All the presents have been collected, just in time for Christmas. Congratulations to the 20 lucky recipients.

And those winners are.... @george-e @dblstr @teeegs90 @exploreadelaide @kristielee @o07 @ratticus @byrongrant @dolladu @thegoliath @iamjesse @steveblucher @holoz0r @waldo39 @pablo16 @mazzle @necromortis @thevillan @bumble-bee and @julienghost

I encourage you to follow each other; and other distinguished Adelaide folk like, @nerdfury, @galenkp, @polichick, @lordnigel, @jesset, @beet, @minismallholding, @ligayagardener, @ursa88, @lexclarke, @danclarke and @henryclarke.

I've delegated 500 SP to each of you, and these delegations will stay in place until December 31, 2018.

For those who've expressed concern, you can't lose my steempower, I'm only delegating the voting power attached to it.
You don't need to do or know anything to safeguard it. You can't lose any of my money.

Thanks to steemworld

Right now, 500 SP means you can upvote a post by about 10c.
If you do so before a lot of others and that post goes on to be popular, then you'll be given a curation reward a week later. Upvoting doesn't cost you anything, but if you do it more than 10 times a day you'll deplete your voting power quicker than it fills up.
If you run out entirely nothing bad will happen, you just won't be giving the author any money or getting any curation rewards, when you upvote.
You can check your current voting power percentage at steemdb.com/@yourusernamehere.

If you comment on somebody's post and someone likes your comment, they'll upvote you.
This will also land in your wallet a week later.

Click 'redeem rewards' every now and then to have all the little pending rewards added up and deposited in your wallet
Unless a loan shark is coming for your thumbs, I recommend clicking the arrow next to 'steem' and choosing, 'power up'.
This locks your money away for a minimum of 3 months, and adds it to your voting power, which means you're giving away more money with each upvote, and getting back more in curation rewards.
I encourage each of you to do an #introduceyourself post; reach out to @choogirl with an interesting fact about yourself, and ask to join #teamaustralia
Heaps of great people doing fantastic things in Team Australia right now, including a lot of charitable work by @gohba.handcrafts

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We have a retention problem here.

We pick up several thousand new users a day, and lose a huge chunk of them within a month.
The focus on blogging is a big part of that.
Painstakingly building a following, one post at a time takes ages, and doing it well means exposing yourself to criticism; something other sites have trained people to fear.
Between the thought of competing against well established bloggers for finite rewards, and the learning curve attached to formatting posts which may only earn a few cents; it's surprising that we retain as many people as we do.

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Imagine you move to a new town, where you know nobody.
Day one, you notice there's a meeting on at the town hall.
Do you walk, uninvited, up the aisle and onto the stage; grab the microphone and make a speech to this crowd of strangers?
No, you don't. You shuffle in at the back, you listen, you get a feel for the pulse of the place; you slowly make a few friends in the community, and you build up your social circle.
You don't make speeches at the first few meetings.

Encouraging people to do so is scaring them off and burning them out; as we've seen.

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I designed this promotion specifically to get away from that mentality.

My twinkly twenty will probably find it a better use of their time to simply upvote and comment on posts they like in topics they're drawn to for at least the first month or two, maybe longer.
They'll follow authors they like, and their comments will land them followers of their own.
The curation and comment rewards will build a satisfying account balance as they slowly gain friends and confidence.
They'll pick up formatting tricks they like, and get a feel for which type and style of content is well received.
When they do feel inspired to sit down and author a post, they'll do so with a solid grounding and an audience of friends who want to see them succeed.

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I'm building Adelaide specifically as I believe face to face interaction is ironically a crucial component in building an online community.

Each of us has stood under that same tree. That makes it real.

Buying and selling crypto online is also incredibly difficult, confusing and expensive right now.
If we can meet and trade in person, it's a lot easier for a new steemian to bump up their stake, or for a successful author to take a little profit.

On the last Thursday of each month in 2018, from 6 til 9, I'll be in the beer garden at the Jade Monkey on Flinders St, with any other mallsballers who like to discuss blockchains/cryptos generally and steem specifically.
If you have questions, or your friend has questions; that's where the answers will be.

The Jade Monkey

So, congratulations again, guys and girls. You didn't get something for nothing, you put yourself out there.
You took a risk and now you get to benefit from a rare opportunity.

You weren't invited personally (except the lovely george-e who started it all for me) but you threw your hat in the ring.
Bravery and vulnerability travel well here. You'll do great, I promise.

I managed to grab quite a few of the 2017, limited mintage, 1oz silver Community coins, imagined by @sevinwilson, designed by @bearone and minted by @phelimint.

At the end of 2018, I'm going to take a close look at my twinkly twenty (not getting sick of that name, btw) and reward one coin each to the five recipients I feel have made the best use of this delegation between now and then.
This will be at my subjective discretion, and will be based entirely on on-chain activity (If you buy me a beer, thanks, but it doesn't count.)

We are in for an incredible 2018. Merry Christmas