CURRENT VOLUNTEER NUMBERS

Welcome aboard all new volunteers; we are really glad to have you. We
currently have 4420 volunteers across the globe. During the month of
December we welcomed 105 new volunteers. Forty-one volunteers were
removed due to the newsletter bouncing back to us (user unknown,
mailbox full November and December, and hosts unknown); staff removed
13 for being non-responsive or having bad e-mail addresses; 51 members
decided to leave the project voluntarily. The staff doesn't ask too
much from the volunteers; just keep us posted on any changes you may
have by going to http://www.raogk.org/change.html instead of writing
to us directly. Also, as always, please be sure to acknowledge receipt
of a request, whether you can fulfill the request or not.

This newsletter is sent out for two reasons, the only way to keep in
touch with ALL the volunteers letting everyone know what might be new
on the site, etc. The second reason, it is a way of finding out whose
address is no longer valid (as you can tell from the numbers above,
this could be quite a few).

Probably we could add a third reason. When folks sign up for the site,
and receive no requests they tend to forget they are volunteers for
RAOGK. This newsletter serves as a reminder of your volunteerism as
well.


CHANGES TO THE CHANGES

On Thursday, January 20 around 9:00 PM, we heard our mail server
making a racket (for us it means something has gone awry, glad it
rattles). I am still very unclear as to how someone managed to use the
forms on RAOGK to send out tons of spam, but they did, and we had to
pull *all* the forms offline. We are in the process of revamping the
whole site, but not in this order, the forms were to be the last on
the list for a face lift.

We now have forms for each action you would like the staff to perform
(change of e-mail address, change in act of kindnes, change both e-
mail address and act of kindness, to be placed on or removed from
temporary status and removal from the project). If you forget to fill
in a section that is mandatory, the form will now tell you what was
forgotten.

Even though these forms are sleeker and less confusing that the old
ones, your submissions are still handled manually by staff. So please
give us at least a week for your changes to take place.

NEW SITE ONLINE

Everyone needs a little competition to keep them on their toes. For
links to genealogy sites, most people go to "Cyndi's List"
(http://www.cyndislist.com), but there is a new site on the internet
that will soon rival the number of links at Cyndi's. The site is
called Linkpendium (http://www.linkpendium.com/), Linking People and
Information. When you go to the main site you will see a coming soon
statement. You will need to scroll down the page a bit to find "Beta
test 103,204 genealogy links." When you click on that link you will be
taken to a page that contains what links they have collected so far.
They will be adding links to NON-USA genealogy sites in time, so visit
often.


KUDOs

The following volunteers were found on the Thank You
(http://www.raogk.org/guestbook/) page for the month of January:
Charlie Peasha, Jon Maynard, Melissa Pederaon (Williams), Gwen Brewer
McDaniel, Pati Royal, Sharon Randall, Jennifer Gentry, George Burgey,
Sheri Baker, Janet Wright, La Vera Caruthers, Victoria McKinnon, Brian
Futrell, Becki Larson, Don Sweaney. Thanks to these volunteers, and
ALL of you, for your acts of kindness to your fellow genealogists.

RAOGK Staff