June 2008 FMA Picnic Gathering

We haven't had a Gathering in quite a while so I guess we'll be pushing through with this one, unless some act of God prevents us from doing so. I assume everyone is back from their summer vacation.

We'll be holding the FMA Picnic / Gathering for on Jun 8, Sunday at 2pm. Everyone is invited to attend. There are no entrance fees, but if you bring food, it would be very much appreciated.

I'm expecting Fil Buena as our guest.

Also, if you're planning to attend, please post on this thread. It's been getting very difficult to guess how much pan de sal I should bring lately.

In case of rain, please head to the Admin Bldg.


See you all there.

Directions:
From Philcoa (Quezon Circle corner Commonwealth Avenue) , go to UP Diliman. You will see the building that has the UP Oblation (Naked guy) in front. That's the admin building. If you're facing the admin bldg (you are facing the oblation), walk up the steps, and through the building, until you're at the back of the building. Walk down the steps behind the building where there is a small field. Continue in the same direction, walking across that field. At the end of the field there is an exit way. There you will find a monument (ladies sewing the Philippine Flag). Keep walking past that still in the same direction. Ahead of you and to your left is the Lagoon.

Are we pushing through with the June gathering on the 8th? I think we have Mujaheedin01 just waiting to demo some eskrima and various moro arts. Right, Mujaheedin01?

And are we holding it in UP Diliman as usual or are we doing a Luneta expedition this time?

May Gathering Cancelled

I wasn't able to confirm attendance of our guest so I'm calling off this month's gathering. The target for the next gathering is June 8.

May FMA Gathering moved to the 18th

The 2nd Sunday of May is Mother's Day, and typically we've had really bad attendance on that day. This month's FMA Gathering/Picnic will be held the following Sunday on May 18 and will only push through if we get confirmation from our guest. I'll update as soon as I can.

DNS Problem

Apparently there was a DNS problem these past few days so people's browsers couldn't get the IP address for the site. Hopefully all is fixed now.

No FMA Gathering for April 2008

We will try out a bi-monthly schedule for our FMA Picnic / Gatherings. We'll be skipping April so our next gathering will be on the 2nd Sunday of May.

New Features of Upgraded Board

If you're wondering what the board upfrade added, see below (copied and pasted from http://www.invisionpower.com ).

Extreme Performance With No Compromise
We've pored over every line of code in IP.Board to squeeze every bit of speed from it as we can - the result? Even better performance and stability than before, with no compromise on features. What awaits you in IP.Board 2.3?

Better performance
We've tweaked IP.Board to the hilt to make it one of the best performing yet most feature-packed bulletin board systems available today. Larger forums will reap the benefits of the improved speed and efficiency that IP.Board 2.3 brings, while smaller forums can look forward to the future knowing IP.Board will scale with their community.

New 'Pro' skin
IP.Board 2.3 introduces a new 'Pro' skin, included alongside the traditional default skin. The Pro skin has been trimmed and slimmed to make it both a slick and professional default skin for boards that want a more subdued feel, and an excellent base for skinners to develop new skins from, quicker than ever.

Brand new Personal Profile (Introduced in 2.2)
The personal profile feature has been completely redesigned from the ground up, with a large focus on social networking features, such as profile comments and user rating.

Buddy lists (Introduced in 2.2)
Users can now add other users to their buddy list, easing communication between friends and building new relationships. Troublesome users can be ignored.

New Rich-text Editor (RTE) (Introduced in 2.2)
IP.Board 2.2 brings an all-new rich-text editor, making it easier for your users to apply various formatting to their posts, and see the formatting as they type it [/list]

Easy content sharing
IP.Board supports content-sharing standards right out of the box, making it simple to share your own content with others, or reuse content from elsewhere.

• RSS export of any forum
• Import RSS content as posts (updated)
• Show content on your site with SSI
• E-mail or print topics and posts

Community-driven user profiles
Improve and encourage user interaction, with the brand-new user profiles. Why should your users go elsewhere for their social-networking fix?

• Personal profiles NEW!
• Buddy lists NEW!
• Comment within profiles NEW!
• Rate users NEW!

Updating Board Software

UPDATE March 21, 2008: Board software has been updated. I'm still in the process of updating board settings and data so the forum is still going to look a bit screwed up.

I'll be taking advantage of the Holy Week break to update the board software that the FMA Forum uses. That means that sometime this week, may may run into issues that need to be resolved. One main issue I'm expecting is that old board skins may not work and the FMA Forum masthead might disappear. Hopefully nothing else will go awry.

March 2008 FMA Picnic Gathering

We're scheduled to hold our next FMA Picnic / Gathering for 2008 on March 9, Sunday at 2pm, thus returning to our usual 2nd Sunday of the month routine. Everyone is invited to attend. There are no entrance fees, but if you bring food, it would be very much appreciated.

Guests to be announced.

In case of rain, please head to the Admin Bldg.


See you all there.

Directions:
From Philcoa (Quezon Circle corner Commonwealth Avenue) , go to UP Diliman. You will see the building that has the UP Oblation (Naked guy) in front. That's the admin building. If you're facing the admin bldg (you are facing the oblation), walk up the steps, and through the building, until you're at the back of the building. Walk down the steps behind the building where there is a small field. Continue in the same direction, walking across that field. At the end of the field there is an exit way. There you will find a monument (ladies sewing the Philippine Flag). Keep walking past that still in the same direction. Ahead of you and to your left is the Lagoon.

February 2008 FMA Picnic Gathering

We're scheduled to hold our first FMA Picnic / Gathering for 2008 on Feb 24, Sunday at 2pm. Everyone is invited to attend. There are no entrance fees, but if you bring food, it would be very much appreciated.

We'll be having Steven Dowd, editor of the FMA Digest and senior practioner of Arnis Balite. We have standing invitations for other people to attend so expect a few surprises. I'll update as I receive confirmation.

In case of rain, please head to the Admin Bldg.


See you all there.

Directions:
From Philcoa (Quezon Circle corner Commonwealth Avenue) , go to UP Diliman. You will see the building that has the UP Oblation (Naked guy) in front. That's the admin building. If you're facing the admin bldg (you are facing the oblation), walk up the steps, and through the building, until you're at the back of the building. Walk down the steps behind the building where there is a small field. Continue in the same direction, walking across that field. At the end of the field there is an exit way. There you will find a monument (ladies sewing the Philippine Flag). Keep walking past that still in the same direction. Ahead of you and to your left is the Lagoon.

Time to institute a few rules

I think the FMA Forum community has grown enough that a Wild West type atmosphere is no longer conducive to an intellectual free-flow of ideas which is the goal of this forum. While I still have high regard for the intellectual maturity of the FMA Forum community, any sufficiently large community will spawn troublemakers.


Still, I would like there to be as little rules as possible. So here at are the rules that were discussed among the mod team. Feedback is appreciated.



The following rules will be strictly implemented and will result in a 50% strike in the Ban-O-Meter:

1. No racial slurs against any member of the FMA community as well as any group, community, nationality, race, within or outside the FMA community.



The following rules will be strictly implemented and will result in a 20% strike in the Ban-O-Meter:

1. No derogatory name calling unless done in jest. No calling each other "idiot", "moron" etc.

2. No open challenges to duels. Invitation to sparring matches in s sports-like environment will take context of thread into consideration.


Controversial topics - It is highly recommended that the following topics be avoided and should only be discussed in the context of FMA. In case it cannot be avoided, the utmost civility is expected:

1. Religion
2. Politics (International, Local, or FMA)


General Notes:

1. The final arbiter for any issue is the FMA Forum Administrator / Owner (Matawguro).
2. Any rule shall take the general context of the ongoing thread, discussion, into account.
3. The overall guiding principle of any decision is whether an issue brings good or harm to the FMA Community, not just the FMA Forum Community.

Change in Schedule for Feb 2008 FMA Picnic

Normally, we have our FMA Picnics on the 2nd Sunday of the month. This February, we will hold our monthly FMA picnic on Sunday, February 24. The main reason for the move is to allow Steven Dowd, editor of the Filipino Martial Arts Digest to attend the picnic. Hopefully, we'll have more guests lined up.

Happy New Year 2008!!!

Happy New Year to all! Keep your hands safe, and remember...

Maligo ng Bagong Taon!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND SEASONS GREETINGS TO ALL OUR FMA BRETHREN!!!

Enjoy the holidays! Peace to all men of goodwill.

2007 FMA Christmas Party

We will be holding our FMA Christmas Party on Saturday, December 15 at 2:00pm at the 2nd Flr. of the White Plains Clubhouse. Thanks go out to Master Rommel Tortal and the Manila Pitbulls for making the venue available to us.

Food is on a potluck basis. You don't have to bring any, but if you do, it will be very much appreciated.

Please post here if you will be going so those of us bringing food can gauge how much to bring.