Jordan once again had to hold back a giggle as she watched her fellow employees and new boss interact. 'This job is going to be great' she thought to herself. Jordan took a quick glance around to see who else was on their way over before she took a seat and pulled out some parchment.

Cris wasn't one to die of shock or anything of the sort, but he felt like it was going to be a first when Ian looked at him in a mad!crazy and mad!angry kind of way. It was a good thing he was good at pulling poker faces. Heh. Still, he didn't even know what he did wrong. And why he said 'you and I both'. Hmm. Maybe he misinterpreted the arm-and-knuckle stretching as laziness. Or maybe he should have brought him some cake. Ah well. Too late for that now. Maybe he could bake one himself.... Or not. It was too risky, with his past with cooking and all.

"Er. Right. Work."

Quote:

Ian was heading back to his office when a note stuck itself into the wall. Back when he had first started at the Ministry, this always scared the pants off him, but now he was used to it. He grabbed the note without breaking his stride and began skimming it as he made his way to his desk. And about a minute after he had sat down, he realized that he would have to get up again.....and he didn't have any cake to fuel him, either. Newbies.

He got up, made his way out of his office, and cleared his throat. "Attention, employees," - not the usual "yo peoples" - "I've just received a message from the Senior Under Secretary to the Minister of Magic." He tried briefly to summarize what it said, but he had already forgotten a bit what exactly it said. His mind had been overloaded!

"Er...well, I'll just read it." So he did. And it was glorious. And all rejoiced. The end (just kidding!)

"Now then, basically, we need to:
- make a list of successes and problems with the previous QWC and discuss solutions to whatever problems we come up with....oi. Let's start with the Yeti incident in Tibet.
- Discuss who will host the next QWC and how preparations will be made
- Discuss the possibility of expanding Quodpot internationally; do we want to host a team?
Well team, it seems we've got quite the load on our plate! We're going to have a divisional 'meeting' soon, but first, I suspect Theo will be wanting to meet with all the Division Heads. Aaaaannnndd break!"

Ah, work. Finally, some action.

Cris took mental notes of what they would need to do, and he was already forming a few ideas in his head. Years of travelling and watching several Quidditch games in different places earned him a lot of ideas and a lot of inspiration for these kinds of things. He could have given one of the first suggestions to Ian if they should have the meeting. For that, he was proud of himself. Ha ha.

Plus, they way Ian said 'break', made him think of basketball. Or Quidditch, better yet. BREAK.

Suddenly, just as they were all getting in the mood, someone entered the premises. And she was asking about... Scarlet fever?

Cris automatically held out his arm in front of him and looked at it. Did it look like he had a fever? Or maybe Scarlet Fever patients didn't see if they had it. Well, he was sure he was feeling fine, even overly-energetic!

"I don't know about Scarlet Fever, but someone should tell those muggles that dragons and centaurs are all too real," Cris pointed out with a slight shrug. As if it were that easy! But, eh, what did he know?

...Oh! New people! Already, Cris felt like yesterday's news. Heh. That was kind of the way he preferred it. Being the center of attention meant becoming a favorite, or something like that. He always believed in fairness. And the new addition to the Department deserved the spotlight now.

As she was introduced, Cris waved his hand lightly towards the new girl and smiled. "Hope you enjoy it here," he said, grinning at her politely.

And he literally marched into the conference room, just as Ian called for them.

Once everyone had filed into the conference room, Ian made his way to the front of the room. He clapped his hands once to warn the employees that he was about to speak, and then he began:

"Okay, team. If you haven't done so yet, please take a seat." He allowed time for the rest of the employees to sit down and then continued.

"Now then, first of all, we have a few new employees. Three, in fact." He motioned toward the two new employees and said, "Ladies and Gents, this is Jordan Woodrow, and this is Catherine Wormwood. We also have Layla Riddle, who is not here yet. I am sure everyone will get along nicely and they'll fit right in!" He smiled widely. Oh, he LOVED getting new employees. It meant new friends! Ian liked friends.

"Moving on," he said, rubbing his hands together, "as you all know, we have recently received an assignment from the Minister's Office. Our division has quite a few assignments, but I want to take these one at a time."

He waved his wand and an easel appeared. It had the following tasks listed on it:

• Research problems and successes of previous Quidditch World Cups; brainstorm solutions to said problems

• Come up with a way to keep the Quidditch World Cup bidding conference calm and smooth

• Discuss possibilities of an international Quodpot League and a national team for England and/or Ireland; look into fiscal aspect, possibility of success; answer MUST be presented to the United States at the Wizarding Conference

"So, I think we should start brainstorming problems, solutions, and successes of previous Quidditch World Cups first. What have been some issues you've seen?"

He set up an automatic note-taking quill with some parchment. "Feel free to speak up and contribute your ideas! This is what we're here for. We need your input."

He nodded and sat back down. Now that he was done with his speech as Division Head, he no longer felt the need to stand and put himself above the employees. All a part of establishing authority without being overbearing.

Jordan listened as her new boss gave out the assignment. She pulled out some parchment and began to tap her quill on the desk. Since she hadn't been to a Quidditch world up since she was very young, she really didn't have any good ideas.

"Well, I haven't been in several years, but I think the entire event should be extended by a few days to allow for more pre and post game celebration." She jotted down her idea as she spoke. "It seems far to short to me. And for those who are unable to make the it to the game, they could still come out and celebrate before and after." After she finished writing, Jordan looked up an waited to hear what the others had to say.

Shylo felt her cheeks burn as she fell into the chair at Ian's right. "Yes, sir, jsut fine." She said breathlessly, flashing a smile to emphasize this fact. Yes, she was fine indeed. In fact, she was just bursting to get to work.

Shylo nodded pleasantly to the two new employees, giving them each dazzling smiles, and itching to meet the third. Her blazing blue eyes swivelled back to Ian as he moved onto the task at hand. Clasping her hands and lacing her fingers together, and sucked on her lip in thought. She listened carefully to Jordan's suggestion, and beamed. Wow, the newbies were going to get along just fine; she could tell. But now for her input. Tapping her quill lightly on the edge of her parchment, and clicked her fingers.

"In previous Quidditch World Cup's, we've had problems with space." Shylo piped up, furrowing her brow. "Perhaps we should consider extending the sites we use, so as to allow more people to attend the event." She concluded, and then paused for other people to speak.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jrtpuplvr

Jordan listened as her new boss gave out the assignment. She pulled out some parchment and began to tap her quill on the desk. Since she hadn't been to a Quidditch world up since she was very young, she really didn't have any good ideas.

"Well, I haven't been in several years, but I think the entire event should be extended by a few days to allow for more pre and post game celebration." She jotted down her idea as she spoke. "It seems far to short to me. And for those who are unable to make the it to the game, they could still come out and celebrate before and after." After she finished writing, Jordan looked up an waited to hear what the others had to say.

Ian listened to both Jordan's idea and the scratching sound of the quill on the parchment. He didn't really know what it was about that scratching sound, but he really liked it. It was just a fun sound.

"Good! I think extending it for multiple days will be out of the question, but I think having a day of celebration the day after the match would be good."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dracos_Lady

Shylo felt her cheeks burn as she fell into the chair at Ian's right. "Yes, sir, jsut fine." She said breathlessly, flashing a smile to emphasize this fact. Yes, she was fine indeed. In fact, she was just bursting to get to work.

Shylo nodded pleasantly to the two new employees, giving them each dazzling smiles, and itching to meet the third. Her blazing blue eyes swivelled back to Ian as he moved onto the task at hand. Clasping her hands and lacing her fingers together, and sucked on her lip in thought. She listened carefully to Jordan's suggestion, and beamed. Wow, the newbies were going to get along just fine; she could tell. But now for her input. Tapping her quill lightly on the edge of her parchment, and clicked her fingers.

"In previous Quidditch World Cup's, we've had problems with space." Shylo piped up, furrowing her brow. "Perhaps we should consider extending the sites we use, so as to allow more people to attend the event." She concluded, and then paused for other people to speak.

"That's another good idea," Ian said, smiling as the quill continued scratching away. "Plus, we can get away with selling more tickets. We would have to find bigger spaces, though, but that would be up to the home country more so than us. Good! Keep thinking, everyone."

OOC: Hey peoples. Just keep bouncing ideas around. I'm moving to college tomorrow and probably won't have internet until Sunday or Monday. Happy planning!

Cat, being new to the ministry, didn't want to push herself forward, so she waited until a pause arose after Ian's comment, before she spoke up: "I agree to the idea of extending the sites. A Quidditch Word Cup is an event that goes beyond the mere sports competition. There has always been a very great interest in the previous World Cups, I think. So it should be possible for as many witches and wizards as possible to watch it. And there should also be some kind of show part, for example a grand opening and/or closing ceremony."

Jordan continued to scribble down ideas as the came to her. She loved planning new events and was excited to see what other ideas her fellow employees would come up with. "Yes, a day of celebration following the match. An area with food and carnival games and maybe even a meet and greet with the quidditch players."

Her eyes sparkled as she pictured the event in her head. Banners of the teams colors displayed all about and people mingling happily with one another.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LunaticLady

Cat, being new to the ministry, didn't want to push herself forward, so she waited until a pause arose after Ian's comment, before she spoke up: "I agree to the idea of extending the sites. A Quidditch Word Cup is an event that goes beyond the mere sports competition. There has always been a very great interest in the previous World Cups, I think. So it should be possible for as many witches and wizards as possible to watch it. And there should also be some kind of show part, for example a grand opening and/or closing ceremony."

"Kind of like the Muggle Olympic opening and closing ceremony," Ian mused out loud. "I like it." He turned to the quill and added, "Make sure you get that."

Quote:

Originally Posted by jrtpuplvr

Jordan continued to scribble down ideas as the came to her. She loved planning new events and was excited to see what other ideas her fellow employees would come up with. "Yes, a day of celebration following the match. An area with food and carnival games and maybe even a meet and greet with the quidditch players."

Her eyes sparkled as she pictured the event in her head. Banners of the teams colors displayed all about and people mingling happily with one another.

FOOD! Ian immediated perked up a bit more. "Yes....yes. Food is good." He was calm on the outside, but inside, he was dancing with joy, jiggly gut and all.

"I like the meet and greet, too. I remember that, as a child, I always wanted to meet my favorite players. There would have to be security of course, so people don't try to hex the players they hate."

He again told the quill to make sure it was getting everything.

"So let's move on," Ian said. "The next thing on the list is trying to figure out how to keep the bidding conference smooth and calm. Any ideas?"

Jordan flipped her pad to the next page of parchment to start taking notes over the new topic. She scribbled a little picture of men and women meeting around a table, some with angry fists in the air.

"Well, we could have them draw numbers to bid in order. That way no one could complain that they were last and not adequately considered.”

She wasn’t really sure if this would work or not, but she at least she was coming up with something.

"Another great idea," Iam chimed. "Great work today, Jordan! We'll try that."


He erased the first two bullets with his wand and continued. "Now then, I don't know about what you think, but despite Quodpot's minor success here in Europe, I don't think Quodpot will be able to expand into a world-wide phenomenon. What do you all think?"

Jordan shook her head at the mention of Quodpot. Her silly American friends loved the sport, but she was loyal to Quidditch. "I'm not a fan of the sport, but I do see some value in looking into it to increase our relationship with the North and South American wizarding communities." Jordan flipped the pages of her notebook yet again.

"Now, I will never fully understand why you would want to add an exploding quaffle and turn an exciting, skill filled game into a spectators sport" she paused to take a breath and calm herself before she continued, "but I do know a few people from my old quidditch team that would be willing to form a traveling quodpot team for events."

Jordan paused yet again to compose herself. She wasn't sure why she was getting so worked up over the discussion. After taking another deep breath, "Maybe we could form a team with select players, former or current, from all the major teams that would be willing to put on a yearly fundraising Quodpot cup challenge against the Americans."

"I, for one, think Quodpot would be exciting, and a lot of avid sports fans would like that." Of course, that was just Cris's own sporty side kicking in. "Exploding quaffles just add zing to the regular Quidditch game. I mean, I love Quidditch and all, but it would be nice to have alternatives once in a while. Just look at it this way. Have any of you ever heard of football? The ball doesn't exactly explode into smithereens, but the players go crazy over the ball and beat themselves up over it. Then the crowd all but goes wild and explodes with ecstacy. I think Quodpot would have the same effect on audiences. It'd make for great publicity, and besides, what's a good game without a little brawn?" He was about to say blood, but he didn't want anyone to grow all squeamish at the thought and have Quodpot abolished altogether. He rather liked the game.

"And if not everyone agreed to it, then I say they have to true sense of sport."

Jordan leaned back in her chair and glanced around the room. She wondered if she was talking a bit too much on her first day. "Are there any other ideas?" she asked, not wanting to jump in again for fear someone else wouldn't speak up.

Ugh. This was just getting worse. As if she wouldn't already look like a fool for going into another division and seemingly doing nothing but glancing around, now there were more people she had to work around?

Again, she smiled at each of them. 'Ignore me. I'm jsut doing some security checks.' Having told them what she was doing (and praying she didn't look like even more of a fool), she cast a quick glance around, taking a few steps closer to bits here and there to double check her first inspections. Again, with people, it would be hard for a proximity spell, but again, with people, it would be unlikely that there was something out of place. Instead, a quick wordless spell showed her what little she couldn't see. Nothing unordinary.

Once again satisfied, she gave the others a polite nod as she retreated from the second office. And now for the boss, she thought to herself.

Theodore entered the Quidditch Division looking rather flustered. His hair was at different angles and rather a state. "Ian," he bounced on his toes, "Can you and your guys make this place look slightly tidy. Foreign Ministers are coming to look around, and I don't want to be put to shame. Especially if Brennan is involved."

Jordan looked to her boss to see what they would be doing next. The others had been very quiet and the room was starting to have a tense feeling. 'Hopefully this will be over soon' she thought as she fiddled with her quill.

"Hmmm...." Ian mused, stroking his chin. "I do rather like the idea of putting on an annual quodpot match against the Americans as a fundraiser. That would be exciting! It would bring quodpot here, but it would still leave quidditch as the predominant sport. I like that. I will suggest this to Theo."

"That's another good point, Cris. But we must also think of the financial capacity of the Ministry and whether or not it would be profitable enough to form our own quodpot team. As of right now, I do not think it is fiscally possible, but perhaps we can use the money from the fundraisers to help fund a league."

Ian stared in perplexity as the woman peeked in. "Umm...hullo. Excuse me, but what exactly are you doing?"

But before she could answer, she had disappeared.

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. It is quite the mess in here!" He looked around....turns out his magicking hadn't done much.

"Okay, team! End of discussion! Let's get this place cleaned up. PRONTO!"

He immediately ran back into his office and scurried around, casting cleaning spell after cleaning spell.

Jordan watched as her new boss bolted out of the room. "Well, I guess we should get to work" she said to the others. "How about we each take an area to clean up, then hit our desks? I'll start by reordering the conference room."

Jordan began working, setting the chairs back in their proper places and wondering what their next assignment would be.

Cris nodded in agreement with Ian. "Good point. And, well, as for the fund raisers, it hasn't been the first time the Quidditch League held a game for the purpose of raising money. I think we really have a good shot at it," he added, quite optimistic at the thought.

And as their Head entered the room, remnding them to clean up, Cris followed Ian suit, and started tidying up his own cubicle. "Foreign Ministers, huh? Sounds serious..."

Jordan made her way back to her cubical and started planning out how she wanted her desk to be set up. The orientation of the desk and chair just wasn't working for her, so she decided to do a little bit of rearranging. "The desk needs to face the door so I can see what's going on. Plus, it will give me a bit more privacy not being quite so easy for someone to read over my shoulder." After a flick of her wrist, the desk gently slid around to the south side of her area and her chair quickly followed. "That's much better" she said with a satisfied smile on her face.

Donia stumbled out of the lifts and into her new division.
"Whoa!" she said as she nearly tripped over her own feet and almost dropped her box of stuff. Why didn't I just enchant it? Stupid, stupid, Donia she thought to herself. She walked over to her new cubicle, one that looked almost the same as her old one, except facing a different way. She dropped her things down with a thud and looked around. This place was definately more happening than her old department. People seemd to be having...fun.

Jordan sauntered back into the office after enjoying her snack in the break room. As she made her way over to her cubicle, she noticed a new girl holding a box. "Hello there" she said with a bright smile. "I'm Jordan, Jordan Woodrow. Are you new to the division? I haven't been here long, but I don't remember seeing you in here."

Donia looked up at the girl who addressed her and smiled, "Yeah, I'm the new transfer from International Relations. I just started here. I'm Donia Cailleac."
Donia smiled Jordan and pushed a chunk of white-gold hair out of her icy blue eyes, "You're new here? As in new to the department? Where were you before?"

Jordan smiled. "It's a pleasure to meet you Donia" she said as she fiddled with the quill from her desk. "Wow, the International Relations department. That sounds interesting." Jordan paused a moment to set the quill back on her desk. "I've only been in this department a few weeks. I have worked for the Ministry in the past, in the Department of Mysteries, but i took a few years off to take care of my younger sister."

She glanced around to see what cubicles were available and spotted one just on the other side of hers. "You are welcome to take this cubicle as your own. This side of the office seems to get a little bit more action that the other. Keeps things intersting." Jordan pointed to the empty desk and looked back towards Donia. "So, have you met our boss, Ian, yet? I'm still trying to figure him out, but he seems like a really nice guy."