Requests from Dawn.... everyone please read...

Hi Everyone,

I am swamped right now... actually beyond swamped. Between all the dozens of projects we have going on, trademark stuff, hacker issues, my job and work and family stuff and getting married and other personal stuff.... there really is not enough time in the day. So I need your help please, all of you. If you can do just 1 or 2 of the following, you have no idea how much help you will be to me and to CHERUBS.....

1. Please keep to the post subject lines. New subject, then please start a new post. We're getting complaints about this because it's becoming hard to find things and some people steer clear of certain subjects that are hard for them. I realize I am very guilty of this myself and am going to start working on it!

2. If you have trouble getting on to the site, please e-mail any of our site admins as they can help you too and won't take half as long as I do!

3. Please use the photo albums on the site to post photos of cherubs, events, etc. When I put together the newsletter, book, calendar, event sites, banner at the top of our pages, etc I cannot go through all the threads looking for photos and I really don't have time to add everyone's photos to the albums myself. It's very easy to do!

4. Use appropriate subject lines in e-mails. If you use "Hi" as your subject line to send in your story... chances are it will get mixed up and lost and not make the newsletter. I get at least 500 real, non-spam, e-mails a day between CHERUBS and work and e-mails can very easily lost if they aren't labeled properly.

5. Volunteers who need info or help, please contact Barb or Steph - again, they are much faster than I am and can do anything you need help with except creating your CHERUBS e-mail. But access to the volunteer site or this site - they can do it! :)

6. CDH Ribbons - please contact Barb at bwagner@cherubs-cdh.org and she'll get it done as soon as she can. And I'll get it posted to cafepress as soon as I can. 1 of us is going to teach Fer how to do this too so then we can work twice as fast, but in the meantime, please be patient.

7. Facebook and Myspace - I am so slow in responding. This site is my main priority, the others when I have time. So if you need to reach me, do so here or by e-mail. I'm not ignoring you, I promise! I just don't get there much on those sites!

8. Donations - seriously, we need them. Only 2% of members donate in any given year. That's 50 members out of 2500, usually at $20 each = $1000 a year. That doesn't even cover hosting costs for us, much less newsletters, phone, ink, stamps, etc. And we need this research site. Our kids need this research site! All of our services are free. We don't beg for donations. We don't pressure for them. We don't charge for access to our site like over half the charities now do. Everything thinks everyone else donates and this doesn't happen. Imagine if all 2500 members donated just $20 a year - all we could do for CDH families! We try to give you all as many free services and things as we can dream up to do and have the time to make happen.

9. Volunteer - please, we need volunteers. A lot of volunteers. Who really want to get things done to help CDH families. Contact Steph or Barb if you can help.

10. Participate in activities - trademark petition, cookbook, calendar, yearbook, stories book, etc. So easy and doesn't cost anything to submit your photo or story. Signing the petition and forwarding it... raises awareness and it only takes 5 minutes.

12. Research Links - searching for them and adding to our links section. Otherwise I will be spending days doing this myself and I don't have time but it has to get done. So many of you search already, just take a few minutes to add them to the site.

13. Help. So many of you have jobs that could help CHERUBS and don't realize it. Printer? Author? Artist? Lawyer? Doctor? Programmer? Musician? If you can help, let us know!

14. Be patient. Please. I get so many e-mails and so many requests to do things, it really adds up. I'm doing as much as I can as fast as I can but please be patient. I am only human. :)

If we all work together, we can accomplish anything! So please, just 1 or 2 (or more!) things on this list will really help. :)

Dawn

Forgot a couple.....

15. Calendar issues can be fixed yourselves. If you go to your profile, make sure the date(s) are in the right spaces and right format and that you give Publishing Permission. The calendar pulls directly from your Membership Form / Profile so it's only wrong if you submitted it incorrectly but you can fix it yourself in just a few minutes. :)

16. Keep track of your usernames and passwords. At least 5 people a day e-mail us asking for their usernames and passwords. That's about 20 or 30 minutes a day that we could be doing something else by the time we reset it and answer e-mails, etc. We don't mind helping but please make sure to write that down.

Thanks again everyone! :)