Hope this helps:
The game is played realtime. i.e, the characters are in 09 and suffering through the end of the year just like the rest of us :)
So when we opened for play in July- they, too, were in July 09.
Which doesn't mean you have to stick strictly and only to the current date. You will see a thread between me and Astrid/ Doret and Conner, for eg that is dated 15 July [ie, is taking place that day only], and still in active play. Although time has moved on for us, Doret and Connor are still living that day :) You will see he is in a thread with someone else too for a different date. And that is what the dates are there for, really.
Because while Doret could, conceivably, have a conversation with X in the morning and Y in the evening, if the time differences are pretty obvious, it would be pretty stupid if I was RP ing her talking to, oh, Connor in England and Mei in China at exactly the same date and time! Not impossible, in the magic world, but unlikely- and I would have to have offered some kind of explanation for it if I tried it. So it really helps us keep the timeline straight.
I am pretty sure we got that one going around about the 'real life' date of July 07- so, not 'strivctly' true to life. But, there are other threads with that date, so we went a little ahead in time. So there is wiggle room. Around about that 'real life' date, there were threads as far ahead as early Aug dates pitching up.
A flip side, though, is that the timeline the BOD are using is also realtime. So it would be silly, for eg, to post a Sep 01 [Back to Hogwarts] thread. That is a major event, and hasn't happened yet, so best to wait off 'til we get to the time before going there. You can expect to see the BOD starting up major timeline plots-things, like the sorting ceremony, on that date . And not before [again, allowing for a little wiggle room- what I mean is they won't be pitching up next week]- so in that sense, we are realtime- our characters will be back to school on Sep 01 RL side, and major events that we know happen on certain dates, or that are scheduled by the BOD for certain 'Hogwarts time' dates, will occur on those dates in 'real life'.
Hope that explained it a bit!