Well well well, Gerard waas indeed happy to see that someone was feeling cheerful like he was today. "It's great to meet you too, sir. I'm very happy to be here." He said brightly and almost stuck out his hand for the guy to shake. But, er.. it looked like he was having a good old sit down on the floor first. Well at least he felt a lot more comfortable in this department already. He smiled and nodded, taking a quick glance back at the refreshments table.

Jamie shook Leo's hand, then looked up herself at the ceiling. It was a really wonderful color! "Oh, yes! The ceiling does look brilliant!" she said enthusiastically, before taking a seat at the conference table, where the people where starting to gather.

''I guess i am fine thanks'' Ryan replied trying to ignore how tired he was feeling today. If one could ignore a fact enough, it would not be a fact anymore, would it be? Everything started and ended in our brains and if one was concentrated enough to refuse a negative affect enter our brains, no negative effect would be present in out moods. Or at least Ryan thought that way.

And lying down there it looked like no negavite thoughts could affect Mr Buena now since he thought everything was wonderful. Great then! Smiling down at his boss the blond man looked up at the ceiling once the question was adressed to him. ''Hmmm...'' he thought over the idea carefully observing the ceiling ''A blue Abraxan would look beautiful there, i think.''

"Wonderful" said Oliver. "I did, although I might sleep here tonight seeing how well you slept makes me want to try it out" laughed Oliver. "Plus I won't have to worry about being late for work, since I'll be here already" said Oliver with a grin.

"Oh, thanks! And, I couldn't help but overhear you were thinking of painting a blue Abraxan on the ceiling? Well, I was thinking, since the round table was, like, a gift from Merlin and all that, and there's a round table in here, you could also paint some sort of, like, I dunno, something that reminds people of him?" Jamie fidgeted nervously. "Of course, an Abraxan would look amazing as well..."

Oliver thought about it for a minute and said "I think what we have the students do should depend on what year they are currently in at Hogwarts. For example we could have 1st and 2nd years paired together and have them do pretty basic magic and tasks, 3rd and 4th years paired together and have them review what they have already learned as well as some more challenging exercises. 5th and 6th years paired together and have them do more complex magic since they are either in their OWL year or about to be NEWT students. And finally the 7th years would be asked to do the more advanced magic and to test them on how much they learned at Hogwarts over the last seven years. And of course everyone will have to do some bits of writing about what they have learned at Hogwarts so far, no matter what year at Hogwarts they happen to be in" said Oliver. "It's not perfect, but do you think it is a good idea?" asked Oliver to his fellow employees.

Ronan smiled to Leo as he gave positive feedback to him and settled in to listen to the conversation.

'Oh Merlin, more talk of painting.' he thought and chuckled. Their department head sure liked to paint a lot of things. But now it was time to get down to business and he glanced to the young man Oliver, who was talking with Leo over the scavenger hunt that he had mentioned at the last conference of their department.

"I do agree with your grouping Leo, and I do think that the older students should help the younger students, but at the same time, I don't think it's ultimately fair to hold them back if they're trying to complete a task and thinking about saving a younger student's life at the same time." Ronan spoke up.

Oliver considered what Leo just said. "You make a good point" he said. "I certainly think that every year should participate because I don't want to make any students feel left out, maybe for the students in their third year and younger we could have some of the professors monitor them to make sure none of them get hurt" he said. "I also agree that having groups is a good idea, maybe we could split people up depending on what year they are in at Hogwarts. So 1st years have 4 or 5 groups, and 2nd years have 4 or 5 groups and so on. The only thing I think might turn into a problem is having the older students help out the younger ones because it will distract them if they are competing in their own hunt" said Oliver hoping his response was satisfactory.

Colman Dunne hadn't spoken up until this point because he hadn't really known what they had been speaking about. Still being new to the department, it was hard to catch up for him.

Right so a Scavenger Hunt they seemed to be having? That was all well and good but what sort of challenges were they going to be doing? Shouldn't they worry about that before they even think of all the grouping that was supposed to be going on?

"Excuse me," he spoke up, raising a hand slightly to grab everyone's attention. "I don't mean to be rude or anything, but we don't even know what the challenges are. Wouldn't that be helpful to think about first before we start thinking of all the pairings? I mean, that way we could figure out how to make the pairings of the students work where the older students can still be challenged as much as the young students."

Or was that wrong?

Ronan furrowed his brow as Leo went off to his office. He seemed to be in some sort of pain. But listening to what he had to offer, the young man thought over how they could figure out this problem because it seemed like they were actually hitting a point of disagreement.

"Another tricky thing is matching up the students. We don't want to have mutiny happen within the groups that are formed." Ronan added thinking that there might be some high strung students at Hogwarts who might not like to work with certain others.

"Do you think we could get groups together, of students that would want to work side by side and that way, we can also rely on the fact that the older students will want to look out for the younger students?" The young man glanced around the room for a yay or nay from the other employees.

"I certainly don't think that we'd make the challenges so hard that the students wouldn't get incredibly hurt. I'm just suggesting that if they were to duel other students in the challenges or perhaps try to battle a magical creature that wasn't in their level, the older students would be there to help them along." Ronan explained his thoughts.

"Professors will certainly want to be present because it is their job to make sure that the students of Hogwarts are safe." he also added. "I would really like to stick with the seven people per group theory as well. It'll make planning the events much more easier."

"I wouldn't want to put the responsibility of looking after younger students to be endowed on one person Ryan." Ronan said looking to his fellow division head. "In my head that doesn't seem fair." But he seemed to be doing a lot of talking, and he wanted feedback.

Oh someone else speaking up. Hmm he did seemed to have a point there.

"Well thank you Mister Dunne for your input. Perhaps you, along with the rest of the employees would like to come up with a few suggestions of what some of the challenges we could have the students do might be?" Ronan suggested with a soft smile.

Yes, that would get the creative juices flowing nicely.

Ronan looked over to Emmalee and smiled kindly. He knew from the first time that they had spoken to one another that she was a little timid and shy and maybe even a little frightened.

The young man thought of her as a little doe; he would just have to step cautiously around her so that she would get to trust him.

"Well to be honest, we would have to wait until Leo returns back from his office to see what his opinion of that might be. Considering that only students from years three and up are allowed into the town on a regular basis, there might be some conflict." Ronan explained.

"But that is an excellent suggestion." he smiled once more and turned to see if anyone else had suggestions of activities for the students.

"Oh well it's good that we'll have the connections with people that can help us out with all of this." Ronan said brightly and jotted down that idea on his pad before looking up once more as she suggested the lake for a challenge.

"The lake would be an excellent place for a challenge as well." he said smiling to Emmalee and jotted down that idea as well, his head spinning for what the students could do.

"How about anyone else, do we have suggestions?"

Oliver thought for a minute and said "Well for the older students there could a station in the scavenger hunt that is a bit like an obstacle course" said Oliver. "Instead of facing one difficult challenge they would have to make their way through performing simple tasks and spells. And we could have someone time them to see how fast they could through it as well as how successful they were in all of the tasks" said Oliver.

Gerard nodded and smiled. Yay, a friendly department head. Oh, snap. He noticed Gerard's interest of the food table. Ahem. "Thanks very much, sir." And with that, he slowly stepped backwards, towards the table and smuggled a cookie.

Moments of mindless nibbling had passed, and Gerard, being his lazy self, hadn't even began to join in with the discussion. In his defense, this WAS his first day on the job. But maybe he should put down these cookies and give his input.

"When you say 'unite the students', do you mean by their houses, or their age?" Well, from the sound of the conversation, everyone seemed to focuss on the age of the students. But in Gerard's mind, it was the houses that needed a bit of unity. "I mean, coming from my own experience at Hogwarts, I know that most groups of pals were from the same houses and often plotted against the others."

So maybe these gosh-darn houses shouldn't be so emphasised.

"Perhaps.... in these activities that we're discussing, the students could be put into groups, involving students from all the houses AND from all the year groups. Ohh, I don't know, activities that need a lot of thought and teamwork?" Kids these days were so competitive, it would SO work.

"Or maybe.." He said thoughtfully, "..one of the older students could be assigned a younger student." Perhaps not a 7th year paired with a 1st year. Because the older ones would obviously start picking on the younger ones or something. "I'm sure the older students would appreciate that kind of responsibility."

There. Wam bam. Two suggestions. Gerard had no idea whether any of them would mean anything to everyone else. But at least he was speaking now.

"Obstacle course, yes." Ronan said, jotting down Oliver's idea on his pad and then looking up to the young man. "Now what sort of obstacle course are you referring to? When I picture such a course I see what Muggles use in their army training. It will be strictly magic, right?"

Sure, Sophia hadn't been part of the ministry for a long time, but she had been part of the muggle world, and houses didn't mean anything to them!

"Hang on, it wouldn't be so bad if some of the obstacles didn't require magic. To bring the houses together we'd have to make them work with one another, there in it wouldn't be too bad if we had a couple of muggle obstacles! A couple of things to with logic, a few with bravery, something to do with being sly and a chance for the Hufflepuffs to show that they aren't just wimps. They can prove their loyalty in some of these obstacles, but if we made it all magical, the pure-bloods would have a upper hand, a lot of the muggle training courses are filled with determination and perseverance... plus teamwork. Personally, something that will challenge all of the houses, forcing them to rely on one another to get through it!" she was hoping the other people saw the logic in this.

Sophia sent a hopeful glance towards Gerard and Oliver, out of all the people here she thought them the more likely to understand where she was coming from!

Ronan looked over to Gerard and was about to speak up when he asked about whether it was more about houses or age. And then he began to speak up with suggestions, some already mentioned, but suggestions nonetheless.

"Yes, well we planned on doing what you said already; with the students from all houses and all ages." Ronan explained as he started to doodle a little bit on the pad he was writing on.

"And yes, I think we already decided that we are going to be asking older students to help along the younger students as well. We just want to make everything fair." he further said and added in, "Now, do you have any suggestions for certain challenges that they could do?"


Ronan turned to a new employee who seemed to appear out of no where.

"A good point there. After all, I am sure that there will be first years that are Muggleborn and therefore do not know a total lot about magic as compared to Pureblood." he said. "Perhaps a combination of both would be fairer." Ronan jotted the idea down and looked up at the woman.

He paused when she described how the Hufflepuff house would prove their worth. "Now miss, certainly you aren't suggesting that Hufflepuffs are wimps, right?" The young man was put off by that description because his mother had been a Hufflepuff.

"If you're so against the strictly magical obstacle course, then what sort of activities specifically do you suggest for us to do in its stead?" Ronan asked, a bit excited that they were actually having a debate about things now.

"I'm not implying that they are wimps, it's just the perspective other houses see them in, if you went to Hogwarts you must surely remember that, or have you already forgotten?" Sophia was offended, plainly and simply offended. "Most of my friends were Hufflepuffs, so I definitely know of their loyalty... the problem is most people don't!" yup, her friends would be happy if they were here!

"And for that second part, what we could we make them do... well in camp at the muggle schools they often made challenges were only one person could speak at times, then there's a game I once played with my friends, I forget what it was called but in it some people were blindfolded and weren't allowed to speak though could use their arms, others were allowed to speak and not use their arms. So those who could speak would guide those who couldn't see to but a bucket into a sort of circle that one wasn't allowed to step in."

She paused for a moment to think of something else... "Oh... and then there's an activity which I played when I was little, people have to walk over 3 planks of wood and attempt to get from point 'a' to point 'b' before the other group does, but if they touch the ground they have to go back to the start, so they have to work as a team to move the planks that they're standing on to get to different places..."

"Mine field is probably another good one, but we'd have to wait until they started to trust one another more or until all of them realized that teamwork was important and didn't want anyone to get injured!" now she just had to wait for a reaction.

Ronan near broke his pen at what this woman was saying. Gritting his teeth he ignored the statement about Hufflepuffs because that wasn't the point of the meeting. It was a sore subject for Ronan because he was emotionally attached to Hufflepuffs and was not one to discriminate. But he was going to keep his thoughts to himself and work on the task at hand.

Therefore, the young man set to writing down the ideas that she had to suggest. Apparently she was related to a Muggle or she wouldn't have known of all these challenges.

"Right, excellent ideas Miss." he said finishing up his notes and glancing to her. Ronan did not smile, but gave her a curt nod wondering when Leo would be coming back into the room. They all had so many ideas and so many unanswered questions to back them.

Ronan looked up from his pad to see Leo come back into the room. He smiled slightly, glad to see the man was alright.

"Yes, well we've got a fair bit of suggestions for both how the groups should be created as well as the challenges they will be doing and locations that they will have to do them at." he explained and then looked around the room to all the employees.

"I've think we've got a decent list going."

Sophia smiled slightly at his last sentence, he probably wasn't complimenting her but still, a small feeling of accomplishment filled her with joy. Before she could forget though she quickly pushed her black hair over her shoulder and reached for the pencil she kept behind her ear and quickly pulled a notebook out of her pocket. Opening it to the first page she began to quickly write notes.

Note to self: One of the heads is attached to Hufflepuffs and no matter how many fights I get into there is no need to insult them in front of him!

She then quickly flipped the page before someone got suspicious and jotted down some notes from the meeting before putting the pencil back behind her ear and pushing her hair to cover it. She looked up at the other man that walked in. Was he the other division head? No, better yet, was he going to hate her as well? Sophia mused over things while looking at the person... so to make things less odd... she smiled!

"I think that it should be an all magic obstacle course because while having muggle challenges involved would be quite amusing I fail to see how it improves or tests any of the students magical abilities." said Oliver Also and correct me if I'm wrong but I was thinking of designing this obstacle course for older students to see what they have learned since they first arrived at Hogwarts" he said. "Therefore I think it is safe to assume that all of the students participating in this particular challenge whether they be pureblood or muggleborn should know some magic by now. I'm not trying to bring down any of my fellow employees ideas but the whole idea of having muggle challenges seem a bit pointless to me" said Oliver.

Gayle had listened to the entire meeting quietly taking notes. She finally decided to contribute something. " I personally don't think the MUggle challenges would be pointless. To many wizarding children believe that the only way to accomplish a goal is by using magic, so a few challenges where they have to figure it out without magic could be a good thing."

I understand what your saying" said Oliver. "But at the same time the purpose of Hogwarts is to teach young witches and wizards how to use magic in the most useful way possible, and while I agree that the students at Hogwarts could learn from doing tasks without magic, I do not think during a school challenge is the appropriate time to do so" said Oliver.

Ronan glanced back and forth between all the employees as they discussed the topic of whether or not to do Muggle challenges or not. They all seemed to be split over the issue. He finally glanced to Leo, wondering if he was going to put his input in on whether or not they should do a mixture of challenges or stick to one side and another.

"If any of you remember the Ministry Challenge we had a year ago, there were elements of Muggle obstacles that were slightly added into the overall magical challenges as a whole. You've got to think that not everyone is going to want to do the physical fitness tests that Muggles sometimes do. We can do as some of you suggested, trivial things; mind games that make the students think and work together as a team." the young man spoke up, just wanting to share his piece and continue on writing out notes as he had been.

wow cian, you didn't notice until now? so sorry.
 

Ronan looked over to the woman who had just walked in. Was she new or has she just been away for a very long time?

Ohhh, holiday for work. Ronan wanted a holiday really badly to spend with his wife and kids, he started to daydream while still listening to the woman explain the event she was proposing.

"Venice." he replied and then shook his head, blushing. "I'm sorry, I meant to say very nice. It's a brilliant idea, I'll add it to the list."

Taking his quill once more, Ronan wrote down the idea to be voted on at a later date and looked around.

"Any more suggestions?" he looked around at all the employees and then over to Leo waiting for further instruction.