Presenting ... Sparks!

Tinderbox 2015 is all about enjoyment, collaboration, and finding new ways to work together. From that has sprung an awesome collaboration with the Kiwi Conservation Club (KCC) - Forest & Bird's organisation for children.

'Sparks' offers a chance for Tinderbox attendees to get published in KCC’s science-and-nature magazine for children - Wild Things.

Registered conference attendees team up in groups of two to four, to produce a fun, innovative feature that will be submitted to a special summer 2015 issue of Wild Things - themed around biodiversity.

Enrol for Sparks by this Saturday 29 August (details below!) and you'll receive a list of everyone else who's also enrolled, so you can start to form your teams. The Tinderbox Facebook page will facilitate this, and people from different creative disciplines are encouraged to collaborate with each other. 

You'll also receive from KCC a sample copy of the magazine, along with a full brief for the project, including a list of New Zealand native animals and plants to choose your team topic from. (Each team chooses a different one - first come first served.) 

After that, you'll have until the Tinderbox weekend to work together - in person, or by email, phone or any other means of communication - on a single-page work about your topic. Think articles, comic strips, stories, skits, activities, puzzles, games … OR some new, creative combination of those things. 

During Tinderbox, you'll get together at Sparks workshops to talk with Wild Things editor Johanna Knox, who can answer any questions and advise on fine-tuning your work to meet Wild Things requirements.

After the conference NINE fantastic works will be chosen by KCC and Wild Things from all those submitted. If many exceptional works are received, there may be room to include more of them in future issues of Wild Things, on an occasional basis.

Work will be paid for at usual Wild Things rates.

Find out more about Wild Things and KCC here.

To enrol for Sparks: Email 2015tinderbox@gmail.com with 'Sparks Enrolment' in the subject line, and your postal address in the body of the email.  

Sparks deadlines:

Saturday 29 August: Register for Sparks 

Friday September 4: Have your teams decided on

Monday September 7: As teams, submit 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice topics