THE GREATEST CLUB: Marathon Results

There is no greater club than yours. This marathon was never going to change that.

But just for the sake of it, here are the final results of your sweaty-keyboard-filled week. A big congratulations to all of you for making this such a success and representing your club so faithfully and fiercely.

42 poets from 5 different clubs submitted 1248 poems over 6 days. Phenomenal effort.

Now for the prizes:

GREATEST CLUB QUALITY: 1000 points

This award goes to THE CLUB with an overall average of 8.06 (187 poems entered).
Honourable Mention (100 points) to FRAGMENTS OF POETRY with an average of 7.65 (350 poems entered).

GREATEST TEAM PLAYER: 1000 points

This award goes to LARRY CHAMBERLIN from LIKE THE FLOWING RIVER. He submitted far more poems than anyone else in his team, posted a poem at almost every opportunity presented, was present during almost every HH, and still managed to maintain a high average. It was clear he was a leading force within his club.

Honourable Mention (100 points) goes to MERA LUNA from FRAGMENTS OF POETRY for her indomitable presence, submitting the most poems during the marathon: 91 poems with a high average of 8.27.

GREATEST TEAM SPIRIT: 1000 points

This award goes to MOONLIGHT MUSES. Almost every team member in this team was involved in the contest, and this involvement was fairly even for most members. This team did not need to sacrifice any members to generate their activity nor use their Amnesty. They also submitted the most poems as a club: 361, which also gave them the highest raw score (without any bonus points).

Honourable Mention (100 points) goes to LIKE THE FLOWING RIVER for having a large, diffuse team across various time zones yet resisting the urge to eliminate more members than was absolutely necessary- even going to the extent of the club leader, Ms Sunshine, sacrificing herself before her peers.

And now for the final scores...it was close. But the figures don't lie.

Please bow down before the Greatest Club of PnQ....

*************FRAGMENTS OF POETRY************

This club showed power, precision, quality, strategic cunning and a strong force of group morale to battle their way at a rapid rate to the top after a slow start. Selecting their HHs with care, eliminating members to gain more activity and choosing the precise moments to strike with a consistency of sheer talent helped these gutsy heroes declare themselves the winners of The Marathon of the Great Clubs.

The runner-up: MOONLIGHT MUSES, coming closely behind.

Congratulations!!

I will post the breakdown of results below. Tomorrow, I will post your individual poem scores in your threads (if I really have to!).

But, for now, please congratulate FOP (come on... even if you don't want to!): what a magnificent display of talent and teamwork!

FOP: Speech, speech!

Heart attack in process.....

OMG.

Please, somebody call 911.

OVERALL SCORES:

First place- FOP: 7787 POINTS
(2677+4410 bonus points+500 HHH prize+100 best quality HM+100 best team player HM)

Second place- MM: 7718 POINTS
(2730+3988 bonus points+1000 best team spirit)

Third place- LTFR: 5830 POINTS
(2324+2406 bonus points+1000 best team player+100 team spirit HM)

Fourth place- TC: 5788 POINTS
(1508+2530 bonus points+ 500 HHH prize+250 HHH prize+1000 best quality prize)

Fifth place- WTMNIS: 267 POINTS
(239+28 bonus points)

OVERALL CLUB AVERAGES AND QUANTITIES:

First Place- TC: 8.02 (187 poems)
Second Place- FOP: 7.94 (337 poems)
Third Place- MM: 7.56 (361 poems)
Fourth Place- LTFR: 7.35 (316 poems)
Fifth Place- WTMNIS: 7.03 (34 poems)

TOP TEN POETS:

sibyllene- TC: 8.93 (42 poems)
slighte- FOP: 8.42 (64 poems)
Mera Luna- FOP: 8.27 (91 poems)
Michael D Nalley- LTFR: 8.18 (17 poems)
Monster- TC: 8.16 (37 poems)
Colm- FOP: 8.13 (38 poems)
Larry Chamberlin- LTFR: 8.12 (56 poems)
Melpomene- MM: 7.86 (66 poems)
Hellon- TC: 7.84 (43 poems)
Luanne- MM: 7.78 (64 poems)

SITE AVERAGE: 7.44 (1248 poems)

If you would like to know your personal average or any other stats, please let me know.

By Royal Order of Her Majesty the Queen is FOP's first speech by the only other one online in FOP.. (The Queen is busy weeping into a bucket. She'll need a moment.)

Well.. Er.. *stage fright*

On behalf of FOP I'd like to thank THE QUEEN and MERA LUNA for the lead and encouragement throughout the week and writing some pretty kick ass poems. Also to everybody in FOP who wrote poems, whether they were submitted or not, and those who couldn't make it this week because we love all of you. Your positivity and enthusiasm has been amazing.

Also a huge congrats to all the other clubs for their awesomeness too, everybody deserves some of the cake that's currently being passed around at FOP ^^

Anddddd finally to ABBYYYYYY who is just awesome. 1248 poems judged?! Somebody should probably be offering you counselling right now. On another note, 1248 poems written in a week? Everybody, you are truly magnificent. Anddd back to Abby, stop being modest, you totally deserve all the thanks that is being given to you.

Right, well, that's all I can think of for now.. Have a nice relaxing week everyone :D

Congrats all :)

congrats LARRY !! XD

I'd like to know my average score.

Honestly I'm so damn proud of my club! All of the participants stayed up night and day to get everything done. They did such an amazing job!

All clubs did such a wonderful job and I want to congratulate everyone!

Wooooo!! Congrats FOP! Everyone did a great job. Thanks again, Abby, for making us crazy and taking so much time to do this!

Congratulations to all the winners and those who participated in this contest, though I wasn't able to participate in this contest, I think everyone is a winner; writing that many poems in a week, that's crazy and takes a whole lot of effort. I'm proud of all of you and proud of my club Fragments Of Poetry for raising our flag high on this site...Excellent job guys:)

FOP you guys were awesome in your win. It was like watching a Sherman tank rolling through scrub brush - and we were the scrubs. Special congrats to slighte & Mera. How the #$&@ do you post 91 poems?!

Congrats also to MM for your place, Mel & CD you're both awesome.

Thanks to all my team mates for LTFR's show. Congrats to Michael for his well deserved recognition - such quality insane humor is hard to maintain for a whole week. People who deserve great thanks are Meme and Abed who drove our team mercilessly.

I think you have overrated my performance, but I do thank you deeply, as I appreciate the warmth and camaraderie of my team. [Curse my zeros - should have been more careful about getting rid of poems once posted.]

I am very happy that Rania's self-sacrifice has been recognized. Though I am sorry Holly became ill, I was thrilled it resulted in Nana's return. Without her indomitable spirit, LTFR would have crumbled.

Congrasts to Sibs, who not only showed her customary quality, but also showed her face to us all!!! Abby, take a hint - turn around!

I agree that everyone won, the postings by each poet about their teammates shows that each club had an unbelievably transformative week. For myself, I have previously admired my club members, but now have come to love them. I bet most participants feel the same way. It would be a great thing to build upon in some way - once everyone has caught up in school, work & family. Maybe next summer. ;-)

Abby, you have had more gratitude expressed to you than anyone else ever, yet it is still not enough. I hope you caught my closing note to you. However, I would like to point out one thing. We probably know more about each person who participated, since we were forced to take inspiration from our own lives to meet your challenges. Also, there were probably more poems written about you than the next ten people cumulatively. Yet, we still don't know you. I think you should post an auto-biography by doing one submission to your poems for each of the 26 prompts you gave us. You are the most popular person here at this point and just reading these posts could bring down the server again. 8-)

Congratulations to everyone who participated, great work everyone and nice contest Abby. :)

Congratulations to all. And thank you so much to Abby, you did an amzing thing in waking this site up, I hope there are many more of these to come. A great moment in the history of PnQ

Congrats to all!

This is probably the best thing I've ever witnessed on the internet. How great it is to see people all over coming together to write poetry non-stop for a week! I've never written so much in such a short period of time and although most of my poems were crap, I've never felt so competent as a writer. The spirit on this site and the overall sense of community that has arisen as a result of this marathon is simply phenomenal.

HUGE round of applause to the top names and an even bigger one to Abby. Thanks so much for bringing so much life to PnQ.

^What they all said.

I was super impressed by the poems pouring out of the Club a few days back... only to have that volume absolutely DWARFED by the massive steamrollers of FOP, MM, and LTFR in these last few days. Normally I might be a tad jealous, but it was really fantastic to see the camaraderie and activity from pretty much everyone involved. Please, people, keep it up!

And Abby, I like Larry's idea. Surely as you were reading your 90th toilet poem, you caught yourself thinking "What is this? Mm, if only I could write 50 poems of my own..."

Congrates FOP, a well deserved win :)

Congrats FOP, Congrats Larry, aka the Poem Machine.

This is by far the most participation I have seen in a very long time. Outstanding! Abby, thank you very much for driving half the members of MM crazy, or at least more crazy than they already were. This was fun when I had the time to participate!

Someone catch up the Queen and drag her into the carriage, her corset has probably been too tight!

Hayley, you are hilarious, lol, and you told me you didn't score well on the funny-factor. =p

Seriously, I don't know what to say. I came home with no expectations, discovered this little shiny "Marathon Results" thread and actually read the whole first post quite calmly, without rushing my eyes to the end just to see the results.

The week went slow but the weekends were there for us, I was proud to chaperone all of these lovely people. :) Especially some of our newer members, such as Kips, Mya and Hayley.

I know there are a lot of our members out there who didn't get the chance to represent our Royal Asylum, whether it was out of free will or not, but something I truly have to appreciate is their Understanding. Members such as Melissa have tried to fill in some spots here and there whenever we were stuck, sadly life didn't allow her, but her effort was there!

I actually would like to thank a lot of members of my club, but I should stop being so egocentric for I have already done so in FOP, hehe.

I personally want to congratulate Moonlight Muses for their outstanding performance. They were fanged tigers during this contest. FOP and MM are actually tied together because we both flow forth from RTVW, so it was nice to meet these oldies (no offense =p) in a new storm at sea.

Also congratulations to The Club, which was quite scary when Abby declared war. With only 2 waiting rounds each, and an intense HH, they surely climbed the ladder fast. I haven't read much of the poems yet but Sibs' certainly were all sparkly, knowing that she's been crowned in other contest as well, it didn't surprise me that she managed to include a wisp of magic during this contest.

Like the Flowing River, well, that was some shocking storm. Your activity level is certainly high and I can see that you are a close family. I don't know when it happened but at some point you just sky rocketed to the top.

Where the Moon Nests its Serenades, damn your club name is long. It was sad to see your club leader considering to step out of this contest, but after she decided not to, you wrote some pretty nice poetry. I guess this just wasn't your most luckiest time since illness has occured, but you should be proud of yourself for the bond you have within your club.

And, last but not least, Abby: you have written history. No other contest has ever had so many participants. You brought us together and probably had to go through many sleepless nights judging poetry, counting the scores and keeping your never-ending humour alive. You are a perfect host, for being so damn organised and for keeping us all sweet with your entertaining speeches. Well done!

Hahaha, Larry ... Well, when I first counted my amount of poems I couldn't believe it, because that's probably more poems than I have ever submitted during my PnQ life. I actually can't remember what I've written anymore, everything is such a daze.

Can't wait to see the points per poem, it didn't surprise me that some of my quality had dropped because most of the laps were improvised, lol.

Congrats FOP for a very well deserved win. You guys are and always will be AMAZING !!!

Congrats to each and every person who entered this marathon. It truly was amazing and brought such life and excitement to these boards again ... so much that even the server needed a little CPR... lol

I love my MMs muahhhhhhhhhh

Great job each and every team. And a special thank you to Abby. You deserve a crown too darlin

10000000 points go to Abby for PnQ spirit, great organizational skills, the most entertaining posts and THE GREATEST CONTEST to ever hit PNQ

Now I must run because my cat
is chasing a squirrel and
I must use the toilet before I go
outside to enjoy nature ...
now that it is fall
and all the insects are gone.
then off to work to do some cooking ....

How Luanne is able to write a poem with multiple prompts, I don't know. These words make me shoot blood out of my eyes lol

I SWEAR THIS IS THE BEST CONTEST EVER! OF ALL DAMN CONTESTS, ABBY YOU SHOULD BE THE HOST OF EVERY CONTEST ON HERE ...YOU ARE AMAZING....ahhhhh maaaaayyyyy zinnggggggggg

wow!!!!!

wait a minute, FOP my old club....i love u uuuuuuuuuuuuuuu i love u alllllllllll mera luna myryn slighte and omg whooo elsee......ur all amazingggggg .....

myryyyyyyyyyyyyyn
this is a kiss on ur lips from me to u

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMWA

i love uuuuu

good work everyone and thanks for the fifth place hahahaahahha

great contest......great contesttttt :)

Abby this was so fun, i cannot believe how much efforts you've put to get done with this contest and all the calculations and organizations! so thank you again.
congrats FOP, and MM, Tc..you've really proven that you do have poets with high qualifications!

thank you Larry :) and LTFR for doing all the efforts, for the sake of the club.

I believe all the clubs are winners!

Why does myryn get a kiss on the lips and I don't? -_-

Congrats everyone! FOP, awesome job! You guys deserve it!
Everyone is a winner. ;)

This one is for everyone....AND on the lips:

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Abby: "Tomorrow, I will post your individual poem scores in your threads (if I really have to!)."

Oh, my dear, but of course.

HEHEHE [evil laughter]

Thank you for these absolutely fantastic speeches, Hayley and Luna as well as to Mandy and Azzza. You are all amazing! <3

First off, I want to congratulate everyone who had participated in this contest, with their beautiful and creative submissions, but most especially to those top 10 poets who stood out, you are all FANTASTIC!

The great things about this contest are behind the scene. Abby might seem to manage her tasks readily with ease, but how many times did she pass out on the keyboard? We would never know. All clubs displayed an amazing show of courage and determination to gather so many poems, but most importantly, those other critical elements of team work success that were displayed.

Having said that, I would like to thank and congratulate my lovely Foppers, our club could not have done it without you, so proud of you all, and I love you, guys. <3, and most importantly, for the FRIENDSHIP. Thank you for believing....GO FOP!

And finally to Abby, thank you for bringing a warm atmosphere to every club and this site, and hopefully to see the rest of the PnQ members participating in the future.

BURP!..awww..pardon my french ..but that was one fulfilling kiss. (:

I ended up falling asleep before the results were posted, but it was nice to wake up to them this morning.

Congratulations FOP, you came out of nowhere and really kicked us in the nuts. Most impressive! MM, we should've known you were holding trix up your sleeves, ready to unleash poetic chaos. TC, I'm very proud of my club, and I'm not ashamed of all the sh*t-talking we did, even if we didn't win ;) It's expected for us to be arrogant, and we didn't let anyone down!

Sibs... oh my sweet Bill. You are the driving force behind our high overall average. I thank you for that. We came in second to last, but we kept our quality up. That's something. We won at something!!!! :D :D :D :D:D:D::D hahaha

Hellon, honorary member, you did us proud. TC is exactly where you belong.

Abby, I'm smiling a weird smile over all this praise of you, scratching my head and thinking... but Abby has always been a superwoman, so what's all this? TC takes for granted that you do heroic things on a regular basis.
Nonetheless, thanks a million for all the things you're being thanked for. You're to blame for this activity, gaiety and mushy, gushy, fun-loving assembly (it's enough to make me siiiick!). I'm perplexed as to how you read such a ferocious amount of poems in such a short time. I have to ask - when reflecting on all you've read, what are several poems you clearly remember, say for impacting beauty, hilarity, or OMGWTF absurdity?

Finally, I want to reiterate that while drama may fuel the engine of PnQ, it can be good drama. This is the epitome of healthy, positive drama that benefits us all as individuals, as clubs, and as one solid, breathing, moving PnQ body.
Congratulations to everyone who participated. You did good!
-Wipes away tear-

^^
Speechless to that above post.

Anywhoo..

I am proud of FOP. Just going to put that out there.
Especially thankful of Luna and Myryn's amazing leardership, commitment, and of course, their awesome improvised poems. :D

And yes, Luna. I shall blow you away with my wordy winds. :D<3

Also, Larry, who apparently devoted every last magical word to his fabulous poems! Great job, sir. :)

Abbyyy!
This was an outstanding contest, and I do believe this would have been such a boring week if it wasn't for your Marathon.

Not really else I can type,
being that i'm hungry and it's time for dinner.

P.S. I'd like to know my stats and what not.

Congratulations FOP,,,all ur team work and hard work really paid off and got a deserved win and hope all enjoyed the contest as much as I did or more :) and a congratulations to everyone else for their hard work and I bet all poems were fantastic givin the fact I read some and they were awesome so a big pat on the back and congratulations again :) :) great happiness for all ur days and special thanxs to Abby for her hard work and making the contest :) thanxs

Yes, I do feel better acquainted with you all, reading these little glimpses into your way of thinkng. I am posting some of the countless poems that made my eyes unglaze and blink with wonder. Please add your own below.

(Larry, I actually thought of that idea too...I might just do it!)

------------------------------

Lap 14
Round 13
Magic

Magic is nothing more
than, merely, a soul
unaware of its thrumming,
a fern before unfurling,
a glint of dust in a library
filled to the brim
with unopened books.

--sibyllene

Lap 4
Round 13
Toilet

The Drop Zone

Many times you saw me
with my hair astray and
tears sparkling in my eyes,
yet you always kept our secret.

You were always there
to lean on
when I needed you most
and always listened as
I cussed and swore that I
would NEVER do this again.
And not once did you lecture me
when yet again ... I lied to you.

You never complained when
I spilled that margarita
on your lap, nor fussed
when I left my last
jello shooter on your seat.

Oh we had many good times
my friend,
though sadly you have only seen
the worst parts of me.

Yet like a true friend
you kept our secrets
in "the little girls room"
to yourself, never lectured
nor complained,
and flushed away every bit of
evidence of our wild crazy nights
with a flick of the finger.

My dear porcelain buddy
even though I am all grown up now
I will never forget those days
we spent together ...

hugging

--Luanne

Lap #11
Round #1
21 Syllables

Jessica always
interrupts me
just when I'm right
in the middle
of raising her

--Larry Chamberlin

Lap 13
Round 13
Toilet

Dr. Doom Doesn't Doo

Do you think that
super villains have toilets?
Not me, they're too badass.
I bet they
make their cronies dispose of it
or perhaps they are so
powerful that they
process all of their food
that they
do not need to do the doodoo.
I don't think that villains poo,
and if they do,
I bet it comes in the form
of more super villains.

--Monster

Lap #3
Round 1
(21 syllables)

Impossible watermelon
invisible alligators
nest, rest, crept too fox

--Innocent Fairy

Round 5
Lap 5
microscope

Dropping Biology

First period, monday
morning, and the bio teacher
is ranting
about the fish on our tables
waiting to be dissected
and put under the microscope.
All I want to do
is take my fish,
put it in her mouth,
and leave.

--slighte

Dammit. I just got in trouble at work due to my laughing so much at slighte's poem! Hahahaha.

Larry's short one up there is just perfect.

I was thinking the same thing, Sibs.

I'm inspired to go through and read all the poems submitted by other clubs. I've only read a few so far. Slighte's stood out to me, and a few of Luanne's.

MyaEve: "Speechless to that above post."
Wait, is that good or bad? :S

Larry's poem was probably my favourite from the entire contest.

I had to chuckle at the many poems literally going "ABBY!! WHY? WHYYYY?????" And all the "I cannot write, dude. My brain just farted and shat inside my head. This ain't no good."

To M&M, thanks for keeping me going in this. At 1am I said I desperately needed sleep and you know the response they gave me "Have coffee" ... I didn't get an okay have a lovely night, it was a where the hell do you think you're going style response, mind you they managed to keep me there till 4. Love you all.

"They were fanged tigers during this contest. FOP and MM are actually tied together because we both flow forth from RTVW, so it was nice to meet these oldies (no offense =p) in a new storm at sea."

`Too true Cynnie, the little conversation we had the day before the marathon ended was a perfect example of the spirit both M&M and FOP have. Cynnie & I were actually sending good luck back and forth to one and other via pm lol! A big congratulations to FOP for their impressive performance, you may not of had big numbers but you all definitely have big skills. Nor would be quite proud, I can't imagine if she was online during this, we probably would of been teasing one and other for days soooo I'm glad she's off studying =P

TC: I expected nothing less with your arrogant attitude haha! Must say thanks for making M&M work just that bit harder, our competitiveside kicked in and we couldn't help but have that urge to race TC to the very end. You quality of poems were outstanding I've been reading through them over the past few days, impressed as always.

FTFR: honestly I have know idea what happened but you had M&M shaking in their boots, I go to sleep and you had very few poems, I wake up and you have steam rolled over all the teams... you were one of the main reasons this Aussie lost a lost of sleep. Great effort and a big pat on the back to Larry!

WTMNIS: Did I get that right? haha. It was nice to see you all playing even under all the circumstances! It was also great to see you get on here and have some fun and write poems because you were enjoying it. I believe you are the baby family of the clubs, some older members yes but new when it comes to forging together, good to see the bond you all have.

Abby, I'm starting to think you're some sort of Math Goddess. Sending you some of my uni homework when it involves numbers ;) Thanks for running such a breathless contest.

It was great to see a lot of members participate, would of loved to see PR hit the main boards and have some fun but to all those who entered you rocked this, be proud.

"At 1am I said I desperately needed sleep and you know the response they gave me "Have coffee" ... I didn't get a okay have a lovely night, it was a where the hell do you think you're going style response, mind you they managed to keep me there till 4."

Hahahaha.... I can so see that happening.

Until I joined M&M, I wasn't very active on PnQ, even though I've been on here for years.

So I'd like to thank M&M for letting me be a part of their club, welcoming me in, and inspiring me to get more active! You guys are really great, and I love you all, and the closeness that I find in our little club. Love it. I'm very sorry I couldn't represent us better at the end of the contest, my computer was broken, and I missed this thing so much!!

On that note, I'd like to give a shout out to Abby, I definitely feel closer to the site now, and I'd like to tell you that this contest absolutely blew my mind. It made me think, and it really opened up the doors to all the other poets out there. I LOVE PnQ and love all of you, as well!

this contest was amazing. I'd totally do it again

Also, I'd love to see my individual scores, when you have time of course, Abs :)

I can't believe you handled all of this alone

I still get the idea that we were all part of some great scientific study on stress conducted by Abby.

I'll bet she's a college biology teacher and assigned each club to one class to analyze the poems, not for scoring - she did that, but to find out which of us broke after how long.

Haaaaa...it was definitely a bit of an experiment, Larry.

I'm a neuroscientist, by the way. Or was.

As for the individual scores: there are two options that will work out the most convenient for me, as well as be more accurate. I have all your scores on a spreadsheet (I don't have to be good at maths, the sheet calculates everything). Unfortunately, my spreadsheet doesn't transfer well here- it comes as a single list instead of a table.

I can PM your club's result to your leader (or post it here). It will be a looooooong list. This will be by round number with the score next to it. It won't have the poet name, but you'll be able to figure it out when looking at your club threads.

Alternatively, I can PM you your own list of scores and overall average.

Let me know what's best for you.

Thanks, folks.
I showed this thread to Jessica last night.