent to the South Welcome Area), NCI Beach (by the sea in the Class 5 Fishermans Cove sim), and NCI Caledon at Caledon Oxbridge Village. NCI also manages sixteen NCI InfoNodes, located near or adjacent to Linden InfoHubs (or other areas popular with new residents). InfoNodes serve as “mini-NCIs” with information, freebies, landmarks, maps, and schedules, providing information to new residents where they first rez, when they first rez.
NCI–in collaboration with the Independent State of Caledon–operates Caledon Oxbridge, an active Community Gateway (Orientation Island). Adjacent to NCI Caledon, Caledon Oxbridge provides a complete Second Life tutorial for new residents. Based on the theme of a old English university, the Orientation is spread over six “Colleges”, each covering a different area of the Second Life interface and world: Avatar Motion, Camera Controls, Communications, Search & Inventory, Avatar Customization, and Money & Commmerce. The tutorial experience includes not only traditional orientation posters, but also interactive exercises, free full avatars, and prizes. Caledon Oxbridge also incorporates three “Residence Halls”, offering a short term apartment and prim allotment to new players, and a branch of the Caledon Library.
NCI classes, events, and resources are free and open to all.
NCI is entirely resident-run and financed and is unaffiliated with Linden Lab. Land and tier for NCI’s four campuses has been purchased by NCI or donated by NCI members and supporters. NCI continues to pay its instructors, even after Linden Lab abandoned class funding in December 2006. NCI is not-for-profit and is funded via through individual donations, sponsored advertising, and by RL and in-world businesses that theyconduct NCI-branded classes and events for.
NCI 4th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
Saturday, April 18th
2pm to 10pm SLT
NCI Caledon Sandbox
Caledon Oxbridge Village
Schedule of Events
2pm till pm 3pm – DJ and Dancing Hosted by Zi Ree
2:30 pm – t00B race Hosted by Wellington Beam
3pm till 4pm – Live Music Performance – Jaycatt Nicco and Frogg Marlowe
4pm till 5pm – Blitz Avatar Makeover – Hosted by Peace Smythe
5pm till 6pm – Live Music Performance – Potlatch Foggarty
6pm – 1st costume contest voting/ winners announced – Hosted by Krystal Devonshire
6:30 pm – fireworks Display – Hosted by Peace Smythe
7pm till 8pm – Blitz Building Contest – Hosted by Heiko Decatur
7pm till 10pm – DJ and Dancing – Hosted by Darrin 2101 Aeon.
8pm till 9pm – Trivia contest -Hosted by Carl Metropolitan
8:30pm – t00B race number 2 – Hosted by Wellington Beam
9pm – 2nd costume contest voting/winners announced – Hosted by Krystal Devonshire
9:30pm – Fireworks display – Hosted by Peace Smythe
Prim Perfect 
The “Helpers” at NCI were rude and very much less than helpful. I can only hope that others, when starting in SL can avoid the NCI experience. I almost decided to never log back in. Fortunately, I discovered other sources of help and am enjoying SL greatly, though I will never set virtual foot in NCI again.
Maybe you hit a bad day.
I spawned at Ambat, and discovered NCI Kuula only like, months later, but I still like thinking back, especially to the friendly help I received from the ladycheetah Zi Ree. Then again I never had much contact with anyone except her until recently on an NCI location.
Remember that the way you call into the forests, the echo comes back. I notice nowadays a lot of Avatars created and logging in solely for the purpose of making trouble whereever I go. It’s a different quality than the griefer attacks one saw around 2007, because the people nowaday are not using their programming skills, but only their dumbness to bother others, running around naked in PG rated areas, abusing voice to scream and harrass others, and verbally abuse others.