Welcome to the January newsletter from the DragonsCavern website. We apologise for the lack of a December newsletter, but once you read on, you'll understand why!

This month we have news on;

Tudor Mint News,
Other News,
DragonsCavern News,
Vote results and a new vote,
Requests.
 
Tudor Mint News:
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Finally there is some news, and it's what everyone has been waiting for. The renewal letters for the collectors club were sent out in December, and the new presentation piece - The Dragons Rest (CC18) - was pictured. Also, details of a great renewal offer were mentioned too. Simply put, renew before 28th December and you had a 1  in 50 chance of winning a "Daredevil" study. However, here at DC we received our letter far too late to reply by the date given (partly as a result of the late sending of the renewal forms, and partly due to the Royal Mail holding the post before redirecting it to our new address). In the end we had to ring the club directly on New Years Eve to renew.
As for their website - we're hoping that the new year sees the stockist section populated with new locations to buy the pieces from, as well as more detail being added to the background pages. Also, a collectors club area would be nice too...

Other News:
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We've displayed a banner on the front page of the website for a while now, with the phrase "Let the hobbit happen!". It refers to the campaign to get The Hobbit made into a film following the success of The Lord of the Rings. Well, we're pleased to read that this is now going to happen, and not only that but Peter Jackson - director of LotR will be back to direct the 2 - yes 2! - Hobbit films. As well as the return of the director, it seems like Ian McKellen himself is keen to reprise his role of Gandalf for the films.

Does your collection contain any of the "official" painted studies that were released in the early 1990's? These were nine large studies that the Tudor Mint released in a painted version. You can see them here; http://www.dragonscavern.co.uk/paint.htm
If you have any of these, we have a collector who is asking for detailed images of these studies to compare with the regular releases. If you can help, please either email us your (large) images to submit(AT)dragonscavern.co.uk and we'll pass them on, or if you are a forum member there is a topic of conversation running where you'll be able to show the images directly. Thanks!

DragonsCavern News:
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Did you notice the complete lack of content added to the DC websites in December? There was a reason for that. Whilst visiting an ill relative in hospital, our work laptop was stolen from the locked boot of an alarmed car (in the secure hospital car park) leaving us with no web access (and a lovely big drilled hole by the passenger door lock).
Well, we now have a replacement machine and everything is getting back to normal. Don't worry about your email or other details being in the hands of thieving scum though, the newsletter subscriber database / forum account details and :MyChart information were, and still are, all held elsewhere and remain secure.

Gereogs Diary ground to a halt in December for reasons we've just mentioned above, but we're busy adding his last parchments before he ends his journey. His completed adventure should be online on or before the middle of the month - if nothing else goes wrong!
To view Gereog's Diary, or any other part of the subscribers section, click on the subscribers area and use your username and password.

We've removed the chat facility from the website - it costs to maintain it, and it wasn't being used. However the forum is still running and is due a major upgrade in January that will result in the following changes;

Posting Changes
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Custom BBCode Buttons
Beaten-to-Posting Review feature

Attachment Changes
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Automatic Image Thumbnails   
Attachment Types: Images, Documents, Audio Streams, Video Streams, Archives
Multiple Attachments
Attachment Placement

Search Changes
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Customised Topic Search
Search Active Topics

Forum Changes
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Forum Rules
Subforums
Subscribe to Categories
Bookmark Topics
Topic Sorting (Sort by Author, Selectable Post Time, Replies, Subject and Views in descending or ascending order)
Post Sorting: (Sort by Author, Selectable Post Time, and Subject in descending or ascending order)
Topic Participation Tracking
Print Topics   
E-mail Topics

User Control Panel Changes
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Manage Saved PM/Post Drafts
Manage Bookmarks   
Manage Attachments   
Manage Subscribed Topics
Custom Profile Fields   
Friends/Foe List

Private Messaging Changes
======================
Additional PM Folders
Customisable PM Filter Rules
Send PMs to Multiple Recipients
Send Blind Carbon Copies PMs
Send PMs to Groups
Forward PM Messages
PM Address Book
PM Message Drafts
Export PM Messages
Attachments for PM Messages
PM Conversation View
Custom PM Message Handling Rules

Moderation Changes
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Merging Topics
Merging Posts
Merging Multiple Topics
Instant Messaging Notifications
Bookmark Notifications

Also in the forum, your virtual studies shop - Incantations - has new study stock available to "buy" with the drouts your earn for posting / replying. In addition, some of the previous stock has been retired. So, if you have an item someone else is desperate for - trade it for a profit! That's what the trade option is there for. Get that virtual secondary market moving :-)

We have a favour to ask collectors. Have you noticed that on some of our pages, we are missing the data about the designer of a study. If you have one of those studies, we would be grateful if you could look underneath it, and email us with the details of the designer.

Thanks to those people who have sent us photos of the stories related to the Tudor Mint chess sets. We're still looking for the rest of them, so if you have any of the Tudor Mint Chess sets, do you have the poster that explains the significance of each piece in the set? We'd be grateful for a photo in order to read the text.
Thank you in advance!

Voting:
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Last time on DragonsCavern.co.uk we did not have a vote, but it's back now!

For January we are asking;

Is £25 a fair price for club membership?

Take part in the vote using the buttons on the main page, or in the contact or vote sections. Results will be announced in the February newsletter.

Requests:
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If you have a prototype study, or a rare version of any item please send it to us for inclusion on the prototypes/rare pages. Use the submit form on the contact page of the website. In addition to this, the 'wanted' page of the website lists studies that we are looking for images for. If you are able to help with those, please contact us.

That's all for this month. If you have any news, websites, announcements or comments that you would like to see in the next newsletter, or if you are a trader / collector who would like to be featured in an article in a future newsletter, please contact the webmanager.

Sincerely ,
Webmanager
DragonsCavern.co.uk - the unofficial Myth and Magic collection histories chart.