Hey, hey shiny happy people. I hope you're all having a great week so far. I can't complain about mine. We did have an earthquake in Panama the other day, but nothing fell down and the internet stayed on, so all good.

That time I did a steemit basics webinar with Ben Lee

A couple of weeks ago when @benleemusic was on tour in Brazil with his band Radnor and Lee (aka Josh Radnor, aka Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother) he asked me if I'd like to do steemit basics webinar with him to put out on his other social media networks. 

I said yes. 

We recorded it yesterday. 

Here's the link if you haven't seen it. 

We've been getting really positive feedback today on both steemit and Facebook, which is pretty awesome. Hopefully a few more people will sign up as a result.

Adelaide meet-up

Source: @timmm

The first monthly meet-up happened last week. @holoz0r's plan was to live stream it to ease the nerves of those experiencing FOMO, but his laptop failed in the 35C heat, so it only lasted about 20 minutes.

Watch what was recorded here.

Other write ups of the evening were done by @minismallholding here, @timmm here, and @thevillan here.

Brisbane meet-up

@shareyourstory has taken the first step in organising a Brisbane monthly meet-up. The first one is happening on 4 March at Southbank Beer Garden. Don't be shit Brisbane. Go along if you have the time. You can see how cool Adelaide's meet-up was. Details here.

Canberra, the forgotten city

I realised I forgot to mention Canberra when discussing meet-ups in my last post. Whoops sorry about that. There are a few of you there, so maybe you guys should organise something.

The usual community notices

You should follow @mrsquiggle, who is doing a great job recognising and rewarding Aussie creativity by curating quality content.

Check out the awesome Minnow Support Project (MSP). Details on how to join are are here. Come say hi in the Team Australia chat room in PAL-Discord. It's fun and you will make new friends. 

You should consider voting for the the MSP witnesses, particularly @ausbitbank and @aggroed, who've a done a great job in getting this project off the ground. 

Lastly, if you're feeling generous, you can delegate SP to the Team Australia upvote bots @centerlink and/or @mrsquiggle (or any other bot you like) using Vessel. You can delegate to any of the MSP bots using this link.  

Candidate 1

Name and bio

@beery is from Canberra but living in Prague to work/finish his post grad study on plastic waste in Eastern Europe.

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I recently submitted a patent for a small scale PET plastic recycling machine, making me officially an inventor."

That's really cool. Once you've solved Eastern Europe's plastic problem, please come and sort out Latin America's.

Candidate 2

Name and bio

@rachyroo is a mallsballer. After seeing her partner @dolladu having loads of fun on Discord and at the Adelaide meet-ups, she had a bad case of FOMO and decided to join.

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I grew up on a farm in South Australia and when I was young I would look after the lambs and calves that didn’t have a mum. At one point I was bottle feeding five little lambs after school in my back yard."

Aw, that's so cute. I'm concerned about the fate of the mothers though.

Candidate 3

Name and bio

@strenue is a Saffa on a Kiwi passport living on the Sunshine Coast. He's also a stacker.

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I'm a long-term silver coin enthusiast.  Acquired my first crypto (Litecoin) by trading a palladium coin back in 2013."

That litecoin would be worth quite a bit more now if you've held it. More than palladium I'd imagine, so good call.

Candidate 4

Name and bio

@terrylovejoy is from Brisbane. Apart from leading an IT team, he's an amateur astronomer who's discovered six comets! (This is awesome and would have totally worked as a fun fact.)

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I once forget where I parked a hire car in Christchurch and had to get a taxi to drive me around the city centre, one street at a time until I found it (didn't help I wasn't 100% sure what colour the car was!). That was a pretty expensive lesson, I tend to pay a bit more attention these days."

Lol, that's pretty funny, and yet, not that hard to do.

Candidate 5

Name and bio

@andyfishman is from Canberra. He's a keen angler and does a lot of miniatures modelling and painting.

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I am somewhat of a tinfoil hat person. I love a good conspiracy theory and find out all I can about many of them. Some I even believe."

Well you do live in Canberra. It's probably wise to be suspicious.

Candidate 6

Name and bio 

@trudeehunter is from Brisbane. Although retired, she keeps herself busy by travelling and/or creating gorgeous paintings when the moment strikes. 

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I gravitate to people with a sense of humour because life is too short to take everything seriously."

That seems like a good plan. Funny people are generally fun.

Candidate 7

Name and bio

@blackcaviar10 is @khufu's partner and lives in Newcastle. She likes 70s, 80s and 90s music, and horses.

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I thought I would never have kids until one night @khufu hypnotised me and told me I was twice as fertile as an 18 yr old and then two months later I found out I was pregnant with twins."

Wow. That's pretty interesting. I hope you actually wanted kids and it wasn't a case of I'm never having kids cos I don't want them. Suddenly being pregnant with twins would not be ideal.

Source.  Note this the champion horse Black Caviar since @blackcaviar10 does not have any photos on her blog.

Candidate 8

Name and bio

@dblstr is a mallsballer and another one of @mattclarke's recruits. He likes sneakers, the Adelaide Crows and Liverpool FC.

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I used to be a professional gamer."

I feel like this would be a very time intensive activity. It will have prepared you well for your new life on steemit.

Candidate 9

Name and bio

@julienghost is another mallsballer and and a friend of @dblstr. He is also a professional gamer. 

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"When I ran one of my LAN tournaments I had to build 10 PCs and 20 dxracer chairs, the day before the LAN which I ran / played in on 2 hours of sleep."

Er, you lost me at LAN tournament.

Candidate 10

Name and bio

@mushroomuser is also a mallsballer, and a stay-at-home dad who runs a mushroom kit and education business.

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I love to eat mushrooms and watch clouds."

Are talking the magical kind here? Cos I eat the regular ones all the time and they really don't make clouds that exciting. 

Candidate 11

Name and bio

@christinevenus is a vegan (woo, we're getting at least one a week now and I like it!) and lives in Brisbane. She is an aspiring Astrologer, Reiki Master, Crystal Healer, Feng Shui Guide, Natural Health and Beauty Coach.

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

I love riding my bike, especially through tracks in forests around Brisbane. 

I had a bike when I lived in Brisbane. I miss it. 😞 

Candidate 12

Name and bio

@cassteem is from Perth. She likes cooking, baking, photography and animals.

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I'm a dietitian and I make meal plans and exercise plans for people."

Nice. That would be a rewarding job.

Candidate 13

Name and bio

@scottweston is a SysAdmin/DevOps guy from Ballarat. He also drives a Tesla and is President of the Ballarat Hackerspace. 

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I worked at Google for exactly 2048 days."

I imagine working for Google would be quite good. Also, that is way longer than anywhere I've worked. In fact, that might be more days than I've spent in continuous employment.

Candidate 14

Name and bio

@adventuroussoul is from Perth. He's a business owner and global coach for the Entrepreneur's Organisation.

Intro post here.

Fun fact

"I took my son on a trek to Base Camp Everest last year to prove the bullies wrong. I do hate bullying."

Wow, that is really cool. I hope it worked and he's not being bullied anymore.

Candidate 15

Name and bio

@j85063 is from Tassie. He's into travel, classic cars and photography.

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I did the big lap around Oz in 2016 I have been wanting to do it since I was a kid."

Nice. It feels good to tick things off your bucket list. 

Congratulations everyone, you're now part of Team Australia.  

The rules for joining Team Australia

If you’re not yet a member and want to be, this is what you need to do:

1. Vote here for our resident steemit witness and our Minister for Welfare @ausbitbank.
2. Send me your introduction post so I can find out a bit about you. If you’re new to steemit you'll have to write one so use the introduceyourself and teamaustralia tags to help boost your following. Use this handy guide by @teamsteem if you don't know what to write.
3. If it’s not mentioned in your introductory post, tell me which city and country you’re in, cos let's face it, a lot of us live in Australia's fourth largest city—London. You need to have a connection to Australia to join.
4. Tell me a fun fact about yourself. This can be anything. For example, maybe you have eight kids and three dogs, or you rode your bike across America, or you won the blue ribbon for javelin throwing at sports day back in high school, or Toadie came into the pub you work at one day and you served him a beer, or, maybe you can fit 55 maltesers in your mouth like Ed Sheeran can. It doesn’t matter what it is, I want a fun fact about you! The more fun, the better.
5. Regularly check the Team Australia and Australia tags and upvote/follow the content you like. You can show your support by following the centerlink curation trail in Streemian. Instructions are here.
6. Comment below or DM me in PAL-Discord that you want to join.

Once I receive this information I will try my best to write a good introductory paragraph about you for the official Team Australia membership updates. So the better your information is, the better I can make you sound. Where relevant, please use the teamaustralia and australia tags to promote your work. I will try and post weekly updates. 

Are you an Aussie? Introduce yourself in the teamaustralia chat room!  

Gif by @justcallmemyth

Team Australia banner by @bearone

Page dividers by @kristyglas