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We now have 4906 volunteers for Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness. 
The month of March is our anniversary month. The site has been online 
for three years. I am sure that the folks who came up with this idea 
had no clue how large or how popular this site would become at the 
time it first went online. Of course, none of this would have been 
possible if there were no volunteers. The staff would like to send 
their appreciation on to you for your fine work.


IMPROVEMENTS

Over the past month we have been working on being able to get your 
listing or any changes you have to your listing to get posted in a 
more timely fashion. The old method was the staff had to send the 
pages to the administrator for uploading to the website, and this was 
done once a week. The new method now allows the staff to make changes 
daily. To do this we have switched to using a database backend. 
Besides the ability to have the site updated daily, instead of 
weekly, is the ability to put volunteer's e-mail addresses out of the 
reach of any harvesting type of program that might hit the server.

In the next few weeks the search engine mentioned in the last 
"newsletter" will be implemented for the states only. Still working 
on the international pages.

COMMUNICATION

E-mail is a great way to communicate, usually not having to wait 
longer than a day for an answer to a question. However, real time 
answers are better or even chatting with other volunteers.  We have 
set up a chatroom on an IRC (internet relay chat) server. If you have 
an IRC application (for example mIRC), the address you enter in is 
irc.maddoc.net, port 6667, channel is #raogk.  If you don't have an 
application point your browser to http://www.raogk.org/chat, fill in 
a user name and click "Connect", it will bring you right to the chat 
room. Someone is usually around. Come join us.

WE WOULD LIKE YOUR OPINION

Since you are a volunteer for RAOGK, we are now offering business 
cards to show your affiliation. These can be seen and ordered from: 
http://www.raogk.org/business.html

Your opinion is needed if you would like to see us offer other items 
with the RAOGK logo on them.  For example, t-shirts, coffee mugs, 
mouse pads, key chains, cloth totebags, etc., to vote if you would 
like such items go to http://www.raogk.org/vote

The purchasing of the business cards, or other items, goes to 
supporting the site.

A FEW REMINDERS

It is up to you whether you wish to fulfill a request or not. If you 
find that you might be travelling some distance to do a particular 
request, you do not have to do that request. Remember we do not allow 
charging for mileage (travel). You can save it in hopes another 
request comes in for the same area and lump those together, or you 
can just let the requester know that that area is quite a bit of 
distance away and that you can not fulfill the request.

Charging for time is also not allowed. Many of the requests can be 
done during a time while you are researching your own family tree, or 
doing several requests at one time.

There are always exceptions to every rule. However, before you think 
that you should be reimbursed for something in the above two 
paragraphs, check with the section coordinator first. I have allowed 
for volunteers to charge a requester if this person put in a second 
request, however this is up to the volunteer.

It is mandatory that if you need to change your e-mail address, 
change your listing in anyway, or have a need to be removed as a 
volunteer that you go to http://www.raogk.org/change.html This form 
is keyed into the subscription base for this newsletter.


It is our hope that we are making it easier for you to help others. 
If you should have any suggestions on how we might be able to achieve 
this better, please feel free to send us a message with your 
suggestion: raogk-admin@raogk.org.

Hope everyone has a Happy Easter.

The Staff


Bridgett
RAOGK Admin
http://www.raogk.org
RAOGK Staff

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URL's on RAOGK you should have bookmarked:
Volunteer's FAQ page: http://www.raogk.org/info.htm

Section Coordinators list: http://www.raogk.org/vol.htm

Changing of information (change your "act of kindness"; e-mail address change or needing to be removed): http://www.raogk.org/change.html