Hogwarts Weight Loss Challenge [Term 22] - 5 Week Holiday Challenge *Nov 9th-Dec 16th*

Happy Halloween to all my fellow witches and wizards

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is approaching our 22nd term (and our 3rd Holidays at Hogwarts themed term) and we're opening up the application to anyone would like to apply

Term 22 information:

• Term 22 will be an 5-week term themed around Holidays at Hogwarts (so we'll be focusing on holidays throughout all 7 years at Hogwarts)
• You may PM @Kisame29 to confirm that your application was received.
• The term will run from Friday, November 9th 2018 (with starting weigh-in starting that Friday and the full activities beginning on Monday) through Sunday, December 16th, 2018. So you should expect to join by 11:59 pm ET on Friday, November 9th to keep your place as a student.
• You will receive notification via owl (PM/email) if you have been accepted or put on the wait list. Owls should go out on Wednesday, November 7th (and should be received by the end of Thursday, November 8th). If you do NOT join by 11:59 pm ET on Friday, November 9th or respond to the prefect that PM'd you, then your spot will be given to someone on the wait list. So make sure to respond to your acceptance PM to hold your space Usually PMs/emails go out on Tuesday, but given that it's Election Day in the US we're going to move sending out PMs/emails on Wednesday/Thursday so everyone in the US can focus on voting on Tuesday
• Wait List Owls will be sent as emails (since they are more reliable) while acceptance Owls may be PMs or emails based on how the prefects decide to send them. The key point is to check both the email you gave us in the application AND your PMs on Wednesday, November 7th and/or Thursday, November 8th.
• If you have not received ANY PM or email by the morning of Friday, November 9th, please feel free to PM me or one of the headgirls @Maalea or @fithphoenix so one of us can help you figure out what happened (ie if you just didn't receive your PM/email, if there was a typo in your username on the application, etc). Everyone who applied should receive SOME type of message (PM or email) by Friday, November 9th if we successfully received your application.
• As a reminder - we are now asking you to submit an email. This is optional, but it will be to your advantage in case you do not receive any PMs from the Hogwarts staff since the PM system does not work very well so the Hogwarts staff may send you an email if you do not seem to be receiving PMs. We also highly suggest joining Hogsmeade Village since we will be using that group to help communicate with everyone between terms (and communicate with wait listers during a term).

Also, let me give you some information about what to expect from your term at Hogwarts. It will actually be a bit different than even our previous Holidays at Hogwarts terms We'll have a basic set of activities (using the Hogwarts Houses - Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin) and then an optional set of activities using special groups.

Using our 4 Hogwarts Houses, this term will be an easier, more laid-back term compared to normal (with the idea of a 'vacation' term) since we're planning on running our basic challenge Classroom A (which is a weekly set of 3 challenges consisting of Quidditch - a physical challenge, Potions - a food/water/diet challenge, and Defense Against the Dark Arts -a Harry Potter trivia challenge) as well as a weekly weigh-in ONLY.

Then, students who want to participate in the optional activities can fill out a survey at the beginning of Term 22 and then we'll separate those students into special teams. The tentative plan is that we'll have the introduction week (where students can sign up and then they can pick their team leaders ie any Harry Potter character) and then we'll have one special big event each week on Weeks 2-5. We may also have an occasional Room of Requirement and/or Hogsmeade challenges to go along with the other special events and, if students would like (based on survey results) potentially other options like the Unbreakable Vow as well. For all of the optional activities, you'll earn points towards a special cup (essentially a special Triwizard Cup where the Champions may be random HP characters that each team picks). Obviously it will also depend on how many students sign up to participate in the optional part of Hogwarts as well, since we may only have 2-3 teams depending on student interest. The key point is that you can essentially opt-in to participating in the optional set of challenges and they will NOT earn house points, but points towards our special event Cup. Full information will be posted at the beginning of Term 22. **You do NOT have to decide if you want to participate in the optional part of the challenge until Term 22 begins, so you can join and decide then.**

We haven't run a term like this before (and it's just for our special Holiday at Hogwarts term - although if students enjoy it, then we would potentially run next year's Holiday at Hogwarts in the same manner - but you can expect Hogwarts to return to a more 'normal' format after the New Year for Term 23), so these plans are not set in stone. But that's the general plan for Term 22. We'll also run an optional Secret Santa (with an option for an online-only gift or mailing a real-life gift) that anyone may participate in and has been lots of fun in the past 2 years that we ran it

We highly suggest applying as soon as possible to guarantee yourself a spot.

As always, feel free to send me a PM to confirm your application was received

Sincerely,
Kisame
(Deputy Headmistress)