Region/Australia/Melbourne

Australia::Melbourne is an Australian NaNo region consisting of the Melbourne area, which used to cover the entire state of Victoria until the Australia::Gippsland region was created in 2014. It is the largest region in Australia, with over 10000 members. It was one of the first regions created (designated #4) when the NaNoWriMo forums came online in 2002. Melbourne has a long-standing regional word war with Australia::Sydney, most recently won by Melbourne in 2013 with an average word count of 19,961 words to Sydney's 19,021 words per active novelist.
Its About Us reads "Meetings, munchies, merry-making, manuscript manufacturing, and more in Melbourne. Please remember that this is an all-ages forum, so no swearing is allowed, and please keep the drama in your novels and out of the forum!"
==Statistics==
* In 2013, the region wrote 25,111,461 words. There were 1258 active participants (those who created a novel on the site), giving an average of 19,961 words per novelist. The region donated $3465.00.
* In 2012, the region wrote 23,593,254 words. There were 892 active participants, giving an average of 26,449 words per novelist. The region donated $2400.00.
* In 2014, 1,230 novelists wrote 25,439,564 words written, giving an average word count of 20,682.
* In 2015, 1,267 novelists wrote 34,029,744 words written, giving an average word count of 26,858.
* In 2016, 1,205 novelists wrote 20,734,782 words written, giving an average word count of 17,207.
* In 2017, 1,181 novelists wrote 20,913,841 words written, giving an average word count of 17,708.
* In 2018, 1,137 novelists wrote 20,793,586 words written, giving an average word count of 18,288.
* 2019: stats unavailable2019's totals, when available, were provided through a third-party tool using the non-public Word Count API. This region was large enough to overload the tool.
* 2020: 796 novelists; 16,305,392 words written; 20,484 average wordcountSent from NaNoWriMo HQ, February 2021. Consists of active homed participants who created a NaNoWriMo 2020 project.
==Municipal Liaisons==
===Present===
* Etlu_Yume/Rach (2018-present)
* Kate_Biscuit (2019-present)
* totally_megs (2019-present)
===Past===
* Amanda Jayne (2019)
* Lauren E. Mitchell (2009-2018)
* Talea and badinthelatin (Catherine and Loki) (2007-2008)
* badinthelatin (Loki) (2005-2006)
* unsworn (also Loki) (2004)
* Mike (2003)
* Paul Callaghan (2002)
==Regional Events==
Melbourne has multiple annual events in addition to the standard write-ins, including a day-long write-in on Melbourne Cup Day (the first Tuesday in November). A travelling write-in, starting at Flinders Street Station and journeying via public transport to Eltham Library, was introduced in 2013, and is held to coincide with the Eltham Town Festival. As Melbourne is such a large region, participant-run write-ins are extremely popular, with participants stepping up to host from Ballarat to Geelong to Traralgon as well as all around the inner suburbs. The Knox writing group evolved out of this and now runs year-round.
The in-person Kick-Off event has always been an outdoor one, and since 2013 has been a picnic lunch held at Fitzroy Gardens. Prior to this venues included Middle Park Community Playground (2009-2012) and Birrarung Marr. Over 70 people attended in 2013, approximately 60 in 2011-2012, and between 40 and 50 in 2009-2010.
The online midnight write-in, held on the IRC chat channel (#melbnano on kydance.net), has been a tradition since 2011.
The overnight write-in known as the Night of Manuscripting Madly (NoMM), generally held on the middle weekend in November, has been running since 2009 and is one of the most popular events, being attended by 40-50 people annually. It is held at Complete Post, a postproduction company owned by the family of Wrimo JadeAngel262, who have kindly offered it up for many years for both this overnight event and the Cup Day write-in. As well as writing, the NoMM offers a DVD room, board games, nap space, a group pizza order from Mojo's Weird Pizza, and the traditional 3AM 7-11 run for Slurpees.
The Thank God It's Over (TGIO) event varies in location but is often held at a participant's home as it tends to be a far smaller event than the kick-off.
==Melbournisms==
Ripley the Nanorhino - mascot: It was Katling who, once upon a time, said NaNoWriNO, instead of WriMO. Hence the tiny rhinoceros was born. There is a picture of a tiny rhino on a pencil, which was the first sighting of our rhino friend. Circa 2005, while wonderdog(Matt) was shopping for a present for his newborn niece, he discovered Ripley, a grey rhino plush toy. Matt bought him, a leopard-print collar, and an engraved name tag, and thus one of our mascots was 'born'.
Walter Wombat - mascot: When Lauren E. Mitchell took over the ML role in 2009, they brought with them a new mascot, Walter Wombat, a brown wombat hand-puppet. Walter guards the donations tin and is a favourite with younger participants.
i write book - motto: One year early in the region's history, button badges were made that read 'I write books'. However, some of them were misprinted so that the 's' disappeared over the side of the badge, so that they appeared to read 'I write book'. What started as a printing mistake turned into a legend and has been unofficially adopted as the region's motto, rendered on the regional crest as 'ego libro scribum', which is probably as bad Latin as 'i write book' is bad English.
word wras: See Word war. Originally an IRC typo made by Anna Spargo Ryan in 2012, the phrase stuck as soon as chat participants discovered the fun of capslocking 'WRAAAA!' at one another.
Gluck: Abbreviation for 'Good luck', said to encourage other participants in a word wra. Coined by CSymes/cairaptor on the 1st of November, 2015.
==Notes==
==External Links==
* Melbourne regional page
* Melbourne regional forum
* MelbNaNo Twitter
* NaNo Australia::Melbourne Facebook group
* Ripley Rhino's Facebook profile
* Walter Wombat's Facebook profile
Category:Australia regions
Category:Regions formed in 2002