(Originally published at SLNN.COM)

As Simon Walsh hands over the management of Wheelies Nightclub to Polgara Paine, the club faces many new challenges and opportunities.

Second Ability - Simon Walsh, founder of Wheelies Nightclub, announced Sunday that he was resigning from his role as overall manager of Wheelies Nightclub. Wheelies Nightclub is an important fixture in Second Life, that Mr. Walsh has worked tirelessly building up.

In 2006, when Mr. Walsh first entered Second Life, there wasn’t a lot of focus on accessibility issues and he wanted to create a space where people could safely explore issues of accessibility in Second Life. Over the years, Wheelies Nightclub has grown from a floor of a building where five or six people could dance to full sim, elaborately built out.

In the first month of operation, the club, which featured live music as well as DJs, carefully orchestrated by an operations manager and a site manager, attracted over five hundred visitors. The club caught the attention of the media, from blogs and YouTube videos to television news stories in the United Kingdom, Canada and Russia.

Since then, Mr. Walsh has had many opportunities to speak about accessibility issues online. However, these opportunities, as well as other personal issues that Mr. Walsh has been facing requires him to reallocate his time away from the management of Wheelies.

Wheelies is much more than just a nightclub with an accessibility theme. It has grown into an important community in Second Life. Members of the accessibility community explored ways to keep the community together. Polgara Paine has agreed to become Director of Wheelies.

Ms. Paine has been active in Second Life since May 2005. She is a professor of special education at the School of Intervention Services at Bowling Green State University. During the transition, Wheelies will continue at a temporary location. Moving forward, Ms. Paine intends to establish a board of directors and raise funds to make Wheelies sustainable on a long-term basis. The first fundraising event is scheduled to take place on March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day as part of a grand opening of their new space.

Mr. Walsh’s vision of virtual worlds that are more accessible to people with all levels of ability continues to evolve and he will remain an important speaker on these topics. Wheelies, the Nightclub, will continue to evolve as the new management makes its imprint, new spaces are built out, and new forms of funding are sought. Most importantly, the community of Wheelies, people interested in the issues of accessibility is bound to continue to grow as everyone learns from Mr. Walsh, Ms. Paine, and the whole communities’ experiences.