Special Weather Report

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Greetings elves of Sector 5,

As we continue to work here at North Pole Flight Command (without a Regional Tracking Center to our name), I’ve been asked to put forth a special request.

Test flight planners are looking for forecasted bad weather within Sector 5 around the middle of September. I know it might be hard to find, and that there are no guarantees, but if you could use our standard weather report to share any information from your area about possible storms of any kind starting around September 15th they would appreciate knowing about it.

Right now they don’t know for sure what direction the test flights will take starting this weekend but it could be towards our sector if there is active weather.

The test flights are entering a critical phase and they need BAD weather to test things completely, at least that’s what I’m hearing.

As for the latest on a Regional Tracking Center for us, I have no new news. I hear that Elf Roger Star is back in Canada this week talking to some people, however.

If there is news with that I will, of course, share it as soon as possible.

Thanks, Elves!

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online

Elf Engagement

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Yesterday I shared with you some very big numbers. Today, sadly, I’m going to share something just the opposite – a very small number.

One of the things we measure is something we call Elf Engagement. It is a number that estimates how many of our active elves – both North Pole elves and Freelance elves – who engage with the official North Pole websites (such as this one).

Right now, that number is super low.

And it makes sense that it would be. More than 125 days remains until Santa launches, it’s summer in some places, winter in others, and people are busy doing regular life stuff.

But, as you would expect, with the calendar soon to turn to September, you’d think elf engagement would rise.

After all, the News Department at the North Pole is busy publishing news on SantaUpdate.com, SantaTrackers.net, and NorthPoleFlightCommand.com.

All of these sites have now been around for years. And do you know what the Elf Engagement number is? Look at these numbers:

August – 0.034%
September – 5.2%
October – 13.2%
November – 21.1%
December 1-15th – 56.3%
December 16th-24th – 98.4%

Shocking isn’t it?

On the other hand, isn’t elf life just grand? What other kind of job out there lets you check out for most of the year and not get fired?

Yeah, Santa’s not going to fire you.

But I think Elf Engagement is something Santa will be talking about a little bit this weekend.

Again, this is just my opinion, but I think that number can really improve. In fact, I think it needs to. But that’s me, your little bean counter elf. It’s in my nature to always want to see a better number.

Is it bad that engagement among elves on official North Pole websites is so low until the last few days before Santa’s flight?

I will let Santa answer that question.

In the meantime, I think it is good if you ask a question of yourself:

Am I a good elf? Am I a year round elf? If Santa needed my help at any time other than the last few days before Christmas, would I be ready to help him?

That’s all for today, elves. Don’t answer those questions out loud. Just ask them of yourself, okay?

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online

Coming Numbers to Follow

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Hello Fellow Elves!

Santa, Elf Crash Murphy and Elf Roger Star met with the Accounting Department last week to discuss a report I sent them some time ago. Based on our discussions in that meeting, I have been charged with sharing with you via SantaTrackers.net some important numbers.

Numbers are a very important part of Operation Merry Christmas, or any other important enterprise. Numbers measure success. They point to action that has to be taken to improve. Nobody goes to watch a sport anywhere without numbers because numbers are how we know who wins. We have all kinds of numbers we follow at the North Pole and we watch them religiously.

Santa wants you to be aware of these statistics BEFORE his chat with you later this month.

Both he and Elf Crash Murphy believe that if you know this data, and understand it, you will be better prepared to do your job as a tracker elf this season.

I’m going to need a few days to put this all together. But what will follow from me will be information about elves, tracker elves, reindeer, sleighs, time, North Pole Flight Command and the North Pole (and by extension, Santa) that may be interesting to you.

I realize some of you, especially younger elves who are new to tracking Santa in this way, may struggle to know what to do with this information. That is why I’m giving you a heads up that this information is coming. We are a community. As you read things that are posted by elves like me it is okay to share that you don’t understand it or that you have questions. Other elves here can help and your Elf Supervisors will also be available to answer your questions and to share what they think the numbers mean.

All of this is designed to help your chat with Santa which is later on this month. (And what hasn’t that been officially posted yet?)

Anyway, my name is Elf Flip Beanz and I’m your number elf. It’s my job to gather and keep this data. I usually send my reports to Santa and other elves like Crash and Roger. But for whatever reason, for the next couple of weeks, they want me to focus on you.

So please know this stuff is coming and that’s it is okay to ask questions about it.

Thank you.

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online

Santa Chat is Scheduled

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Santa Claus is coming to Elf Chat on August 24th at 9am EST.

This long-touted chat is anticipated to bring a lot of elves. Santa has a message for elves everywhere and this is the time slated for him to present it to tracker elves.

Please note that this chat will precede another chat scheduled at 10am EST at SantaUpdate.com with Elf Ernest.

The planning of these chats back to back is on purpose. The North Pole wants elves to attend these chats and to get their questions answered before the season gets underway. It is expected to be a very active season this year as Santa has some special missions lined up.

According to Elf Max, the chat room at SantaTrackers.net has been remodeled and is fully functional. You may want to familiarize yourself with the new set up in advance of the chat.

We hope to see you there.

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online

Who’s Retiring?

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I was in Crashes chat on Saturday then I heard them talking about Santa’s whereabouts. They said he was at the North Pole Navy talking about things and one of those things was the Elf Retirement.

The one things i’m wondering about is who is retiring? Because I haven’t seen anything suspicious lately. This guy is keeping this real secret till I heard about it. but who could it be? Is it Elf Hugo, head of the North Pole Post Office? Is it someone from the Workshop of making toys? Is it Bernard? Although this might be true this is a really big thing.

But who is retiring? I know a lot of elves I would not even know which one to expect! I have 47 friends! That would take me For-Ev-er! So who’s the elf? I know an elf would never be happy that they were retiring because they love the North Pole! They love working for kids but why do they want to retire? Is it because they are getting older and they think its a great time to do so? That’s fine but why? And who is retiring?

Thank you for reading and get your grill going i’m wishing you all a very merry Christmas in July!

Have a great week and remember!…

STAY JOLLY!

 

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online

Hello from Hamburg

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Fellow elves of Sector 3 – I send you greetings from Hamburg, Germany where we have arrived just hours ago via express sleigh from the North Pole. We are fresh off the Elf Supervisors Meeting and we’re excited to be in what will be our home for the next three months.

When I left, I was told that North Pole Flight Command would make the announcement. They did! So now we can get down to business.

I have roughly 440 elves here with me – and we’re anxious to get to work. Santa has asked that we get up and running by August 1st, but I plan to get there earlier than that if we can. There is much to be done.

This is a big city. It’s lovely here. I’m told it’s a Christmas city, one of the biggest and the best in all of Germany. So we are very excited to learn about the area and get settled in.

It’s surprising. The cities being chosen this year are bigger than ever, and no where near as remote. I’ve never worked in a place so big.

It’ll be interesting. I’m a little concerned that the public might find us. North Pole Security is meeting with us first thing this week to talk about that. We are a large team here in Sector 3. It might prove difficult for them all to keep quiet about where we are. We’ll see.

In any event, I’m confident in our prospects going forward. It will be great to get setup, get connected and start with the business of Tracking Santa for Santa.

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online

India Here We Come

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Greetings from the sleigh! We’re in flight right now, headed to our new Regional Tracking Center home for Sector 2 this year – Kochi, India!

Kochi is so ideally suited for us in Sector 2. It is fairly central to the middle of our sector, which just happens to be the biggest in the world.

We have access to everything here: great food, high-speed fiber Internet, a local eggnog producer, full reindeer facilities, sleigh repair, and some of the biggest artificial Christmas trees in all the world. Yes, Kochi knows how to celebrate Christmas.

We have all the plans in place and we’ve been charged with getting it all set up by the end of July. But here’s a news flash for you kids: we’re going to get this baby up in under a week.

I have been here so much the past several months that I know everything that needs to get done. I’m guessing we’ll be the first sector with a fully functional Regional Tracking Center set up. That’s how confident that I am.

So hang tight. We’re going to be in business here real fast. And once we get up and running my plan is to put you trackers to work right away.

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online

Honors for Sector 1

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Elves of Sector 1, I have great news.

First, and you likely already know this, the location of our Regional Tracking Center this year will be in Otaru, Japan. Announced yesterday by North Pole Flight Command, I was informed of this decision during a fun little ceremony here at the Elf Supervisor meeting.

I’m very excited to be heading to Japan on Saturday by express sleigh. This is one of the locations I personally scouted several months ago and I’m very excited to go.

Also, Sector 1 was named the Sector of the Year by the executive team at North Pole Flight Command for the work we did last Christmas.

We were the sector that most improved overall performance and even Santa himself said, “The work in Sector 1 cannot be applauded enough. Without their efficiency and robust Christmas spirit there is no way a new sleigh speed record was set and no way the accomplishments of last year’s ride could have been made.”

This is great! I’m so proud of you all and thankful for another opportunity to do even better this year.

Be sure to hang out for the next several weeks, guys. We’ve got lots of great news coming as we track Santa again!

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online

A Chat with Elf Crusader

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Elf Westover's Merry Little Jolly Podcast
Elf Westover's Merry Little Jolly Podcast
A Chat with Elf Crusader
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In this all-new episode of Elf Westover’s Merry Little Jolly Podcast we get an elf-to-elf conversation. Elf Crusader joins Elf Westover in a discussion of his elf history, what he saw when Santa visited a local hospital last year, and what Christmas and life is like in Minnesota in Sector 5.

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online

Getting Down to Business

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Well, as you maybe have read, the stuff of getting settled on the Regional Tracking Centers is done.

Some of you might be happy.

They really took your suggestions seriously. I think a few of you might be pleasantly surprised.

As for me, well, I couldn’t care less.

I’m in the news business. Where things like this happen does not matter to me. It’s WHEN things happen that matters to me.

The Regional Tracking Centers will all be in business now very soon. Once they are, my news teams have a place to work in each sector. And that is all that is important.

We can finally get down to business.

The news department here at the North Pole, like every department, takes our duties seriously. We want you to be informed.

That’s why we’re grateful for elves like Elf Westover, who decided on his own to launch his own video news channel. That’s awesome. It gets the word of Santa and the North Pole out there.

We want to encourage elves of all kinds to do it.

Just do it like he does. He asks for news. He wants to do it right so he checks in with Elf Crash a lot. And sometimes with me too. Because he wants it to meet Santa’s expectations.

We really appreciate that. It makes the work the rest of us do a lot easier.

The Regional Tracking Center announcements, to me, are one of the biggest markers of the year. When those are done it’s like everything steps on the gas when it comes to Operation Merry Christmas.

The first half of the year while goofy committees like this one piddle around trying to make a decision the time seems to just crawl. But once they get it done it’s a like a bomb going off.

We suddenly get super busy.

And that is where we’re at right now.

What does that mean for you, a tracker elf?

It means the fun is just starting.

Now, I don’t want to take anything away from Elf Crash. He’s your leader and I don’t know anything other than the news business. So what I’m about to tell you is just advice.

Going forward your Elf Supervisor is going to be asking you to do a few things. It’s not much.

But it’s really important.

In order to do what they are asking – and in order for you to really help Santa – you need to know what’s going on.

That’s where I come in. It is our job in the news department to inform you. We do that through our Official North Pole websites.

There is SantaUpdate.com, the largest and longest running North Pole news website in the world. Everyone goes there and not just elves. You need to visit it DAILY from this point forward.

There is this site – SantaTrackers.net – which is just for tracker elves. That’s right, you guys have this one site for exclusive news that is just for elves. Occasionally you get news here that is not available to the public.

Then there is NorthPoleFlightCommand.com. That’s got news on it, yes, but it does a lot more than what you see. That site, you see, is what connects all the Regional Tracking Centers to the North Pole. It’s the mother ship. Did you know that on Christmas Eve it becomes the largest mobile network in the world? It connects not only all the regional tracking centers to the North Pole but also all the ships of the North Pole Navy and all the sleighs of the North Pole Air Force. All the news elves working remote locations on Christmas Eve use this same portal.

And nobody outside of this huge network is even aware of it. NorthPoleFlightCommand.com is the glue that holds all the moving pieces of Operation Merry Christmas together. As an elf, you should know that.

Now, we have other Official North Pole websites but those are the ones you, a tracker elf, really needs to know and to visit with regularity.

Because they are all going to get buzzing. Very soon.

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online

Santa Tracker Map is Back Online

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The tracker map at SantaTrackers.net has been re-activated.

Starting Monday, July 1st, tracking of test flights of Santa’s sleigh “go global” according to Elf Buck Sanchez, Director of Flight Operations at North Pole Flight Command.

Flight Command has been pretty tight lipped about the exact schedule in the days or weeks ahead. However, I’m told the first week will be dedicated to “speed trials”.

Speed trials are a test of the high end speed of the sleigh. The sleighs doing these flights will be empty. The test is to push the sleigh as fast as it can go and to see how it handles.

They want to do these tests in fairly stable weather. So they will be running west to east, just north of the equator. Those flights start Monday July 1st.

Of course, weather forecasts are being watched and those plans could change.

The sleigh will be taking a more conventional course of test flights beginning next week. We are awaiting word of which sector they plan to fly in.

We will keep you posted.

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online

Christmas in July Chat for Trackers

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Happy Leon Day from the North Pole! On the direction from Elf Crash Murphy I have been asked to announce the first tracker elf chat of Christmas in July. It will be happening this Saturday, June 29 at 11am EST in Elf Chat here on SantaTrackers.net.

Elf Crash Murphy will host the chat and is announcing he will be having a secret special guest to kick off this Christmas in July celebration.

The general theme of the chat will be “How to get started Tracking Santa for Santa 2024”. Crash will be happy as well to answer any and all questions you might have.

Also, announcements will be forthcoming from SantaUpdate.com relative to Christmas in July celebrations both at the North Pole and around the world.

We hope you can join us for these events.

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online