Table of Contents:

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Gryfftoberfest
2.1 House Awards
3.1 Paw Print
4.1 Halloween Mask Contest
5.1 The Squibbler

Welcome to the first (and slightly delayed) issue for October! I hope school is treating you all well. The school year is in full swing and we have a lot of great things going on! However, October is a wonderful month full of leaves that change colour, Halloween, pumpkins, and BUTTERBEER! That's right ladies and gentlemen. Forget Halloween, there's a MUCH more important holiday that last so much longer than one day. The whole month of October is dedicated to something uniquely Gryff: Gryfftoberfest.

So what's Gryfftoberfest all about? Well, that's a good question. It's about celebrating who we are, why we are, and where we've come from. We look back on Godric Gryffindor's life as he was our founder. We celebrate with lots of good food, butterbeer, and games. And most importantly, we celebrate the qualities that make us uniquely Gryff and show that off to the rest of the world (and/or HOL).

Now, you might be wondering what the big deal is, right? Well, what's the point of having a huge party if it's not huge?! So we need each and every Gryff to get involved and show off your spirit. After all, not just the Spice Girls are allowed to have spirit! This is the time to show it off!

So, you can use the siggy and/or avatar that won the contest on the Gryff CR and/or the HOL Forum. Those can be found here:

http://www.gryff.net/gryfftoberfest05ava.gif

http://www.gryff.net/gryfftoberfest05sig.gif

You can participate in any number of the contests and activities we've got around the house. Check this forum for all the contests that are available! Also, we have a lovely group of themed quizzes available for your delight in Gryffmart. The more you participate, the more fun you have! (and the more Rubies you earn!)

Please be sure to embody our motto this year:

Normal doesn't apply to us!

Good luck to you all and Happy Gryfftoberfest!

Opening ceremonies will take place Sunday October 2nd at 4pm EST

All winners will be announced at the closing ceremonies on Sunday October 30th at 4pm EST

Check out the Gryfftobefest forum for more information: http://www.gryff.net/cr/index.php?showforum=106

This month, Gryffindor is proud to present the following people with some great awards. These three people show what being a Gryffindor is all about (even if one of them isn't a Gryff!). They have each contributed to making the last month and the summer truly delightful in Gryffindor. So without further ado, I would like to present September's awards winners:

The Golden Snitch Award for enthusiasm goes to none other than Rachel Baudelaire. Rachel, although a first year, has shown enthusiasm in everything from participating in contests, running amok in the CR, and being a pain in the... true delight on IRC.

Second, we would like to present Jade Thaerd with the Curious Kitten Award which goes to a first year who shows particular promise. While we usually wait until the first years have had a chance to prove themselves, Jade has jumped in to so many activities ranging from now being a mod on the CR, being a tower tester, trying out for GQT, and other endless activities. There hasn't been a single contest that I know of that she hasn't entered. We greatly appreciate her participation.

And finally, we look outside of our house for a person who has been a great friend to Gryffindor. The LionHeart Award for friendship to Gryffindor goes to none other than Miss Eve Shay of Ravenclaw. She has been the source of giggles, caring, and overall Gryffness for a few months now and deserves recognition. We appreciate students of other houses who take the opportunity to get to know us and love us. Eve has done just that and we thank her for that.

Let's hear it for the first edition of the Paw Print for the 2005/2006 year and hope that every issue is completed as well as this one was! Here is a message from Missa Matz:

"First, I'd like to thank Ceri Mchawk for providing the layout for this issue and note that we will be needing a Halloween layout (whether it be just *this* side of gory, or a fun Halloween theme). Any Gryffindor's that are interested email your layout design (and include the code) to me at missabeechan@yahoo.com Please make sure that you already have it linked online so that the staff may vote.

Now, on with the information!

New titles, new columns, new writers...Paw Print went all out this year with changing things around. You'll see that we have a couple of new writers and a LOT more articles than we normally have had! Here's what's on tap: http://pawprint.gryff.net

FREE BUTTERBEER!: Just your average Gryffindor announcements section. Feel free to read and remind yourself of things you might have missed.

That Thing That Guy Did: Our News section, which is home to many articles this time around. The editor's favorites are: Our Very Own BigHead Girl and The R-List.

Fanged Frisbees and Screaming YoYo's: Our sports section, where we start off our year with an interview with the new members of GQT!

Prose and Cons of Imaginary Friends: Formerly our Creative Quill section, this houses the writing (stories and poetry) and drawing talents of those in HOL.

Neon Green Fluffy Bunnies..: Our Gossip section, which has just what you'd expect from it from so many years. Dear Snape, Tea Leaves. Kodak Moments and our new column Sanity 101.
(Note, for those interested we are looking for a writer for Tea Leaves. Must be a humorous writer, and must be able to write in the style shown in the issue - interested parties should email missabeechan@yahoo.com)

And finally we have our Mane Topic: The Mane Topic is our editorial/whatever we want it to be, part of the paper. This month it is about an anime which is taking quite a few people on IRC by storm. Please make sure you check it out as Mira put a lot of time into it. Please note that the Mane Topic is graphic heavy this month and may take some time to load.

Well there you have it! I'd like to thank Julie Garnet for her help editing all those articles as without her it would have taken forever and special thanks to Heather Kinney for crawling out of her hole to upload for me (It's a VERY nice hole, tv, dvd player - the works.) as well as tweaking the errors that were in the layout. <3

And... ENJOY!

http://pawprint.gryff.net"

Gryffindor isn't the only place that is taking advantage of the wonder of Halloween. There is an HOL contest going on that is all about October and Halloween:

"The moon is full and shines brighter then ever. Pumpkin juice is poured in goblets at homes by witches and wizards, as they celebrate. Muggle folks mock us by putting horrible costumes on which look nothing like us! Have you guessed which holiday I was speaking of yet? If you said Halloween then you are correct! Halloween is such a scary month, now wouldn't you like to be scary? Well I have great news for you, you can be!!

This month you will be able to show your spine-chilling creativity to the rest of HOL, by creating a Halloween mask. But here is the fun part, you are not just going to make a regular mask, but a magical one. When creating your mask, you will have to describe the ability in which the mask holds, along with describing what the mask will appear like. You are more than welcome to illustrate it (drawing, photoshopped, etc.), or if you choose you can be crafty and make the mask by hand as well. If you choose to make a mask by hand, you must provide us with an image of the mask. All illustrations and craft work will be worth 5 additional house points. At this point may I just add, that the mask you submit, should be your OWN work, its not nice to take credit for someone else's work

You have from October 2nd, to the very spooooky day, October 31st, to submit your entries to halloweenmaskcontest@gmail.com. When submitting entries make sure that you include your, HOL Name, HOL ID, and House. The mail subject should be Halloween Mask Contest Submission. If not, then your submission will not be accepted, and an email will be sent back to you explaining why.

Points will be given out like this:
5 points for your first entry, you are more than welcome to submit more than one, but you will only get 5 for your first one.
5 Points for illustration or craft work.
1st place - 30 points (40 if all additional points are added)
2nd place - 20 points (30 if all additional points are added)
3rd place - 10 points (20 if all additional points are added)

If you have any questions, feel free to ask

Thats all folks, have fun! *transforms into a bat and flys away*

For those professors who want to participate, you can! Professors are more than welcome to send in a submission as well."

The Squibbler is as most probably know, a product of a HOL class lead by Rames, and is a imaginary newspaper in the HP world. There are many Gryffindor's in the class, and I think it would be fun to show it off to our friends, right?

So take a look, leave comments, play games...But DON'T read if you have NOT read the Half Blood Prince because most of the articles are related to it.

URL: http://www.hol.org.uk/squibbler/

That's it for now! Enjoy October, and participate in Gryfftoberfest!!!