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GI
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Kittery
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Residents --> What Can I Do?
What Can I Do?
Sometimes kind folks ask if there's anything they can
do to help out around GI, and I've always been touched, but for the most
part the place has grown into a sort of
Rube Goldberg
Machine as I've added and changed things over the years, so it's
just required me to work on most things.
But lately we're growing some ideas which really could
use volunteer hand or two to help us out. And so, as much as it feels
awkward to do, here is a humble list of ways that you could become part
of GI itself, if you so wished...
| Got an
out-of-date laptop sitting around from your last upgrade?? |
One of our major
goals here is to find and encourage shy writers who can express
these powerful feelings. We're sponsoring contests with cash prizes
in hopes of coaxing some of them out, and have arranged to
have their works published in print over the next year!
We have a couple of
enthusiastic amateur writers whom we'd really like to see get a
chance at this, who have a hard time doing their writing at
home on their family computer, because of the subject matter, and
the atmosphere there -- most of us know the issue of discretion
that can come up in that situation. For some people it's very
awkward to explore these things at home, and the only solution is
being able to write elsewhere!
And, of course, for
some people with families, etc., the outlay for a laptop just isn't
possible, especially one that's just for "creative outlet", and for
GI, and not something immediately practical.
A couple of people
very close to G.I.'s heart would blossom greatly if they had
even the simplest, elderly laptop on which they could write, away
from those who make it very awkward for them to create.
We're not talking
bells-and-whistles here, anything on which to just run a simple word
processor would be a bigger little miracle to one of your
fellow GI residents than you could possibly imagine. They don't need
Net access or power
If you've such a
machine that's doing you no good, and would like to donate it to the
good cause of helping an earnest writer who just needs to be able to
write in solitude, away from prying eyes, then please
contact us, and we'll arrange things for you.
We can't even begin
to tell you how much it would mean if some of our family here could
step up in this situation. Thank you so much, in
advance, if you can...
| Help Wanted:
RumpUs Room Moderator (Chatrooms) |
We've invested time
and money into putting a good chatroom package online, but as with
most things in these genres, it needs someone to oversee, and
shepherd it along, for it to grow into something special.
The purpose of the
RumpUs Room Moderator would be two-fold:
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To oversee our
best efforts at keeping the place as safe and on-topic as
possible, as usage increases from invitations for the outside
world to participate in special events there (below).
This would include helping to choose and oversee sub-moderators
(residents who would volunteer to keep a special eye open for
troublemakers when they're in the rooms, report such things to
you), reporting to us anything that we should know about, and/or
deal with (we'll be the "bad cops" for the most part, you won't
have to be actually police things, unless that turns out to be
your forté).
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To work with
us shepherding more usage of the place by way of organizing
special events and topic-driven participation there
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Shortly we
will be launching our plans to have live gatherings of
like-minded folks to discuss specific topics, like an online
seminar, in the RumpUs Rooms. Some of these will simply be
invitations for people to gather at the same time to discuss
a particular topic. Others will involve guest writers and/or
"speakers" who will give a short, live presentation and
Q-and-A session. In addition, we have a couple of Special
Interest Groups within the Backside community that will be
using the RumpUs Rooms for regular meetings, such as a
support group for abuse survivors, "meet-and-greet" for
singles, and that sort of thing.
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And we'd
really like it if the Moderator had some enthusiasm for our
Backside-type themes, and might want to express some
creativity of their own by thinking of topics that might be
best-explored in a live chatroom, or maybe just little ideas
for making he rooms themselves feel more creative and
interesting to our residents, to stimulate interest -- but
that's a hard thing to define, do don't worry about that one
too much.
Please
contact me if
you'd like to discuss being the Backside's official RumpUs Room
Moderator! Thank you in advance.
| Have A Home Page
Of Your Own? |
It's a high
priority for us to spark the most stimulating conversation and
writing on our
Backside-type themes as possible, and to do that we need to
keep things from stagnating, by inviting new and interesting
people to come by to contribute their own experiences and
passions, and keep our community lively.
If you have a
website or home page of your own, would you consider including a
link on it, to us? See, the way I figure it, if you are
here, then we know that you "get" a lot of what we're going for
-- and so we'd like the chance to meet folks who have sought out
your site or page! We'd be glad to include links to your
site on ours, too, of course.
Just
contact me
and I'll set you up with any kind of graphic that you've seen
around GI or the Backside as a link for you, or if you don't
care for any of those, I'd enjoy working on one just for you!
I'm not a very talented graphics person, but I really love the
visual arts, and love trying to improve with new challenges.
Thank you so much
for bothering to peek in at "What Can I Do". If nothing here was
in the cards for you, but you did care enough to come here at
all, then please do check back regularly, as we'll be updating
this listing as needed, and you never know... You might trip
upon something that could really help others, that would really
excite you to work on, and there aren't many things in life as
satisfying as that!
Thanks so much,
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