As promised, we wanted to award the author of the winning poem 100 points and the 3 runner-ups 50 points! See below for the winners:

Winner: Justice of the Poetical Piece – 100 points!

Autumn Leaves

Autumn days, they do come and do go,
During that time there is much to show,
Coloured leaves falling all on the street,
Quietly dropping and ever so discrete.

Red ones, yellow ones, and some are just brown,
Here and there, everywhere, in country and town,
Windswept, swirling, scattering in the wind,
Some caught under debris and are just pinned.

As the days go the leaves gather on the ground,
Building like a mountain rather than a mound.
Children playfully kick at them, up into the air
Autumn leaves fly around with no wanting or a care.

Runner-up: mtheoryrules – 50 points!

Autumn don’t leave me

they were the yellow, red, and orange
of an auburn orgy
golden individuals
some rusty brown at their edges
winters kiss would sweep them up in a breeze
baring them to some distant crumbled fate
but those that remained would gossip
speaking scandal in hushed rattled whispers
and each day there were fewer still
as the stragglers slowly surrendered
to the occupation of a seasons tyranny
then she was the only one remaining
clinging to life valiantly, holding fast
but the day came when she too fell
the final hope of autumn gone at last

Runner-up: Brigitta – 50 points!

Autumn

is it in your eyes again
that change of time and
mornings filled with mist
behold

sunsets longer
mornings colder
and memories on leaves
falling from trees

I hear the songs
deep from the sea
another season coming home.

Runner-up: Wolfgang Quinlan – 50 points!

An Ode to Autumn

Once healthy leaves, wither and die.
Turning red, and falling,
To the hard unforgiving ground
to be swept away in the wind

The dead swept away,
like a tsunami of misery,
in a world that knows only pain.
This is my world.

Darkness looms on the horizon.
Winter begins to set in.
The draining cold, seeps at my very soul.
Autumn – the season of our misery.

Well done to our winner and runners up! And thanks once a gain to everyone who submitted a poem, they were wonderful to read.

Kate
Community Manager

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Photo by dicktay2000.

Do you love and appreciate poetry? Have you ever tried putting some rhymes together? There could be no better time to start practicing!

In 1999, UNESCO declared March 21st as World Poetry Day to support linguistic diversity and promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry to help preserve this historic art in the digital era.

Every day many people submit their works in the Poetry category on Yahoo!7 Answers and ask the community for feedback and advice. You don’t need to be a pro to express yourself! For example check out these contributions from Lou Lou and Gloria.

To celebrate both the event and the poets within the community we invite you to use your inspiration and compose a short piece of poetry on the theme “Autumn”, which is the season we are currently experiencing down here in Australia.

Please share your best original works by answering this question:

• Ode to Autumn: could you please share your original piece of poetry?

The author of the best answer will be awarded 100 Answers points and the 3 runner ups will receive 50 bonus points each. We will then include the best contributions in a post on our Answers blog and on our Facebook page.

Good luck!

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C’mon, join the fun. Enter the Yahoo! Messenger Faceoff Contest Today!

Do you love emoticons as much as our 500,000+ Yahoo! Messenger Facebook fans do? From now through to March 18th, show us your best emoticon impression for a chance to have your face turned into a brand new Yahoo! Messenger emoticon to be added to the Yahoo! Messenger emoticon gallery.

Check out the Yahoo! Messenger Faceoff Contest on our Facebook fan page.  Join the fun by simply submitting a photo of yourself imitating your favourite emoticon. Then encourage friends and family to vote for your submission in the Faceoff gallery or to submit their own photos if they think they can do better!  After two rounds of voting, the winner with the most votes will have their face turned into a brand new emoticon for the world to use.

Go ahead – show the world your best smiley! If you’re too shy to submit a photo, visit the Faceoff gallery to vote for your favourites and support your friends.

Which emoticon are YOU?

- Yahoo! Messenger Team

The fine print: This contest is open to anyone in the world, not just US residents, so what are you waiting for! -Kate, Community Manager.

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Photo by Dricker94.

Welcome to our revived and hopefully regular blog segment!

What is Five on Friday?

Well it’s where we feature 5 questions from the week. They can be resolved and we feature the best answer as well,  they could be really great open questions that need some good  answers or they can be questions where you need the community’s help to decide on the best answer. If your question is chosen to be featured, you will receive 50 points!

What sort of questions do we want?

Well, we are pretty open to the sorts of questions we feature here. We’d obviously love to see our Australian users get involved, but if you are from somewhere else in the world and found a really awesome question in your travels across Answers, don’t be shy! The only thing we ask is that they be clean, worthy of sharing and don’t contravene the Yahoo!7 Terms of Service or our Community Guidelines. Feel free to submit as many as you want!

How do they get chosen?

Well, on Friday morning, the Answers team will sort through all the submissions from that week and decide upon the best 5 to feature.

How do we submit questions?

Submit your questions by sending me an email at y_answrs_team_au@yahoo.com.au with a subject of “Five on Friday”!

So get cracking and submit those questions to me, either on the email above or by leaving a comment below

Kate
Community Manager

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Spread over four weeks, with each week catering to one particular theme, this initiative showcased the best holiday destinations and the most awesome travel stories that came from you!

The four questions we asked on each category received plenty of really great responses. So we’d like to thank you all for your responses to this initiative as we announce the winners of each question whose best answer won 50 bonus points.

Our first question was about landscapes – What was your most picturesque and idyllic holiday in the countryside?. This question received 30 responses.

The question, What was your most memorable beach or seaside holiday?, received 34 responses.

Our readers had many interesting plane stories and advice on where to catch the best sunrise/sunset. We received 18 responses for the question – Do you have a special travel story about air travel or an unforgettable skyscape you have experienced?.

What was your best moment in a foreign city? Why was it so memorable? – This last question received 18 responses.

Congratulations to our winners! You can read all the winning stories, here.

Did you enjoy this initiative? Leave us a comment below.

And once again, thank you all for making this Travel initiative a success! And if you are inspired enough by this and are preparing to set off somewhere anytime soon, Bon Voyage!

Kate
Community Manager

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As much of our success is down to our amazing community members, we want to extend an offer to all you – the opportunity to volunteer a blog post and have it published on the Answers blog!

Have you ever fancied being famous in Australia?  Then this is your chance!  If your blog hits the spot we may even feature it on our sister-blogs in one of the 21 countries where we blog and translate it into some of the 9 languages we operate in.  This is your chance to have your voice heard, and have millions of people read your words!

If that isn’t incentive enough, how about an extra 50 points for each post we publish?

How do I become a guest blogger?

Simple – come up with a suggestion or a full blog post and email it to y_answrs_team_au@yahoo.com.au

However, there are a few tips and rules we’d like you to follow:

1)      What should you write about?

Focus on what would interest the Answers Community.  We are open to any subject area, even if only slightly related to Answers. This could include educational, instructional or informative topics.  Some examples are as follows:

• Subjects that you may have professional or personal experience in, for example if you have recently planned a wedding, you may want to pitch a topic on “How to organize a wedding?”
• Ideas based on your personal experience on Answers, such as tips on getting the most out of Answers, things that could be improved, and anything that you would like to share with the Answers community.

2)      Use correct spelling and grammar.  The more understandable your suggestion is, the higher the chance it has to be used or chosen as a possible blog topic.

3)      If you use any Answers content in your blog posts, it should adhere to the Community Guidelines

Finally, the legal bit – your blog will be featured on the site in accordance with our Terms of Service. We reserve the right to translate and make editorial changes to your blog if selected.

We look forward to hearing from you – y_answrs_team_au@yahoo.com.au

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If you could reinvent Arnott’s classic snack, the Wagon Wheel, what would you change and why?
- Yahoo!7 Australia Answers Team

Do you remember this TV advertisement?

Wagon Wheels were one of the most iconic snack foods for Australians growing up in the 80′s and 90′s. The TV ad above, along with several others were recited over and over by kids across the country – I’m fairly sure there was one with iguanas, snails or sardines as well, does anyone else remember them too?

Recently, my fiancé and I were travelling in country NSW and came across Wagon Wheels in one of the service stations we stopped at. Extremely excited, they were quickly purchased and consumed. They tasted just as we remembered them, it literally was a jolt back to our childhoods.

Check out the history of the Wagon Wheel below:

Arnott’s product innovation team have been hard at work figuring out ways to reinvent the classic snack. Perhaps you can lend them a hand?

Kate
Community Manager

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Spread over four weeks, with each week catering to one particular theme, this initiative will showcase the best holiday destinations and the most awesome travel stories that come from you! So start working on that travelogue of yours and include details like places to stay, things to see, best shopping deals and the like. And don’t forget to tell us why it is among your favourite holiday destinations! We’ll be awarding 50 bonus points for the best story each week.

Not only that, we invite you to share your favourite photograph of the vacation on one of these Flickr groups:

Landscape group – http://www.flickr.com/groups/100naturallandscapes/

Photo by Ian BC North.

Cityscape group - http://www.flickr.com/groups/26328425@N00/

Photo by aufmkolk (hafoto.de).

Seascape group – http://www.flickr.com/groups/seascape/

Photo by S John Davey.

Skyscape group - http://www.flickr.com/groups/98509261@N00/

Photo by Cobalt123.

Once you post your picture there, remember to leave us a comment with the Flickr link on the blog, or add the link in your answer. At the end of four weeks, your story and photograph could be featured on our blog.

And here are 5 steps to ensure your Flickr photo makes it to the contest:

1. Log in to http://www.flickr.com/
2. Sign up for Flickr with your Yahoo!7 id if you don’t have a Flickr account already
3. Join the Groups (whose links are mentioned above)
4. Upload your Travel photos there
5. Copy the link of your photo and use that in your answer!

This week’s question is about dreamy landscapes. Meadows full of flowers and green grass, a winding river, a roaring waterfall, awe-inspiring mountains, or endless deserts – what landscape inspired you the most and made for an unforgettable holiday?

What was your most picturesque and idyllic holiday in the countryside?
- Yahoo!7 Australia Answers Team

Kate
Community Manager

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We gave you the chance to participate, by posing the question: “If you could ask David Beckham one question, what will you ask him and why?“. The winner would receive a football signed by David Beckham as well as the opportunity to have their question presented during the interview. How cool is that?

We are pleased to announce that mum of 3 j’s has won with her question: How do you and Victoria cope as parents? Are you hands on like the rest of us or do you rely on Nanny’s to raise the children. Do your kids realise how famous their parents are?.

There’s a box of goodies on the way to her in the mail, along with the jabulani ball signed by David.

mum of 3 j’s question was also chosen to be included in the Yahoo! interview that was streamed live across the world last night. As it was the middle of the night for Australia, our colleagues in Singapore kindly asked the question on behalf of Yahoo!7 and the Australian Answers Community.

You can catch mum of 3 j’s question at approximately 28:25 into the interview. David talked for quite some time in response! If you wish to view a larger version, please visit Yahoo!7 Sport.

Once again, congratulations to mum of 3 j’s! We hope you enjoy your football and the interview

Kate
Community Manager

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Following my previous blog posts The Taste of Autumn and Food and Drink Month on Answers, our experts in the Food & Drink category have embraced their inner foodie and shared their favourite recipes on our open questions.

Before I reveal our menu and the winners, I want to thank you all for your participation and great answers posted during the last week and-a-half. You’ve been really respectful of the community guidelines but, at the same time, creative with original recipes. It was a real pleasure to discover your ideas.

Without further ado, I’d like to introduce our Autumn menu and our winners!

Entrée (starter)

• Bruschetta with a red wine vinegar, garlic and olive oil dressing submitted by music_is_life14 -Best Answer-
• Malt vinegar marinated Bluff Oysters with white pepper submitted by Hman (Response #2 selected by me)
• Soupe au Pistou (Pistou Soup) submitted by AJ in Exile (Response #3 selected by me)
• Crispy noodle salad submitted by Bri (Response #5 selected by me)
• Field Mushrooms with lemon & olive oil, served with a small salad submitted by Cherie M (Response #6 selected by me)

Main Course

• Ale, Barley and Sausage Stew submitted by almarj70 -Best Answer-
• Potato Salad with onion, celery, dill pickles and mayo with brown mustard and pickle juice submitted by barbara via Joanne’s question on potato salad -Best Answer-
• Chicken Cacciatore with Spaghetti submitted by BullyH (Response #6)
• Steamed Salmon on a bed of spinach with scallops and asparagus submitted by *Jellz* (Response #9)
• Slow cooked pork belly in a smoky bbq mango sauce served on a sweet potato mash with blanched sugar snap peas submitted by Stiffler (Response #16)

Dessert

• Call Me Guilty Pumpkin Cheesecake submitted by AJ in Exile -Best Answer-
• Tiramisu submitted by zcapan (Response #6)
• Apple Crumble submitted by almarj70 (Response #7)
• Microwaved Bananas with Hokey Pokey Ice Cream submitted by BullyH (Response #9)
• Lemon Meringue Kisses submitted by Sonia (Response #11)

Once again, congratulations to our head chefs Joanne, barbara, music_is_life14, almarj70 and AJ in Exile. And also congratulations as well to everyone else who won

The best answers received 200 points for their appetising dishes, whereas the other participants I selected above received 100 points each for their answers.

Please keep in mind that the Food & Drink category is full of great recipes from the community. We’re pretty sure you’ll able to find what you’re looking for in the existing questions or discover new culinary experiences as we did during this operation.

What is your favourite entrée, main or dessert? Do you know how to cook it? Please share your thoughts in this blog post or ask a question about it

Again, many thanks for all your contributions!

Kate
Community Manager

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