This year is the official anniversary of the Confederation of Democratic sims. As you may have noticed, we've been using this in our promotional material since CDS turned 4! The fact that our Sept 20 anniversary date coincides nicely with Oktoberfest every year gives us a chance to really show off our sims and project, and we try to have a variety of events during this time to appeal to the many different types of people in Second Life.
I won't lie to you.. it is a LOT of work. And it becomes much more fun if there are a LOT of people involved. So this is the first call for help 
NOW is the time to volunteer, because really, if you wait for the week before, we just don't have the time to show you what needs to be done, and then the experience is frustrating for everyone.
Early run down of events and needs:
1. Parade. We will repeat the bierwagon parade from last year, hopefully with many more entries from CDS citizens. Merchants and NGOs...what an easy way to publicize what you do! I think we have the bugs worked out. We can use some help here, specifically some Parade coordinators to help lay out the route, answer questions, show citizens how to make the bierwagon floats, and assist on the day of the parade with crowd control, and the myriad of issues that arise at the last minute.
2. Musicians and hosts: Music brings people to the sims, and we've had a number of citizens whose first contact was a musical event. We will have live music at least each weekend, with more during the week when possible. Some of the musicians have already been booked, as their calendars fill up very early. We will need CDS people at each concert to greet, invite to the CDS group, and make sure the music is set up and running smoothly. We will probably provide some security training before concerts this year as well.
3. Pub Crawl. This is a chance for us to reach out to other sims and show off ours. There are several pubs in CDS, and several CDS citizens have connections to pubs outside CDS. What we'd like is for each pub to create a commemorative beer stein for Oktoberfest 2009 and then we will promote visits to the pubs to collect. If it goes well, we will do actual group crawls... Sound like fun? Volunteer and take it from here!
4. Soccer! Yes, we will have soccer again this year! We may need a new captain, depending on Brian LIvingston's availability, and we always need players! Lilith Ivory is working on new Tricots for our AA citizens.. the tournament could be very interesting this year. If you are interested in being Captain, recruiter, ref, or player, we need you. No experience required!
5. Self Governance Symposium. Jamie is leading this new "serious" side of CDS and so i'll leave the manpower list to him.. but definitely we will need CDS citizens to greet, answer questions and more. If this is where your interest lies, let me know and i'll give the list to Jamie to contact.
6. Market. Moon Adamant has created new CDS LOW PRIM market stalls for us this year, and we need vendors to fill them up. We generally allow ten prims per stall, and will find room for as many was want them. We get lots and lots of traffic through this market, so if you have something to sell that fits into an oktoberfest market, take advantage! These stalls are available at no cost for the two weeks + of oktoberfest an we encourage merchants and NGOs to participate if you can.
7. Anniversary ball, closing party. The anniversary ball is formal, the closing party a place to polka one more time. Invitations, decorations, music, theme... all these need to be handled.
8. Special Invitation Days. We've been in contact with a few other sims who also hold oktoberfest, and they are interested in trading sponsored days. These should be weekdays, and we would designate one day for "them" to come to us, and another for "us" to go to their sim. Sims that don't do oktoberfest are also more likely to visit and promote to their residents if we designate certain days as "welcome other sim" days. A coordinator for this would be helpful too.
7. Other events. Last year we tried a triathalon, which didn't go so well. If we want to try again, we need help here too We had a day for open mic, where musicians worked for tips. Also, the Carnival rides... ferris wheel, carousel, dunking booth and the like are in limbo depending on the number of prims we can find. it is possible this part of Oktoberfest will have to be located in another sim.... if you love any of these and want to see them continue, let us know, and you can work on it!
As you can see, the number of things we try to accomplish in this span of 15 days would require full time plus work from any one person, but just a few hours each if we spread the work around. Please look over the list and drop me a notecard, im, or email with your interest. (rose dot springvale at gmail dot com)
And if you have other ideas... or input of any kind, you know how to reach me!
Thanks!
Rose