* WELCOME * REPLYING TO REQUESTS * ACT OF KINDNESS * LETTING YOUR STAFF COORDINATOR KNOW * SHOP TALK * KUDOS * IN APPRECIATION * CURRENT STATS *WELCOME* Welcome to all the new volunteers. You will find that volunteering for RAOGK will be a very rewarding part of your life. Quite a few of our volunteers have been with us since the site began 8 1/2 years ago. Long-time volunteers have said that their rewards have been great and many new friendships have been created. You have read the FAQ's for Volunteers (http://www.raogk.org/faq-vols.htm) prior to signing up. If you haven't read the FAQ's for Requester's (http://www.raogk.org/faq-requesters.htm) you may wish to do so. You may also want to bookmark both. See the list at the bottom of this newsletter for all the links that you will need as a volunteer. We have very few rules and regulations that you must abide by, but we do have a few important ones. One of them is to keep your Section/State Coordinator up-to-date with regards to your e-mail address, and absences from your computer of more than two weeks. You will need to let the coordinator know if wording for your Act of Kindness (AOK) needs to be changed. See the forms located at http://www.raogk.org/change.html to aid you in notifying your coordinator. A form will need to be completed before any changes can be made to your listing. If you have any questions, please contact your USA or NON- USA coordinator, you can find where to write them at this link: http://www.raogk.org/staff.html ***************** *REPLYING TO REQUESTS* When you receive a request, wait for twenty four hours to allow staff time to review the request before you fill it out and respond. Staff reviews the requests because some requesters by-pass the FAQ's, and ask every volunteer in that location for the same exact lookup. If staff finds such an incident, the requester will be notified that they need to pick only one of the volunteers to handle the request. This notification is also sent to all involved volunteers. If you receive such a notification, acknowledge receipt of the request, but indicate you will do nothing at that time. Wait to see if the requester would like you to handle it or not. Another reason for waiting is that sometimes a requester's email notification bounces and, if this happens, staff will notify the volunteer. If after twenty four hours you have not received any notice from the site, you may then reply to the requester as to whether or not you are able to honor the lookup. Remember to reply even if you cannot do the lookup so that the requester can ask another volunteer. Do not do the lookups prior to sending this notification, especially if you are going to need any reimbursement. If so, you will need to let the requester know the approximate amount and await their agreement to the terms. Staff does not need to be notified that you have completed a request. ***************** *ACT OF KINDNESS* On our forms we have listed a few pre-stated Acts of Kindness. One of those selections is "Public Records lookups and copying." This is generic and has caused problems as to what people understand "Public Records lookups" to mean. If you have selected this AOK you may want to specify what *you* mean by public records. If you will only look up obituaries at the local library and/or newspaper, but not look for births, deaths and marriages, or the other way around, make this distinction. If your AOK is taking photos of tombstones, if there are limits as to how far you will travel make note of that fact in your AOK. This is most important if you live in a large county. ***************** *LETTING YOUR STAFF COORDINATOR KNOW* When a Staff Coordinator contacts you either with a complaint or problem from the requester, you need to keep the coordinator informed as to your side of the story. For instance, if you are contacted because a requester says you did not respond when you actually did, you need to inform the coordinator of that fact. In most cases it is an ISP mail delivery problem but we need to know both sides of the story to handle the complaint or problem. It would be a good idea to copy the area coordinator on return communications to the requester to keep the coordinator informed as to the situation. ***************** *SHOP TALK* We have 2 genealogy specific shops online. The first shop is a RAOGK logo shop (http://www.cafepress.com/raogk), mainly for you volunteers to buy items with the RAOGK logo on it. The second shop is called Genealogy For You (http://www.cafepress.com/genealogyforyou) and contains designs on mugs, tote bags, t-shirts, baby and kids apparel, items for your home, greeting cards and more that show the humorous side of our hobby. Proceeds from these two shops help RAOGK pay its bills to stay online . To help you with your requests, a small notebook called "Research Tracking" was created. This notebook is a good size to fit in purse or backpack to carry along with you while doing requests. The product can be viewed by going to: http://www.cafepress.com/raogk.103230216 and if you would like to see what the inside pages look like, they can be seen here: http://raogk.org/graphics/example_page.png We have Halloween designs with a genealogy theme: http://www.cafepress.com/genealogyforyou/849580 A new one was added just this month for Halloween: http://www.cafepress.com/genealogyforyou/3635451 ***************** *KUDOS*: http://www.raogk.org/thankyou/ The month of September saw kudos written about: Jo Slingerland (Missouri), Judy McKay (Oregon), Nancy Clack (Florida), Joyce Pilgrim (California), Norma (California), Ann Waterbury & John Lauer (Minnesota), Pat Windschitl (Virginia), Karen Chang (California), Anna Steinke (Missouri), Philip Maddocks (England), Charlie Peasha [2](Minnesota), Mark Rosenblum (Missouri), Laura Heckman (Indiana), Frank Paige (Colorado), Tedd Cocker [2](Delaware), Simon Plumb (England), Laura Stotler (California), Peggy Metz (Minnesota), David A. Henry (Florida), Tony Sasso (New York), Dae Powell (Texas), Richard Boyer (Pennsylvania), Kim Marie Fischer (Florida), George Spadon (Australia), Meredith Kleinschmidt (California), Iris Davenport (Tennessee), ***************** *IN APPRECIATION* Every month we received contributions from researchers and volunteers alike. We are most appreciative of these donation. Some contributions, however contain notes which will name a specific volunteer who has been such a great help. The month of September saw Mike Ackley (Illinois), Barbara Palmer (West Virginia), Robert Shaw (New Jersey) mentioned on contributions. Our hats go off to those volunteers and all the unnamed wonders we have on our site as well. A great big THANK YOU goes out to one and all who have helped RAOGK to continue to be a presence online. Your purchases through one of our stores or by sending a contribution via PayPal or check are very much appreciated. http://www.raogk.org/support.html ***************** *CURRENT STATS* Last month: 4052 This month: 4035 New: 89 Left: 43 Staff removals*: 41 September Requests (through September 28, 2007): 5,670 USA volunteers received: 5,135 NON-USA volunteers received: 535 *Staff removals are those folks whose e-mail address has been reported bouncing and confirmed or volunteers who, over the course of trying many times, did not respond back to requesters or staff. The STAFF thanks you for volunteering and until next month. . . . . . THE STAFF Bridgett, Michele, Bill, Anja, Terri, Nancy, Jo, Bonnie, Melissa, Brenda, Dennis, Kathy, Jeniann and Doc, the Tech Guru