G'day mates! I hope you're all having a great Saturday if you're in Australia, or Friday if you're not. It's nearly the weekend for me so that means TWO MORE SLEEPS til I'm on the plane to Brisbane. Woo! But then 24 hours of travel... 

Regardless, I've booked my vegan meals for Copa and Virgin airlines; I've lined up where I'm staying when I get back; so I think I'm good to go. 

Brisbane meet-up?

I'm still wanting to organise a meet-up. I'm going to Cairns next Thurs-Sun so not then. Definitely after Christmas. I'm thinking Friday 29/12 or Saturday 30/12, somewhere in Brisbane. Not fussed if it's a park or a pub. Let me know if you want to come and your date and venue preferences.

Edit: people who've expressed an interest include:

• @gohba.handcrafts
• @juicy-shark
• @magicmonk
• @stephen-somers
• @ausbitbank and @krystle (possibly, it depends on their kids).

Steemit Worldmap is back baby!

Good news. Steemit Worldmap is up and running again. If you added the code to your posts during the week it was down, you should see them on the map now. If you can't then drop a comment in the latest #traveldigest and we (being @martibis) will have a looksy at what's going on.

Come for the upvote bots, stay for the friends

As you have probably worked out by my constant plugging of all things Minnow Support Project related in these posts, I love this project. Well now we're having a recruitment drive. We want to hit 6,000 members by 31/12. 

If you haven't joined yet, why not? Come on! We even have our own #teamaustralia chat room.

Do you fancy yourself as a recruiter to help reach this goal? Contact the lovely @kubbyelizabeth if so.

The daily rant...

Lastly, I'm going to air a pet peeve. This stupid seven day black and white challenge that everyone seems to be doing. I hate it. I think it's dumb. And it annoys that that there are so many average black and white photos taking up valuable real estate in my feed. 😡 In protest, if you're on my steemvoter—and many of you are—and you're participating, and you don't see upvotes from me, it's cos I've paused you until your seven days are up. I might upvote your other posts manually if I see them, but yeah, you're on pause. The exception is if I followed you because you're a photographer in the first place.

The community notices section

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

You can support Team Australia members by following the centerlink curation trail in Streemian. Instructions on how to do that are here. Don't forget that @centerlink is busy putting Aussie-battler tax dollars to work in the form of dole payments for posts.

Of course, also 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 @ausbitbankand @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

Creator and Queen of the upgoats footers @ryivhnn has been busy getting her kids onto steemit. The first one to make a post was her eight-year-old @shadowlioncub, who came in asking about "this steeeeeeeeeeeemit thing", using air quotes and everything. So far all I really know about him is he likes Beyblades. I then had to google Beyblades, which according to Wikipedia, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Takao Aoki to promote sales of spinning tops called "Beyblades." I then had to google manga...

Fun fact

"He provides his own theme music and sound effects while going about his day."

I actually like this. Most things are better with a soundtrack behind them. You just have to hit mute on YouTube to see that's true.

Candidate 2

Name and bio

Next up is @shadowlioncub's older sister @pixietrix. She's 11, homeschooled, and is into gymnastics, dance and food. She loves Sims 4, and has a guinea pig named Popcorn and a dog named Angus.

@pixietrix is level-4 going into level-5 in gymnastics. Her favourite elements are walkovers, my vault, my chasse leaps on floor, and my climb up to high bar. She also loves ariels, and one-handed front walkovers, and everything except pivots. She is excited to start step-3 acro dance next year and she will also be resuming hip-hop. 

Fun fact

"My brothers say I have no spine... don't know why though."

Hmm. Since I've never met you I'm going to go with the meaning based on your photo and back you up here. Backbends are totally AWESOME. They are so good for you that I try to get a few minutes in during yoga every day. Your spine is supposed to be flexible in both directions. It's just that most people don't do backbends—and then wonder why they have back pain all the time—so they think this is weird.

Candidate 3

Name and bio

Last but not least we have the oldest sibling, @gorc. This homeschooled 13-year-old says he has the cutest guinea pig in the world. (Hmm. Is this a different guinea pig or the same one mentioned above?) Although the first to express actual interest in steemit, he was the last to get an intro post up because according to @ryivhnn, he has inherited her perfectionist streak and inability to say anything nice about himself. (Awww.)

@gorc likes Stick Fight the Game, Assassins Creed, Overwatch and other Steam games. His non-gaming related interests include gymnastics, more gymnastics, a touch more gymnastics, maths, roleplaying, animation (just started), exploring and climbing, and finding new ways to keep warm in winter. (Lol! I love that last one.)

Fun fact

"When he was 2-4 he thought it would be a brilliant idea to walk up the outside of one of those travellator things that goes up levels (like the ones you put shopping trolleys on to go down to the carpark at coles).  I can't remember how I got him down (may have had help but honestly can't remember). Shortly after this incident a plastic guard thing was installed on the ledge so other small children couldn't repeat the incident."

I think its safe to say that this new safety measure was a direct result of @gorc's urban adventuring and the shopping centre's fear of a lawsuit.

Candidate 4

Name and bio

Another Team Australia recruit with a parent already on steemit is @travelwithrhi. Her dad is everyone's favourite bringer of crazy NT stories, @plumey! 

Earlier this year @travelwithrhi resigned from her job, sold most of her belongings, and left her family and friends to embark on the adventure of a lifetime. She is currently five months into a backpacking trip through the UK, Ireland and Europe. So far she's caught up with family in England, explored Scotland, immersed herself in the culture of Morocco, and fallen in love with Portugal and Spain. Now she's blogging her adventures on steemit, probably to help pay for beers and hostel beds.

Fun fact

"I had never experienced a winter or seen snow and was always on my bucket list, and now I’m ticking them off the list in this epic adventure I’m on."

Hmm, living in the tropics to shit European winter. That will be quite a shock for you I imagine. If it gets too much, I recommend jumping on a plane to a Meditteranean destination. At least you'll see the sun there.

Candidate 5

Name and bio

Not to be confused with @pixietrix above, @pixelminx lives outside Melbourne. She's always loved expressing herself through art, including painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, textiles and most recently, digital art. She describes herself as a messy artist who leaves a trail of creative destruction in her wake. 

Between ages 17-30 @pixelminx was trapped in an abusive relationship, which heavily influences her art work. After escaping, @pixelminx began volunteering at a local plant nursery which brought her new levels of peace and calmness. She has since gone on to start her own gardening business and completed an apprenticeship in Horticulture at Melbourne Zoo.

Fun fact

"When I did my horticulture apprenticeship at Melbourne Zoo I painted signs for the butterfly house which are still there today."

That's so cool. It must be such a buzz to have your art somewhere for people to see.

Congratulations everyone. You've been accepted into @teamaustralia

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 on steemit chat or 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 unless there is a lot of interest, in which case I will try and post sooner. 

This post was created in mspsteem, which provides a 5% beneficiary to @minnowsupport.

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

First image source

Gif by @justcallmemyth

Team Australia banner by @bearone

Page dividers by @kristyglas