I would like to take this time to say that I am amazed at the many letters I have received over the past two months, wondering why the writer did not receive a monthly newsletter, and were they still on the site. I did not realize my little monthly message was one people looked for in their e-mail box. Why no newsletter for two months? Very simple -- The newsletters are sent out at the end of every month, and at the end of May I was sitting at my father's house without a computer. A few days after returning home in June I came down with bronchitis and a sinus infection which wiped me out for about 2 1/2 weeks. Much of what goes on behind the scenes to get this newsletter out to you is done manually and only by me. These duties were not done during that 2 1/2 week time period and also while I was at my father's. I was so far behind by the end of June, June's newsletter did not got out either. CURRENT VOLUNTEER NUMBERS This is an area where I usually tell you how many new folks have signed up and how many folks had been removed from the site, whether they requested the removal or staff had to do so, this will resume in next month's letter. There was too much activity in June and July for these figures to be easily retrieved. However, I would like to say that we did have 196 new volunteers since the end of April 2004. Welcome aboard, or welcome back whichever the case may be. This newsletter is sent out for two reasons. It is the only way to keep in touch with ALL the volunteers, letting everyone know what might be new on the site, etc. Also, it is a way of finding out whose address is no longer valid. 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. "KUDOS" The guestbook area of the site is used by folks to state publicly a thank you for a job well done by volunteers. This area is growing by leaps and bounds, and given the fact that the volunteers on this site give their time as freely as possible to help other researcher, I am sure it is going to continue to grow. Go check out what folks are saying: (http://www.raogk.org/guestbook/) A GENTLE REMINDER This site has always been run with the motto "Do unto others. . . " This is the only way I know how to run a 'business.' Apparently it is a good motto as this site is a success and the volunteers are getting praised every day. One of the "requirements" we ask of volunteers is to respond back to any requests you receive, whether you can honor the request or not. The major majority of volunteers do this, however it only takes a few bad apples to cause problems. This site was built by word of mouth, and it can be destroyed the same way. Researchers who may have written to a block of bad apples may start expressing their disappointment publicly. This block of bad apples may not be concentrated in one area, but all over. I am now talking about personal experience. In the past 6 months I have started back researching again. I have sent out messages to quite a few volunteers. The average of folks responding back to my requests is pretty low, I would say one in 5. Another staff member has given up all together trying to use any of our volunteers. That's pretty sad. Now I *totally* understand that life gets in the way of responding. People have computer crashes (I've had 4 this year), they get ill (I've recently been laid up), summertime brings on vacations, mother nature decides to be ornery (i.e. floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, etc.) and all of this is factored in when waiting on responses. Factoring in all of the aforementioned problems, still doesn't make it less frustrating to be on the other side of the fence. Please "do unto others. . ." when receiving a request. SITE UPDATE Okay, now that I've stressed responding to requests, there is a really good reason for doing so. Within the next few days you will notice a difference in the site. Volunteer's e-mail addresses will no longer be published on the website. The volunteers name will appear as a link instead. When clicked on, a requester will be taken to a form to fill in their request. This request will be forwarded on to the volunteer whose name was selected. The only notice that the request has been sent is a "thank you" page that appears after sending. Verification from the volunteer that s/he has received this request is now almost mandatory (I am not the type to tag something "absolute", that is why that word is not used here). Once the requester is at the request submission page, he will see repeated the name of the volunteer he chose, and the volunteer's Act of Kindness. We also have the reminder on the page to NOT request from the volunteer something that isn't listed in the Act of Kindness. Many reasons for this change. The biggest one is to get the volunteer's e-mail address off the website, not viewable/obtainable by e-mail harvesting spamrobots. Once in place, you should not receive any spam as a result of volunteering for RAOGK. Hopefully, this will also be a deterrent from those requesters who like to make the same request to every volunteer in the same county. This will not stop them from doing so, but make it more cumbersome and possibly not worth the effort and time. The requests you will receive when submitted through this form will now contain the subject line that reads: [RAOGK-Req] This should help those volunteers who are listed in several areas. We have been working on this project a long time, and hope that you will enjoy the new way of submitting/receiving requests. SPECIAL REQUEST About the first part of May we started noticing a traffic increase on our mail servers. This increase coincided with several viruses that raised their ugly heads and became rampant on the internet. Most of these viruses turn your computer into a zombie remotely controlled by spammers. In one day our mail servers were hit with over 59,000 spam messages ! This is totally unacceptable, and a drain in our ability to service RAOGK and other clients as well. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE if you don't have a virus protection program, get one. AVG (I use this one personally), a free anti-virus program, can be downloaded by going to http://www.grisoft.com/ and following the links to download it. If you do have an anti-virus program, UPDATE IT and USE IT. Just having one on your computer does not protect you; you have to use it and updated it at lease once a week (if not having the software update automatically). After updating your program, run a FULL system scan with it, not just selected areas. We are not saying that these viruses are coming from a RAOGK volunteer, we are just putting out the request to make you aware of our situation. The above request comes from Doc (my hubby), our tech guru. WE GET RECOGNIZED The Web Site "Honoring Our Ancestors" http://www.honoringourancestors.com/ issues grants to organizations that serve the genealogical community. In April I took a stab at requesting a grant. Our site does not contain content which is usually the criteria for issuance of a grant and was just applying because a few folks encouraged me to do so, and didn't hold my breath. Much to my surprise and amazement, RAOGK was awarded the grant for the month of May ! http://www.honoringourancestors.com/grants.html (scroll down to 'Grants Awarded'). Receiving this grant enabled us to make the site changes mentioned above. Thank you Megan Smolenyak of Honoring Our Ancestors, and a special thank you goes out to all the RAOGK volunteers for being so good at what you do. SOMETHING YOU MAY NOT KNOW Except for the grant mentioned above and the Google Ads placed on the website's pages, RAOGK's expenses are paid by yours truly and the wonderful donations made by supporters. Check out our supporters at http://www.raogk.org/supporters.html. If your name isn't listed on this page, and you would like to see it listed, learn how by going to http://www.raogk.org/support.html. YOUR AT THE END Sorry this newsletter is so much longer than usual. We had a lot to cover because of two missed months. However, if you have gotten to this point, thanks for mulling through and thank you for being a great volunteer. The Staff Bridgett, Mollie, Michele, Valorie, Anja, Bill and Madlyn and Doc, our Tech Guru, of course.