Christian broke into a huge grin and clapped his hands excitedly. "Yes! Exactly!" Surveying the spill damage, the sprinkles he had managed to grind into the floor, and then his watch, Christian sighed.

"I do think our party time has come to an end, I'm afraid.
He gestured then to the snack table. "Take whatever you want and feel free to mingle a little more, if you'd like, but I will need to close up the room soon."

He turned to make his way over to grab a glass of pumpkin juice when he suddenly remembered. "Oh! Also, we will be having an Education Fair shortly and I hope to see you all there. And after that... we'll be having a little contest here on Level Six. So watch the notice board!"

And with that, Christian gave a little hop and made his way over to the table.

Royce walked into the conference room wondering if s he was in the right place. It seemed she was the fist one there and that was never the case for Royce. She ran 20 minutes behind the rest of the world no matter what she was doing or where she had to go. She tried and tried to work on that but it never failed that she was going to be late.

She picked a seat near one of the enchanted windows. She sat down and waited for the rest of her broom jockeys to arrive.

Laura twirled the key from Mr. Trumbull around in her fingers as she walked into the Conference Room. The department head had given them the go, and she couldn't wait to get started and hear all the ideas her employees had to offer. Tucking the key safely into an outer pocket on her bag, she noticed that someone had already arrived. Yay!

"Oh, good to see you, Royce," she said brightly. The competition was putting her in good spirits and she hoped it would do the same for her employees. "So I take it you got my owl. Are you excited to get to work?" Ahem. Who wouldn't be? Laura dropped her bag on the floor next to on of the chairs around the mahogany table and sat down.

Full of excitement and anticipation for the new competition, Valeria strolled into the Conference Room. What a perfect time to join the Transportation Department! As she walked across the room, she noticed Laura was already there. She waved at her with a smile, and sat down at a seat a few down from Laura. She had been trying to come up with some ideas for the competition, but so far had no luck. She would have to work on that, or at least contribute to other peoples' ideas. She was more of a practical than creative person, but that didn't stop her from trying or enjoying it!

Laura heard the sound of someone else entering the room. Great, more people were coming! She looked up to see Valeria making her way into the conference room and smiled at the other woman. "Hello, Valeria," she said cheerily. So that made... three of them. Laura looked up at the door to see if maybe there was someone else coming in. Eh.

"Well, guess we're still waiting for a couple more Broom Regulators and all of the Portkey workers to join us. Then we can start brainstorming," she said with a nod. Yep, they'd be here soon. Oh! And that reminded her. Laura reached down to where her bag sat on the ground beside her and pulled out a box of treacle tarts and some napkins. Just in case anyone was hungry.

Or if anyone just wanted a little sugar.

She set them down on the table and looked around at the others again. "Treacle tart?" she offered, gesturing to the box. Taking one for herself, Laura held it in a napkin in one hand and leaned back in the chair. "So, do either of you have any ideas on our project yet?" she asked. The possibilities were endless! What they really needed was to narrow it down to which direction they were going in, whether it be a skit or a sculpture.

Armen hurried down the hallway towards the large Conference Room from the work area. He knew Laura and a few others had beat him there already, but he had to put some papers away and shoot a memo to his friend on Level 3 . So after that he finished his walk to the room his team would be working on and opened the door. He smiled to the others that were in the room and walked across the room to sit at the opposite end of the long table from Luara, winking at her when he sat. They were sitting at the two heads of the table of a great family and team.

He scanned the faces of the employees there and sunk in his chair a bit when he saw none of them were his, but they would come soon. "Hey guys! Are you all excited to get started?" he asked them with a wide grin.

OOC: Since we have limited time to decide and work on our project, how about we just go ahead and start, and everyone else can pretend they've already been here? We can catch people up as they come.

Laura had been slowly picking apart her food and munching. Not loudly, of course. That would have been very impolite. Not in some countries, though. She had heard of places in, what was it, the Middle East where it was rude to not eat loudly.

It wasn't long before she was pulled out of her thoughts by the entrance of her fellow division head."Oh, hello Armen! Treacle tart?" she said when she noticed he had walked in. She beamed at him. "Great. So now I think we can kick things off. What say you we start with a quick introduction from everyone?" she suggested. "Just tell us your name and any ideas about where you think our project could go." Yep, that should knock out two birds with one stone. Not everyone was from the same division, so they needed to get to know one another. Also, they needed to get an general idea of what to do for the competition.

"I'll start out! Hi everybody, I'm Laura Miller and I've been recently appointed division head of Broom Regulatory. Overall, I've been at the Ministry for several years now." Then, she paused for a moment in thought. "I was really drawn to the idea of sculpting something. Brooms and Portkeys are both object-like, so that's an advantage. And also, creating a sculpture could allow us to mix together the elements of both modes of transportation."

Royce sat taking notes. She wasn't terrible creative like everyone else seemed to be but she was a team player and she would jump right in with both feet and help out however she could. She nodded at Laura's idea. It was a good one.

Armen took up the figurative 'talking stick' and began to introduce himself. "Well i think all of you here know me, but I will go along with the wonderful Miss Miller's plan here." he winked and flashed a grin to his fellow Division Head. "Well I started in the Ministry a while a go now and have been in the Transportation Department the entire time! I started out in the Apparation Divsion and spent the majority of my career in there, until about a year and a half ago I was appointed to the position of Division Head of Portkeys." He took a breath and then thought over his ideas for the Competition.

"Ok so I, like you all, am very excited about our little friendly comeptition and regardless we must remember this is meant to have fun and get to know each other." he then leaned in to the people at the table as if afraid to be overheard, wearing a mischevious smile. "I want us to win though, don't you?"

"Ok wel I have a few ideas for our work. I agree with Laura on the ide for a sculpture." he nodded. "I think that because our forms of Transportation, Brooms and Portkeys, are so tangible, a sculture would be perfect. I think the layout of the sculpture should be easy, but we want to make sure we get it right." he pulled out a piece of parchment and began to scetch. "So I was thinking having several types of brooms sticking up in the middle on a large cube base. And then we can filter in various items that would be the Portkeys around the brooms, even having some on the tops of the broom handles. And we could think of the most comical ones for this sculpture." he nodded enthusiastically.

Laura laughed and reflected Armen's mischievous smile. "Yes, I think we all want to win," she said. She clapped her hands together. "Which is why we're going to put all our efforts into this project."

She leaned over to take a look at what Armen was drawing, glad that he had agreed with her sculpture idea. "It looks good," she said with a nod. "My division can use pictures of different broom models to sculpt the brooms in the center." She reached for her bag and pulled out a file containing the pictures. "What are we using? Clay?"

Armen watched as Laura began to dig in her purse for the broom designs they could use for the project. He was estactic that they were actually getting somewhere.

When she agreed with his drawling of the set-up of the sculpture, he nodded and listened as she went on to the details of the actual things. "Well I think clay is the best choice personally. It's easier to work with and a LOT easy to fix if we mess up." he laughed. He then began to think out loud, "What type of portkeys do we want to work into the art piece? Maybe a toy train, or muggle airplane; they would accent on the actual theme of Transportation. Any other suggestions?" he said looking around at the employees present.

She wasn't a Portkey employee, but Laura wanted to put in her two cents worth on the Portkey aspect of the sculpture. "I'd really like to see an old boot sort of hanging from the top of one of the broomsticks," she said, pointing to the location she was speaking of on Armen's drawing. Hehe, old boots were like the stereotypical Portkey.

Spreading the pictures of the broomstick models on her end of the table, Laura looked around the room. "Where are we going to find clay?" she asked.

Armen chuckled at Laura's suggestion of an old boot Portkey making its way into the sculpture. "Oh no problem Laura! That's a perfect idea. It's the classic Portkey that will also clue in our judges what the random items are right off the bat. Good job!" he grinned adding it to the drawling he had; that was a definate!

And then came the question of materials. Hmmm...he thought of this a week or so ago didn't he? Oh yeah, "Well I know where we can go to get clay! I went to the city the other day to look for ideas and possible places to get materials and I came across this great arts and crafts store; ad I remember specifically a sculpting section in the back. I can pop down there now. We can take a break while I am gone. It's really not that far." he nodded. He stood up and grabbed his long coat to cover his robes for he was going into Muggle London.

"Great!" Laura said. An arts and crafts store? How convenient! While Armen was gone, she would have to find something to occupy herself and the rest of the team with. She looked around, eyes settling on her broomstick pictures. Smiling, she picked them up and scooted her chair over to where her employees were gathered. "While Armen's out getting the clay we need, you can choose which models we want in our sculpture. We'll use the classics, obviously, and anything you think looks the best. We can probably fit around four brooms," she said, sliding the pictures over to them to look at.

After addressing her employees, Laura moved back over to the end of the table where Armen's sketch sat. She plopped down in a seat and eyed the drawing. She knew she wasn't a very good sculptor. There was no way she was shaping brooms and Portkeys. She looked around at the others, wondering if any of them were good artists. Hmm, there had to be a spell or charm that would be helpful in some way. "Does anyone know any charms that could be helpful in creating our sculpture?" Laura asked the room. "We don't want to make the entire thing using magic." Where was the fun in that? And plus, it was probably sort of cheating.

Hearing Laura's instructions, Valeria spoke up. "Ooh, Laura, I really like this idea!" she nodded and then thought about which brooms would be significant and which charms could be effective. "Well, I was thinking, we should have a variety of brooms obviously, not just racing brooms, right? So let me think... Well the Comet 260 is about the most common-looking broom I can think of, so we could probably use that... And then maybe the Firebolt, because it's the fastest, most coveted broom, of course... Then maybe we should go a bit old school. All that's coming to mind at the moment is the old Shooting Star, but someone else could probably find something even older that would add more contrast and variety to the brooms, which I think is important to add interest to the composition... And, well, I suppose we should have more than just racing brooms, so what about the, er, Bluebottle I believe it's called. It's made for the purpose of simple travel, specifically for families and was the first broom to have a security system included....." She realized now that she was going on and rambling, and she starting to feel awkward, considering she'd just started here a few weeks prior. She quickly looked at Laura and then to her coworkers to see their reactions, and then spoke up, "Er, well, I mean that's just what came to mind for me. It might not work at all. But I just figured some diversity in the piece would be best, right...?" She realized now that she had stood up, having gotten so into discussing her ideas, and she felt her face get hot and slid back into her seat.

Laura looked up and smiled broadly at Valeria as she listened to her explain her thoughts about the brooms they should use in the sculpture. "Those are some great ideas!" she said, nodding. "You're right, we should definitely use a variety of different brooms to better represent our division of transportation. Nice work." Then, she looked around at her other Broom Regulators. "Anyone agree or disagree? Any more ideas you might have?" she asked. They had to decide on this is a division.

Christian bounded into the room.

"Halllo! How's the planning coming?" Sliding into a seat next to Laura, he rested his hands on the table.

"So, tell me tell me. What speaks to you about transportation?"

Laura flipped through the last few broomstick pictures in her hands and set them down on the table. It seemed as though no one had any objections to the current choices. So, that settled it. She put away all the files minus the four that had been picked. These, she laid out on the table and slid to her employees.

"Alrighty, when we've got the materials we need, we'll get started on sculpting the brooms. I'm assuming that Armen's division will be taking care of making sculpting the Portkeys," she said. "Does anyone have any experience or talent at sculpting? Or does anyone just really like it?" she asked, looking around. She wasn't amazing herself, but she would definitely help out. Again, she wondered if they were allowed to use any charms or something to help make the models they created a little more detailed. Ahh, and perfect! Laura had noticed Mr. Trumbull's arrival. She could ask him.

"Hello, Mr. Trumbull," she said. "Planning's going great. We've already got an idea underway." Here, she picked up Armen's sketch of the sculpture they would be attempting to pull off and placed it on the table in front of the department head. "This is the idea for our sculpture. See, there will be a block base on which four broomsticks will stand. Then, we'll have several objects incorporated in. Like a toy airplane and a boot, because they represent transportation too." She pointed to all the areas she spoke about. "Armen's fetching some materials for us now," Laura explained, quickly glancing at the door.

"Oh, can I also ask you a question about our project?" she asked, turning back to Mr. Trumbull.

Nina was all new to this and so she was excited and nervous at the same time.
She thought that Ms. Laura's idea was brilliant and can't wait to begin working on the project.

Christian looked around, observing the work that had occurred.

Drumming his hands on the table, his look was solemn.

"Well, I came over to check on you, and to let you know that we have to call the competition to a close. There's something else rather important that we all need to work on. Hopefully, we'll be able to get back to the fun in the future, though."

Standing, he shrugged his shoulders. "I'll be calling a meeting soon, so keep an eye out. I should go let the others know."

And with that, he headed out the door.

Sifting through sculpture ideas in her head, Valeria was interupted by Mr. Trumbull's sudden presence. She listened to his words, and let them sink in. Wait...what? The competition was just....cancelled? She blinked. What could have come up, she wondered, that would warrant this? She supposed it must be very urgent, and she would find out in due time. Though, it was a shame that the competition had to be called off. She had been looking forward to the friendly game among the divisions. She noted how Mr. Trumbull's mood seemed much more solemn than the times she had previously seen him, and wondered again what was going on. Patience is a virtue, she thought, and decided to just wait until he called said meeting.

The Department Head of magical Transportation, Armen Recard, walked into the Level 6 Conference room and laid his papers and folders on the large surface of the Mahogany desk infront of the head chair. He sat down in the comfy office chair, but on the edge because he was too nervous to get comfortable, while the room was empty he used two fingers to feel the two, 4-inch burns running down the left side of his face, thinking about the meeting he was about to hold.

After a journey of cleaning and fixing desks and some personal belongings, Cris couldn't help but thing where was his box of his OWN things. Cris hadn't settled yet! He blinked, althought it was not time to look for them, it was time for a meeting, a level wide conference with the rest of the department. Sigh. So, he took a quill and parchment and headed towards the conference room. When he entered, Cris finally met the Department head. And his scars.

Oh wow. "Hello, Mr. Recard..." Cris greeted and took a seat.

Armen was no going over in his head what he would have to tell his employees and thinking it over, it wouldn't be too bad actaully. It might even be fun to get out of the Ministry and work for a while. They would probably like it too. He thought hopefully.

Then the first of his employees arrived. The Department Head ahd expected it to be one of his Division Heads first but was pleasantly suprised when it was a new employee. He stood up and walked over to the man sitting not too far away. "Oh hello there Cris! Great of you to come so ready to work!" he grinned, shaking his and ignoring the small glance at his scars. "I know you are new here and don't really know alot of the others, so that is why I am going to have a chance for everyone to introduce each other when everyone else arrives." He said taking his seat at the head of the table again.

Iris was finally on the right level now. Well, she was sure she was, the old woman was beginning to get extremely tired and a little cranky. She saw a few people walk into a room, coming closer to the room she saw the door read Conference Room.

Surely someone in there knows if I'm in the right spot. She thought taking a step into the room and knocking on the door just to be polite. "Excuse me." She said clearing her throat as she looked around the room. "I don't know if I'm in the right spot." She explained, hoping that whoever was in charge around here would step up right that moment.

Not waiting for an answer, Iris moved her 72 year old body over to the long table and took a seat in one of the black chairs and gave a sigh of relief. "Merlin, my joints are hurting today!" She exclaimed as she rubbed her knee lightly through the nice pair of tan slacks she was wearing, specifically bought for her first day on the job.