October Newsletter
The Story of Halloween
Halloween is one of the oldest holidays with origins going back thousands of years. The holiday we know as Halloween has had many influences from many cultures over the centuries. From the Roman's Pomona Day, to the Celtic festival of Samhain, to the Christian holidays of All Saints and All Souls Days.
Hundreds of years ago in what is now Great Britain and Northern France, lived the Celts. The Celts worshipped nature and had many gods, with the sun god as their favorite. It was "he" who commanded their work and their rest times, and who made the earth beautiful and the crops grow.
The Celts celebrated their New Year on November 1st. It was celebrated every year with a festival and marked the end of the "season of the sun" and the beginning of "the season of darkness and cold."
On October 31st after the crops were all harvested and stored for the long winter the cooking fires in the homes would be extinguished. The Druids, the Celtic priests, would meet in the hilltop in the dark oak forest (oak trees were considered sacred). The Druids would light new fires and offer sacrifices of crops and animals. As they danced around the the fires, the season of the sun passed and the season of darkness would begin.
When the morning arrived the Druids would give an ember from their fires to each family who would then take them home to start new cooking fires. These fires would keep the homes warm and free from evil spirits.
The November 1st festival was called Samhain (pronounced "sow-en"). The festival would last for 3 days. Many people would parade in costumes made from the skins and heads of their animals. This festival would become the first Halloween.
During the first century the Romans invaded Britain. They brought with them many of their festivals and customs. One of these was the festival know as Pomona Day, named for their goddess of fruits and gardens. It was also celebrated around the 1st of November. After hundreds of years of Roman rule the customs of the Celtic's Samhain festival and the Roman Pomona Day mixed becoming 1 major fall holiday.
The next influence came with the spread of the new Christian religion throughout Europe and Britain. In the year 835 AD the Roman Catholic Church would make November 1st a church holiday to honor all the saints. This day was called All Saint's Day, or Hallowmas, or All Hallows. Years later the Church would make November 2nd a holy day. It was called All Souls Day and was to honor the dead. It was celebrated with big bonfires, parades, and people dressing up as saints, angels and devils.
But the spread of Christianity did not make people forget their early customs. On the eve of All Hallows, Oct. 31, people continued to celebrate the festivals of Samhain and Pomona Day. Over the years the customs from all these holidays mixed. October 31st became known as All Hallow Even, eventually All Hallow's Eve, Hallowe'en, and then - Halloween.
The Halloween we celebrate today includes all of these influences, Pomona Day's apples, nuts, and harvest, the Festival of Samhain's black cats, magic, evil spirits and death, and the ghosts, skeletons and skulls from All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day.
Promotions:
Pvt-Devil to PFC
Pvt-Romi to PFC
Pvt-Maroon to PFC(Congratulations on the birth of your Little Girl)
Pvt-Zenny to PFC
PFC-Terzarden to LCpl
PFC-Watch to LCpl
PFC-AWOL to LCpl
LCpl-WhiteColor to Cpl
LCpl-Snowedin to Cpl
LCpl-Steven to Cpl
Cpl-Bigwolf1 to Sgt
Cpl-PandaXpress to Sgt
Sgt-DoomReaper to SSgt
SSgt-Spartan to GSgt
GSgt-Masaakari to MSgt
MSgt-Lotus to 2Lt
2Lt-OR.Bin to 1Lt
1Lt-Dragonz to Cpt
1Lt-Nom to Cpt
Cpt-HolyKnight to Maj
Maj-Rouse to LtCol
LtCol-Justin to Col
LtGen-Meow to Lgd
We congratulate Meow on making Legend. He has been a great asset to the League and because of this we give honor to Meow. He is away at school and we wish him luck.
You guys need to update your accounts on the forums to match promotions. I have also noticed that a couple of you in the new forums are not wearing your tags or ranks. If you could update your profiles to reflect [-LoL-]Rank-Name, it would be greatly appretiated. It also may hold back any future promotions.
New Recruits:
Pvt-Merch
Pvt-Omri
Pvt-Maroon
Missing in Action:
Starting next newsletter we will be listing the members we havent seen in awhile. Once a members name reaches this list, they will have until the following newsletter to be active or be removed for inactivity.
Removals:
Pvt-Taylor(quit)
Pvt-Fooper(quit)
Donations:
After many debates over it the League of Legends will now start accepting Donations to help run the various things we offer such as Servers, TeamSpeak, Site hosting and so on. Donations are not required nor expected. However, if you enjoy something we offer feel free to help with the cost of running it. Since we started there have been a few donations made and we give thanks to those who have donated.
Legend of the Month
We are bringing back the Legend of the Month to give credit to those who go above and beyond the call of duty.
Other:
Congratulations to Slacker. He has become a vested Partner and Partial Owner of the League of Legends. Slacker has been a intricate part of LoL and has earned the respect and rite of ownership. Again Congratulations to Slacker for making Partner.
We Currently run a MindCraft Server for those of you who play the game. The IP for the Server is 66.85.155.152, If you have any questions you can contact Spartan, he is running the server for us.
We Recently switched our site hosting from Go-Daddy to Enjin. Enjin is geared more for clanning over Go-Daddy and they have a easier web Builder for us to run the site without outside interest. Enjin is also designed more for social networking like facebook. Have a look around your profiles. There are many things Enjin offers.
LoL Emails are currently down and I have been working on getting them up for a couple weeks now. I believe I have figured out the issue and will try to fix the problem myself. The issue is with the changing of hosting companies and DNS redirects. I have been trying to take this issue to Enjin, GO-Daddy and where our Emails come from. Enjin says its Go-Daddy, Go-Daddy says it is Enjin and so on. I finally got someone at Enjin to give me links on what needs to be done and it IS on the Go-Daddy side. I Will give it another go tonight after work. Wish me luck. For those who rely on the LoL emails, I do appologize and will get them working again.
LoL members will now be required to be either in XFire or Steam for now on. It used to be XFire only but we have extented that to include Steam aswell. You will not be required to be in both but rather one or the other. We understand that each program has its ups and downs for each members so for now on you may use either one......just use at least one so we can keep track of the activity levels of the clan. The website you still have to register at no matter what as a LoL, so we can keep a accounting of who is who and in LoL please. TeamSpeak will remain as a tool offered to you guys by LoL but not required to be used. It would be nice to voice chat with you guys, but not required.
The Month of November will be a productive one. We will be getting a Left 4 Dead 2 server, possibly two of them. One to play normal play on and one to run Mods on. Look to the forums for further furture info on this.
Next letter we are going to have a complete list of everything offered by the League of Legends ranging from Servers to League of Legends Emails, League of Legends FaceBook, Servers and so on. We have a vast amount of things we offer to our members and we will be compiling a list for you guys to start referencing.
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