BOM is block of the month, but we do it twice a month so we can all take a turn to choose, it's mostly to try new techniques . It's a little push sometimes to get you to try something you might not do on your own. No contest or compitetion just lots of fun. Some people do try to coordinate the colors and use them in a quilt, some do something totally different with eack block, it's totally up to you, it's your block. There are some that give some of us problems and this way we can share problems and solutions with each other. And sometimes we just laugh at ourselves.