When I was at school, the good boys and girls took turns to look after the school hamster as a kind of reward for best behaviour. Needless to say, not once did that hamster cross the Binns house threshold. This may have something to do with someone in my family going ‘fishing’ in the school fish tank and starving an innocent goldfish of its life source, I guess we’ll never know and to be honest, I don’t like hamsters anyway.
In the early days of that time when we were all put under house arrest in 2020, Fiona and I came up with an idea to encourage our members to practice more. It was called Jigsaw Club. Here’s how it worked. Fiona would do a massive jigsaw, and then we’d divide it into sections each made of 30 pieces.
We’d then send those 30 pieces to members of the club, jumbled and disassembled, who in turn would piece together their part of the jigsaw bit by bit for every day that they practiced. Do 30 days, and you’ve completed your bit. Do less, and you’re a massive failure that makes me sick to my stomach (I’m joking, I love you).
At the end of the 30 days all the members of the club would meet on a zoom call. They’d show us their bit, and through our imaginations we’d piece it all together. We’d then get pissed, again, probably.
Anyway, for better or worse, house arrest is over now. And I’m too old to ever get a chance to look after that hamster. So, we have launched a new scheme to encourage practice and it’s called, `The Cactus of good Practuss’
Here’s how it works. You register with one of us how many hours you have practiced in any given week. Then we verify your claims. If you have done the work, you get to look after the thorny, prone to easy deaths, doesn’t actually need much care at all, Cactus of Practuss.
I trust all of the above makes sense and I’m looking forward to your imminent participation.
This is just one of the ways we keep people playing.
Thomas x
