Hello,
The server will not immediately change to 1.3 on August 1st as not all plugins will be prepared. As you may have heard, a 1.3 pre-release is coming out tomorrow that will allow modders time to get their plugins prepared for next week's release. This means we may not have to wait as long as what we normally would during an update, but still makes us wait a few days to one week before upgrading to 1.3.
As for the chest room items, we will be cleaning up the room and then place it in the 1.3 world for players to enter and take their items. The room will remain open for a while until everyone has received their items.
We have more in store for the server for 1.3 and hope to make it a much better experience for our players than it was in 1.2.
Thanks