hpreadathon2017-blog

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

To dear the Readathon Family...

I wanted to write this sooner, but a). I haven't had time - as soon as the readathon ended, I had to jump straight into the uni work that I'd been neglecting; and b). I couldn't bring myself to do it - writing this means finality to something that has been constant in my life for the past three+ months. But, I'm facing it, I'm writing this, and this is for all of you.

Firstly, I want to thank you for joining me, and the team, for this year's #HPReadathon2017. Thank you for your support, your enthusiasm, and for always giving every activity we threw at you everything you’ve got. Whether you were here a week, or you stuck around for the whole ride, thank you. If you read the books with us, thank you. If you participated in challenges and activities and interacted with the readathon community, thank you. If you were in it only for the points, no thank you.

It was quite unfortunate that, at times, we found people to be very 'points-hungry', that is, they seemed to care about house points more than anything else. Some people were doing challenges and activities FOR the points, and weren't actually reading with us at all. That was a little bit sad. It is called a READathon after all.

And, then, there were those who were so impatient that we had to let everyone know in our VERY FIRST Tumblr update post that we're only human and that running the readathon was not a full time job (though we wish it was!). There were only five of us, and, even then, most of us were incredibly busy with Muggle life. We juggled that with actually doing the readathon and running the behind the scenes as well, and I want to say that I thought the team handled it very well. We couldn't be on the account twenty-four hours of every day, that would be incredibly impractical. We couldn't give out house points as soon as things were posted. We couldn't monitor every single tweet that came through. But we tried our best, nevertheless.

And, then, there was the concern about time zones. While we tried our best to make sure everyone around the world could participate in a majority of events (opening the quizzes for 24 hours is an example of this), we could never please everyone. That was a given. Some of our events were timed so that they matched the books (Quidditch - Saturday, 11am UK time - though ours were mostly on Sunday because of Muggle life). Most events were timed to cater for the majority of the readathoners - this year, we had a lot of Europeans, so we did a lot of things on their time. This was at great inconvenience to us - I'm from Australia, I stayed up half the night every single night to make sure things ran smoothly. If we ran things on American time, I'd be awake, yes, but no one would join, as the majority of the readathoners would be asleep. It was a strategic move, and it paid off, despite the complaints.

But that was only some people. Most of you were incredibly lovely. I've had the time of my life getting to know all of you as we journeyed through the books together. Those whose usernames stood out for me most were the ones who constantly showed up, no matter what - not only for the events, but they embraced the social side of the readathon, and tweeted their favourite quotes, their thoughts, comments and questions. From this, and the Common Room group chats, it was amazing to see the Readathon Community truly forming.

There was a lot of planning for this readathon, I’m not going to lie. I’ve been planning it since October 2016, and the team has been with me since the beginning of the year. We prepared all the schedules, question threads and quizzes months before the readathon even began. But, as it is with these sorts of things, we couldn’t plan for everything. The Common Room group chats - we had had that idea early on, but scrapped it due to the amount of work it would take. But, everyone was so keen to have one, so we accommodated for it. The Pride Week challenges, where we got each House to pitch in challenges, that was on a whim too! I love that we did that though - it truly made the readathon YOURS. The free-weekend activities were decided in the week leading up to them too - very last minute, but so, so, so worth it.

I actually cannot believe how much we've achieved during this readathon. We got out of our comfort zones several times to take photos in public for the photo challenges. We've created our own magical beasts, we've faced our fears, we've gotten messy in the kitchen, we've created our own magical schools, we've turned our art into moving images, we've participated in (wild, animal-filled) Quidditch matches, we've sent in an awkward video of ourselves talking about how much we love HP, we’ve learnt a runic alphabet and wrote cute little notes to each other, we've treated ourselves to something nice, we've created wands and charms, and plotted our own magical stories. We made an appearance IN a fanfiction, written solely for the readathon, and we've created long lasting memories that no one could ever take from us.

My most favourite memory is Chloe's (@chloeinhogwarts) "Albums" moment. That, to me, was a huge highlight, because I remember just sitting there, giggling like a mad person, even though I knew if I didn't get a move on with the quiz, we'd never finish the club. We ended up going for three hours that day, and it was truly memorable.

Another moment I remember quite well is how Farzana (@cimorriana) and I began talking - we had a pun-off, and it was really quite epic!

Also epic was the time when all the readathoners came together to fight Twitter Umbitch because HPR had been shadowbanned! That made me feel so proud and happy to be a part of such an amazing and supportive community.

It was also during this readathon that I became an Honorary Hufflepuff. Long story short, the Puffs always caught HPR (me) in the Hufflepuff Common Room, and they'd call me out on it, and I would chill with them for a bit - they nearly always told me to go to sleep though. Then, one day in July, they decided to add my personal account to the Common Room, and it was a blast getting to know them better (even though I sort of knew quite a bit because of all the stalking). I want to point out that my friendship with the Hufflepuffs did not affect their standing in the House Cup. Their #Hufflepocalypse really sealed the deal for them.

I've really had a blast this readathon. There really aren't enough words to describe the feelings of revisiting Harry's world and rediscovering the forgotten moments. Nor can I describe the joy I felt when writing the fanfic, or seeing conversations between readathoners blossom into friendships, or the fact that I was so tired every day, but still got up to do readathony things. It really gave my life a purpose, a reason to wake up every day, and you guys were definitely a huge part of that. So, once again, thank you.

There’s so much I want to keep talking about - like, the fact that the OWL and NEWT creative answers were absolutely hilarious that they had me rolling on the floor laughing, or the fact that we spent three months together and weren’t sick of each other, or the fact that I was up til odd hours in the days leading up to the end of the month to collect tweets (there were SO many) for the magazine. Or, you know, boycotting CC and the Pottermore shorts together to read our own fanfiction. This is an experience that you walk away with memories that’ll last a lifetime - store them in your Pensieve! I’m rambling, but seriously, I’m so happy with how the readathon went this year. I said it was going to be incredibly interactive, and it truly was. Bit stressful, at times, but I think that was worth it.

I have to quickly add in a twenty-foot-giant thank you to my team - Andrew, Jem, Lovisa and Meg - for their tireless efforts during this readathon. While Meg ran Quidditch, and Jem tackled the COMC club, they, and the others, worked really hard behind the scenes, talking through ideas and planning events, and I really could not have run HPR without them. Guys, I'm truly thankful that you gave up your time and holiday to help me, and to deal with everything the readathon threw at us.

I'm incredibly sad it's over, but never fear, readathoners, this is not goodbye - we will countdown to next year together, and it'll be totally awesome.

Until next year, stay magical, be safe, I love you all.

Tan. x (@slythertan)

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

End of Final Week/Readathon Update

Well. Here we are. The End of yet another #HPReadathon2017 chapter.

The Final Week has been quite the extravaganza! We held little daily activities every day, which resulted in a clue that ‘unlocked’ a ‘reward’.

Monday 31st July: Design a Harry Potter poster Clue: “business as usual” Reward: Chapter 1 of the #HPRFanfic

Tuesday 1st August: Word Search Clue: leftover letters of word search - “the legend of felix” Reward: Chapter 2 of the #HPRFanfic

Wednesday 2nd August: Readathoner Hunt Clue: first letter of each box - “the room of ducks” Reward: Chapter 3 of the #HPRFanfic

Thursday 3rd August: Translate runes Clue: Rune translation - “call on peevsie” Reward: Chapter 4 of the #HPRFanfic and Analysis

Friday 4th August: Riddle Me This Clue: Rearrange letters in riddle - “NEWTS” Reward: NEWTs Results + Prize Lottery Form

Saturday 5th August: Readathon Thread Clue: #HPReadathon2017 (password for video) Reward: #HPRInterHouseUnity Video

Sunday 6th August: No activity, no clue Reward: Readathon Memory Lane & #HPRFeast

We just wanted to thank you all again for all the support we have received over the past three months. It has been an absolute blast, and we are so happy to have shared this experience with all of you. Just a few words to summarise this year’s readathon:

Until next time, faithful readathoners.

The HPReadathon Team x

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

END OF DH WEEK/START OF FINAL WEEK UPDATE

What the Albums. It’s Harry’s birthday. It’s Jo’s birthday. IT’S THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE #HPReadathon2017! 

Eleven weeks has honestly flown by so so so quickly, and we have honestly done SO much in that time frame, it’s hard to imagine. We actually need to stop and think, because, really, it’s quite insane how full on this readathon was. 

But, anyway, the last week of DH was quite emotional. Quite emotional indeed. Putting up with the deaths was one thing, putting up with the “all was well” was another, and many of our readathoners were already mourning the fact that we were nearing the end of the readathon. Emotions were definitely running high. 

In amongst all of that, we completed Ravenclaw Pride week with a surge of activity (we have picked up on the fact that our readathoners are last-minute kinds of people), and had many late fairytale submissions. The fairytales written by our readathoners (which can be found in THIS THREAD) were amazing. We could tell that a lot of effort went into it, and that this may even inspire a generation of fairytale writers, just like Beedle the Bard inspired us. 

This week, we are looking forward to checking out a whole lot of fanfiction. We will most likely not be following the schedule, but we’re all going to be doing our own thing, and we urge you to do the same! Instead of challenges this week, every day will have an activity that may lead to a ‘clue’ that will ‘unlock’ something special, so look out for that at 11am GMT every day of this week. 

We will also not be posting anymore house points updates in an attempt to keep the winner of the Readathon House Cup a surprise. 

Keep this weekend free if you can...something’s brewing...and it sounds like it could be a good time... (😂😂😂😂😂)

Have a lovely week, everyone.

The HPReadathon Team x

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

WEEK 8 SCHEDULE

Monday 31st July - Sunday 6th August

To Be Read:

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (CC)

Pottermore Presents: Short Stories from Hogwarts (PP)

Pottermore: Ilvermorny Short (PI)

Also on this week:

Catch up with your reading if you've fallen behind.

Share your favourite HP fanfics!

A Very Potter Musical (AVPM)

A Very Potter Sequel (AVPS)

A Very Potter Senior Year (AVPSY)

Schedule:

Dates Breakdown MONDAY 31st JULY CC - all TUESDAY 1st AUGUST PP1 - Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies PP2 - Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists WEDNESDAY 2nd AUGUST PP3 - Hogwarts: An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide THURSDAY 3rd AUGUST PI - Ilvermorny Short FRIDAY 4th AUGUST AVPM SATURDAY 5th AUGUST AVPS SUNDAY 6th AUGUST AVPSY

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

MID DH WEEK UPDATE

How in the name of Merlin are we up to the middle of DH week already??? Can somebody please explain to us how fast the readathon has flown by? Because, honestly, we actually cannot fathom it.

Considering the craziness we’ve been through the past few weeks (could be month, really), we’ve had a pretty chill week. I mean, as chill as you can get with all the deaths (I don’t think we’ll ever stop crying over Hedwig and Dobby) and the weirdness of Beedle (which was fun to read in the lead up to the Tale of the Three Brothers crossover).

Our weekend, too, was a lot of fun. Here’s a quick recap of what went down:

1. SATURDAY 22ND JULY, 3PM GMT: CARE OF MAGICAL CREATURES CLUB (#HPRCOMC)

Special guest, and famous magizoologist, Newt Scamander joined us in educating the readathoners why magizoology matters, and then challenged everyone to choose a magical creature to campaign for. Everyone then had to create a poster explaining why we should be looking after these creatures.

The submissions were amazing! Firecrabs and Bowtruckles were a popular choice amongst the readathoners, but we also got rare beasts, such as the Mooncalf, Billywig, Phoenix, Sassy Owl, Swedish Short Snout, Graphorn, Swooping Evil, Occamy and Nundu. For a full list, check out the thread: #HPRCOMC.

2. SATURDAY-SUNDAY 22ND-23RD JULY, 4PM-9AM GMT: QUIDDITCH CHANTS (#HPRQuidditchChant)

To spice up the Final Match of the Tournament, we asked the readathoners to come up with Quidditch chants for their house. People could submit as many chants are they’d like, and our very special guest Celestina Warbeck helped narrow down the entries. Everyone then got to vote for a finalist, and the chants were released throughout the match. Below are the winning chants:

3. SUNDAY 23RD JULY, 11AM GMT: FINAL - GRYFFINDOR VS SLYTHERIN QUIDDITCH MATCH (#HPRQuidditch)

Well, to say the Final was interesting would be doing it an injustice. So much happened that we don’t even know where to begin - at first, Madam Hooch banned all magical creatures from the match. Normal Quidditch was played for all of two seconds before the Hufflepuffs brought us a “duckpocalypse”, in which many ducks invaded the pitch. Then, madness ensued, and we got everything from the return of Anthony the Dragon, to more food being shared, and a surprise visit from various superheroes! In amongst all the craziness, Gryffindor ended up catching the Snitch, winning the Readathon Quidditch Tournament!

The Readathon Quidditch Tournament Standings:

Gryffindor

Slytherin

Hufflepuff

Ravenclaw

And that’s it. That’s the end of the readathon’s free-weekend activities! So sad that we’re so close to the end. But, it’ll be good fun (and we’ll also have a good cry while we’re at it) reading the end of DH. To those who are still watching the films, good luck. Don’t forget that the DH quiz is styled as N.E.W.T.s, so study, study. And our Final Week will be lots of fun too - we have some cool things planned for all of you! 

Also, just a note that the last day to earn points is Friday 4th of August. 

Have a good week, all!

The HPReadathon Team x

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

END OF HBP/START OF DH WEEK UPDATE

Ahhh, this was meant to be done yesterday, but we got caught up in the #HPRFanfic and forgot about everything else! Whoopsie!

We had a surge of activity on the last day of Slytherin Pride week, with everyone posting their challenges at the last minute. Then, it went quiet for a few days, as we all got up to the end of the book, and had to deal with our emotions. On Sunday, we had our HBP quiz, and survived the #Hufflepocalypse (the Hufflepuffs gained a record of 14,800 points that day!).

We also had a good time seeing all delve into the Pensieve for the HBP Book Challenge, and finding out all of our Harry Potter roots. It’s interesting to see where we all started, and how we’ve all come together today for the readathon.

While still banned over on DDA, we’ve been un-shadow-banned on HPR for two whole weeks now, so things are looking up! DDA will still be used to hand out house points, and don’t mind if the owls in the Owlery (@HPROwlPost) start hooting every and now and again, just to keep the account active. 

This week, we are looking forward to reading the first half of DH (which has been timed to end on the chapter where the Trio are at Malfoy Manor to align with the film. We are also pairing Beedle with DH this week, timing it so that we won’t have to read The Tale of the Three Brothers twice.

This weekend, we will be having our last extracurricular activities - a Care of Magical Creatures Club on Saturday, and the Quidditch Final between rivals Gryffindor and Slytherin on Sunday! Join us for a whole lot of fun!

Have a good week, everyone! 

The HPReadathon Team x

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

WEEK 7 (Parts 1&2) SCHEDULE

Part 1: Monday 17th July - Sunday 23rd July Part 2: Monday 24th July - Sunday 30th July

To Be Read:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (DH)

The Tales of Beedle the Bard (BTB)

Also on this week:

Ravenclaw Pride (will be happening on certain days over the fortnight)!

Schedule:

Dates Breakdown MONDAY 17th JULY DH - Chapters 1-4 TUESDAY 18th JULY DH - Chapters 5-7 BTB - The Wizard and the Hopping Pot WEDNESDAY 19th JUJULYNE DH - Chapters 8-11 BTB - The Fountain of Fair Fortune THURSDAY 20th JULY DH - Chapters 12-14 | Ravenclaw Pride BTB - The Warlock's Hairy Heart FRIDAY 21st JULY DH - Chapters 15-17 | Ravenclaw Pride BTB - Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump SATURDAY 22nd JULY DH - Chapters 18-21 | Ravenclaw Pride BTB - The Tale of the Three Brothers SUNDAY 23rd JULY DH - Chapters 22-24 | Ravenclaw Pride DH1 Film MONDAY 24th JULY DH - Chapters 25-26 | Ravenclaw Pride TUESDAY 25th JULY DH - Chapters 27-28 | Ravenclaw Pride WEDNESDAY 26th JULY DH - Chapters 29-30 | Ravenclaw Pride THURSDAY 27th JULY DH - Chapters 31-32 FRIDAY 28th JULY DH - Chapters 33-34 SATURDAY 29th JULY DH - Chapters 35-36 DH2 Film SUNDAY 30th JULY DH - Epilogue DH Quiz

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

MID HBP WEEK UPDATE

Hello Tumblr,

We feel like sometimes we neglect you, and we apologise. If you are following the readathon, however, you would know that everything happens over on Twitter...even if Twitter hates us... 

We’ve had an awful week being shadow-banned, so, we used our DDA account to do everything. We had our first free-weekend activity, then straight after it - WE WERE BANNED ON THE BACKUP ACCOUNT! This got us a bit concerned, because how were we meant to run out other activities when we didn’t show up anywhere? Our temporary fix was to get people to turn our tweet notifications on, and we’d do our best not to spam everyone... Then...

Our readathoners banded together to rally and protest on our behalf with the hashtag: #UnbanHPR. They tweeted Twitter and Twitter Support, they DM-ed Support (which, ironically, is a bot), and they even created an account to take action against Twitter (@UnbanHPR). We honestly have the best group of readathoners.

And, our protest seemed to have worked. Just as our Quidditch match begun, our readathoners informed us that HPR was unbanned, which was the best timing ever, to be honest. Unfortunately, DDA seems to still be banned, but we aren’t as fussed about that.

Below is a recap of our free-weekend activities, which were heaps fun, despite all the trouble we had with Twitter!

1. SATURDAY 8th JULY, 1PM GMT: THE ARITHMANCY CLUB MEETING (#HPRArithmancy)

A lot of readathoners assumed that they’d be doing maths for this, but we did our research and it called Arithmancy “number Divination”, so we decided to do an activity with that as our central theme. Numbers play a huge role in the series (the greatest example being 7, the most powerful magical number - you don’t need to think back far to remember that there were 7 (intended) Horcruxes, or 7 Weasleys... JKR even planned it so that HP caught 7 Snitches overall...), so we asked the readathoners to analyse the numbers in the series, but they only had an hour to do this activity. 

Some people chose to pinpoint chapter numbers where certain events happened. Some focused on a singular number (one readathoner got 28 analyses for the number 4). Others went loco with any and every number, finding random analyses (for e.g. 2 = the number of times Ginny used the Bat-Bogey Hex in the series) to things they remember (700 = number of Quidditch fouls).

It was super fun to go through and read everyone’s analyses after the hour was up! If you are interested in seeing more of what the readathoners came up with, check out the hashtag: #HPRArithmancy.

2. SATURDAY 8TH JULY, 11PM GMT: THE ASTRONOMY CLUB MEETING (#HPRStars)

This was super exciting because it was happening at night time for majority of our readathoners (we have a lot of European readathoners this year!), so it was actually the perfect time to do some stargazing. The task was simple, however - Professor Sinistra, the Astronomy teacher, had spotted a patch of night sky that was void of constellations, and it was the readathoners’ job to create their own, and can we just say that everyone did an absolute amazing job! Check them out below in a star chart that Professor Sinistra plotted after everyone submitted their constellations (they had 24 hours to do it!).

To see an analysis of everyone’s constellations, check out the tag: #HPRStars.

3. SUNDAY 9TH JULY, 11AM GMT: SEMI-FINAL - HUFFLEPUFF VS RAVENCLAW QUIDDITCH MATCH (#HPRQuidditch)

In an intense semi-final between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, which saw raining cats and dogs, amazing team work from the Ravenclaw team, quite a few ducks, the appearance of Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters, surprise guests The Order of the Phoenix, and a whole lot of food being shared in the stands, Hufflepuff took the victory thanks to their secret weapon: Cedric Diggory, who FOUND the Snitch after being released!

Commiserations, Ravenclaw, you fought valiantly in an awesome match. And, congratulations on coming in third place in the Readathon Quidditch Tournament, Hufflepuff!

Join us in two weeks for the QUIDDITCH FINAL between old rivals: Gryffindor and Slytherin! 

We look forward to continuing to read Half-Blood Prince this week (though, Dumbledore’s death will take a toll). The HPR team will not be watching the rest of the films (it took too much out of us because we found we are too critical of them), but feel free to watch it and use the hashtag (#HPRFilm) while you do! The HBP Quiz will be a “normal” quiz and will be done on Sunday. 

Happy reading, readathoners!

The HPReadathon Team x

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

END OF OOTP/START OF HBP WEEK UPDATE

Hey, hi, hello readathoners!

What a week it’s been since our last update. What. A. Week. 

We finished off Inter House Unity Week with not much of a bang, to be honest - Twitter shadow banned us, meaning we didn’t show up in any of the hashtags, and people weren’t getting our notifications. We did our best with it - not tweeting much, or indeed, at all, with the hashtag, getting the team to quote our tweets so they would show up in the hashtags (this didn’t work), so, to end OOTP fortnight off, we created our own Dumbledore’s Army, to rebel against Twitter and it’s rudeness.

But anyway, we really enjoyed everyone’s prophecies, which they created for the OOTP challenge. We had a good time trying to decipher who the intended character was. 

We know the OOTP O.W.L. quiz was extra long this time, but we hope that it was (semi) enjoyable nevertheless. It was our intention to try and make it as exam like as possible, so that you’d get a feel for what an O.W.L. exam is like! We also had a good time marking all your answers - some of them were so funny!! We’re currently in the process of making certificates, and you should expect your results soon!

We began our rebellion with around 12 hours to go until HBP fortnight, and it was the shortest rebellion any of us had ever seen, because as soon as we’d started, Twitter granted us access to the hashtag on the main account, and, naturally, we were overjoyed! 

It gave us 23 hours of bliss before banning us again, and the frustration is very high. At least we now have the DA account, which we will use to post stuff with the tag. Silly Twitter, we’re trying to run an event here...

This week, we’re looking forward to reading HBP, celebrating Slytherin Pride Week, participating in the weekend activities - Arithmancy, Astronomy and Quidditch (Hufflepuff vs Ravenclaw), seeing your answers for the HBP Challenge (delve into the pensieve) and hopefully Twitter will be nice to us again.

The HPReadathon Team x

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

WEEK 6 (Parts 1&2) SCHEDULE

Part 1: Monday 3rd July - Sunday 9th July Part 2: Monday 10th July - Sunday 16th July

To Be Read:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (HBP)

Also on this week:

Slytherin Pride (will be happening on certain days over the fortnight)!

Schedule:

Dates Breakdown MONDAY 3rd July HBP - Chapters 1-3 TUESDAY 4th JULY HBP - Chapters 4-5 WEDNESDAY 5th JULY HBP - Chapters 6-7 THURSDAY 6th JULY HBP - Chapters 8-10 | Slytherin Pride FRIDAY 7th JULY HBP - Chapters 11-12 | Slytherin Pride SATURDAY 8th JULY HBP - Chapters 13-14 | Slytherin Pride SUNDAY 9th JULY HBP - Chapters 15-16 | Slytherin Pride MONDAY 10th JULY HBP - Chapters 17-19 | Slytherin Pride TUESDAY 11th JULY HBP - Chapters 20-21 | Slytherin Pride WEDNESDAY 12th JULY HBP - Chapters 22-23 | Slytherin Pride THURSDAY 13th JULY HBP - Chapters 24-25 FRIDAY 14th JULY HBP - Chapters 26-27 SATURDAY 15th JULY HBP - Chapters 28-29 HBP Film SUNDAY 16th JULY HBP - Chapters 30 HBP Quiz

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

Mid OOTP Week Update

This is a little late, we apologise. But, it has been quite busy. Let us do a recap for you.

1. SATURDAY 24th JUNE, 11AM GMT: THE HUFFLEPUFF VS SLYTHERIN QUIDDITCH MATCH (#HPRQUIDDITCH)

On Saturday the 24th of June, at 11am GMT, Hufflepuff played Slytherin in a pretty crazy match. Things got really intense, really quick. We had ducks, merpeople, atmospheric charms flying around, Anthony the Quidditch dragon, and, of course, Newt’s creatures, just to mention a few. The Hufflepuffs and Slytherins really gave it their all, and in the end, Slytherin ended up catching a Snitch with the help of some merpeople. If you’d like to see all the craziness for yourself, follow the hashtag: #HPRQuidditch.

The next Quidditch Match will occur on the Free-Weekend in the middle of HBP Week (Fortnight), where we will see Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw battle it out for third and fourth place in the HPR Quidditch Tournament Semi-Final! 

2. SUNDAY 25TH JUNE, 1PM GMT: THE ANCIENT RUNES CLUB MEETING #HPRRUNES)

So this was both a success and a fiasco! Throughout the week, we collected usernames of active readathoners and wrote them in a runic alphabet that we created just for this meeting.

It was a little time-consuming, because we were DM-ing (and tweeting, bc Twitter hates us and thinks we’re a spam account) everyone their own usernames to decode, but we sent out close to 50 runic usernames. Everyone’s job was to decode the username, then write a runic message to that person, then send it to them! This was inspired by the spirit of #HPRInterHouseUnity week, and the messages we got from everyone (well, the messages everyone sent to each other) were really sweet and adorable. They were so nice that we made a thread of them. 

We are looking forward to finishing off OOTP (and crying over Sirius’s death 😥😥😥), to seeing all of your #HPRInterHouseUnity week (which ends tomorrow) challenges, especially the video!, to reading and deciphering your prophecies, and we’re super duper excited for you guys to take the O.W.L. exam on Sunday! Best of luck, and as always, happy reading.

The HPReadathon Team x

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

END OF GOF/START OF OOTP WEEK UPDATE!

Hello hello!

If you've only just started following the readathon this year, you may not know that this is the first year we’ve decided to spread some of the longer books over two weeks (before, we just read them in one week!). GOF was the first book that we spread, and the fortnight just flew by! We suppose it was helped by the fact that a lot was going on during those two weeks:

We did the book challenge, which was to create a magical school. This was absolutely amazing, and if you’d like to see everybody’s schools (we highly suggest you check them out, because the quality is top notch), just click HERE. We also participated in the Hufflepuff Pride Week challenges (devised by the Hufflepuff Common Room), and partook in some extracurricular activities, including Art Club, Wizard Cards Collectors’ Club and attended a Quidditch match! It has been busy, busy, busy.

This upcoming fortnight, in addition to reading OOTP, we will be celebrating Inter-House Unity. We decided to do it in the middle, just to break things up a bit. And it’s always nice to celebrate a bit of unity. We will be releasing the challenges over on Twitter on Thursday 22nd June, and the week will run through to Wednesday 28th June.

This upcoming weekend is also a ‘free weekend’, so we will also be filling it with two fun activities:

A Quidditch match between Hufflepuff and Slytherin will be held on Saturday 24th June, 11am GMT.

The Ancient Runes Club is meeting on Sunday 25th June, 1pm GMT.

At the end of the fortnight, we will also have our film day, and this book’s quiz is actually going to be set out like an O.W.L. exam, so study up, readathoners 😉, busy week ahead.

Hope you’re all well, stay safe, and remember, constant vigilance!

The HPReadathon Team x

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

WEEK 5 (Parts 1&2) SCHEDULE

Part 1: Monday 19th June - Sunday 25th June Part 2: Monday 26th June - Sunday 2nd July

To Be Read:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (OOTP)

Also on this week:

Inter-House Unity (will be happening on certain days over the fortnight)!

Schedule:

Dates Breakdown MONDAY 19th JUNE OOTP - Chapters 1-3 TUESDAY 20th JUNE OOTP - Chapters 4-6 WEDNESDAY 21st JUNE OOTP - Chapters 7-9 THURSDAY 22nd JUNE OOTP - Chapters 10-12 | Inter-House Unity FRIDAY 23rd JUNE OOTP - Chapters 13-15 | Inter-House Unity SATURDAY 24th JUNE OOTP - Chapters 16-18 | Inter-House Unity SUNDAY 25th JUNE OOTP - Chapters 19-21 | Inter-House Unity MONDAY 26th JUNE OOTP - Chapters 22-24 | Inter-House Unity TUESDAY 27th JUNE OOTP - Chapters 25-26 | Inter-House Unity WEDNESDAY 28th JUNE OOTP - Chapters 27-29 | Inter-House Unity THURSDAY 29th JUNE OOTP - Chapters 30-32 FRIDAY 30th JUNE OOTP - Chapters 33-35 SATURDAY 1st JULY OOTP - Chapters 36-37 OOTP Film SUNDAY 2nd JULY OOTP - Chapters 38 OOTP Quiz

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

MID GOF WEEK UPDATE

So..... we had a very, very, very eventful weekend. Let’s do a quick recap.

1. Saturday, 10th June, 10am GMT: The Visual Arts Club Meeting (#HPRArt)

The topic of this meeting was “moving paintings”, and to begin with, readathoners were shown the wand movement and incantation of the spell to make paintings move (”pictura ad vitam”, which is Latin for “picture to life”). They were then asked to help fill Hogwarts’ bare walls with their art - and they only had 60 minutes to do it! 24 people rose to the occasion and submitted their art pieces to us, and unbeknownst to them, we got our animator, Lara, to animate the drawings to make them move! Here are some:

You can view the rest on Twitter, where we did a display of all the artwork submitted. We’re so so pleased with how these turned out, and we hope you guys like them too!

2. Saturday, 10th June, 2pm GMT: The Wizard Card Collectors’ Club Meeting (#HPRWCCC)

So, this turned out to be a very long and hilarious meeting. It lasted three hours - and our loyal readathoners stuck with us the whole way through (thank you all!!!!!). Throughout the week, we had tweeted out chocolate frog cards to active readathoners, so everyone had their own cards when we began this meeting. It started off with us tweeting a thread of polls in which everyone could vote for points. This was because we were holding a lottery - anyone could win. The points that people voted for would be how many points the winning card gets. 

As that was going on, we began the first part of the quiz. This was fun because anyone could answer, but the original owner of the winning card would get some points as well. We (well, I, Tan) absolutely lost it after the first question, however, because of this:

This has now become a readathon in-joke 😅, and it’s fantastic! We love it so much! Autocorrect went on to thwart a lot of us later on as well (even us at HPR!), and we all had a good time mocking each other on our little typos.

The third phase of the meeting was to collect and trade cards with other people. This was so intense that we added extra time on! While everyone was accumulating cards, we at HPR were frantically trying to go through the tag to see who was trading what so that we could write the quiz questions for the next phase 😂 it was a struggle, not going to lie.

The last phase was the second part of the quiz, which was a free for all. It differed from the first quiz because readathoners had to reply with a chocolate frog card, instead of a text answer. This made things a little more difficult because if they had not collected the card, they couldn’t answer. Also, searching through the camera roll looking for the answer would be hectic af, but our readathoners did an AWESOME job with it. Pat on the back to you guys.

After the quiz, we pulled random cards out of a jar and the lottery winners claimed their points (all ranging from 400-900 points). It was really interesting to see how everyone voted for the points - the jackpot of 1000 points was up for grabs in all of them, and yet, no one got the jackpot.

3. Sunday 11th June, 11am GMT: The Gryffindor vs. Ravenclaw Quidditch Match (#HPRQuidditch)

This was wild. We had animals out on the pitch, breakfast sausages thrown to distract players, intense scoring and a spectacular catch of the Golden Snitch. If you want a good (and very random) read, we highly recommend checking out the hashtag (link above), as we don’t think we could summarise the match succinctly. It has to be appreciated in its full glory. Gryffindor won the match, by the way, so they will get to go on to the Final. Ravenclaw will get a chance to play again later as well. The next match, however, is happening in two weeks’ time, and will be between Hufflepuff and Slytherin.

Whew that was longer than we had intended...oops. Thanks for reading.

We look forward to reading the rest of Goblet this week, as well as completing all the Hufflepuff Pride challenges (Pride week ends on Wednesday!) and seeing all the schools you guys create for this book’s challenge.

The HPReadathon Team x 

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

End of POA/Start of GOF Week Update!

Hello everybody! 

We had a super awesome week last week (re)reading POA again! And it was awesome seeing you all attempt to make Butterbeer and participating in the Gryffindor Pride Week challenges (which were devised by the Gryffindor Common Room over on Twitter).

This fortnight, we will be reading Goblet of Fire! As well as doing all sorts of fun things, like this book’s challenge - to create your very own wizarding school for your country. It’s awesome to see that some people have already started thinking about it, and some people have even posted theirs already! 

We will also be celebrating Hufflepuff Pride during this fortnight - their pride week will run from Thursday 8th of June to Wednesday 14th of June (right in the middle of GOF Week (I should probably start calling it Fortnight or this may get confusing...)). The Hufflepuff Common Room has devised some challenges for us to participate in as well!

Since the weekend in the middle of GOF fortnight is empty, we thought we’d fill it with some fun things, like:

The Visual Art Club is meeting Saturday 10th June, 10am GMT.

The Wizard Card Collectors’ Club is meeting Saturday 10th June, 2pm GMT.

A Quidditch Match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw will be held on Sunday 11th June, 11am GMT.

If you click on the times, it’ll take you a link that’ll show you what time it will be in your country.

And, of course, we will still have our film day and quiz day at the end of the fortnight. It’s going to be a fun two weeks!

Happy reading!

The HPReadathon Team x

[hpreadathon2017-blog]

WEEK 4 (Parts 1&2) SCHEDULE

Part 1: Monday 5th June - Sunday 11th June Part 2: Monday 12th June - Sunday 18th June

To Be Read:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (GOF)

Also on this week:

Hufflepuff Pride (will be happening on certain days over the fortnight)!

Activities during the middle weekend.

Schedule:

Dates Breakdown MONDAY 5th JUNE GOF - Chapters 1-3 TUESDAY 6th JUNE GOF - Chapters 4-6 WEDNESDAY 7th JUNE GOF - Chapters 7-9 THURSDAY 8th JUNE GOF - Chapters 10-12 | Hufflepuff Pride FRIDAY 9th JUNE GOF - Chapters 13-14 | Hufflepuff Pride SATURDAY 10th JUNE GOF - Chapters 15-17 | Hufflepuff Pride SUNDAY 11th JUNE GOF - Chapters 18-20 | Hufflepuff Pride MONDAY 12th JUNE GOF - Chapters 21-23 | Hufflepuff Pride TUESDAY 13th JUNE GOF - Chapters 24-25 | Hufflepuff Pride WEDNESDAY 14th JUNE GOF - Chapters 26-28 | Hufflepuff Pride THURSDAY 15th JUNE GOF - Chapters 29-31 FRIDAY 16th JUNE GOF - Chapters 32-34 SATURDAY 17th JUNE GOF - Chapters 35-36 GOF Film SUNDAY 18th JUNE GOF - Chapters 37-38 GOF Quiz