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A Message from VoicesNet
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Hi, its Jeff Humphrey here. I am the lunatic that started
the VoicesNet website and this wonderful journey that we are
all on.
Now I started the journey, but we couldn't be where we are
at now without all of you out there participating at the site.
I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for making
us what I believe is one of the best Poetry sites on the Internet.
So far it has been very exciting!
I want to take a few minutes here to summarize all of the
different projects that we have going on here at VoicesNet.com.
VoicesNet Visions Literary Journal
First, let me start with what you are reading. This is the
8th issue of our newsletter and the second as VoicesNet Visions
Literary Journal, a fancy HTML based newsletter that is currently
sent to over 7000 subscribers all around the world.
The Visions project is and will be such a gem. I predict
that it will be better each time you read it as we get better
and better at our end. One day it will be one of the leading
Internet Poetry related publications in the world. I have
that confidence in all of you who have supported the VoicesNet
efforts so far.
Right now we have 18 people who have volunteered to work
on and write for this Literary Journal. Isn't that amazing!
These people are all very serious about their passions of
poetry and writing.
We also have a volunteer marketing and advertising staff
of 6 assembled that will soon get rolling on getting the word
out about our new ventures.
The Literary Journal will include all kinds of articles of
interests, and we will also make sure that it includes poetry
on a regular basis. We are still working on figuring out what
article types you will see, but it will be interesting reading.
Some of my goals with the newsletter are (1) get information
from poets from around the world about what it is like where
they are at; where they live; where they work? ...especially
about the schools and education systems where people learn
to read and write; (2) keep you updated with VoicesNet activities
including our contests and our forum activities; (3) Give
writers from all around the world a chance to submit articles
to be published in our Literary Journal; (4) Sell enough advertising
that eventually we could have a paid core staff keeping the
Literary Journal going long-term.
Each mailing will also include a famous quote, usually inspiring,
but at least poignant.
We will send the Journal out twice per month via HTML email
and each edition will include 3 base articles. You are now
reading the second base article in this edition.
International Poetry Ambassador Program
An International Poetry Ambassador will do the following:
(1) Contribute some of their poetry into a special pool of
poems that are available to all International Poetry Ambassadors.
(2) On a regular basis, get others around the world to read
VoicesNet poetry to others and keep a count of your efforts.
We will eventually reward top Ambassador down the road based
on their efforts, but that is secondary, we mainly want people
here who are interested in getting people to read and write
and also in getting the word out about VoicesNet.com and the
many things that we have going on here.
(3) Contact Media (newspapers, websites, schools, libraries,
etc.) in your Country to get press for our VoicesNet programs
listed in their publications, websites, boards, etc.
(4) Get some of our articles from our Literary Journal published
to other Net Ezines.
This will be an exciting program. This is just the beginning.
We will have people reading and writing poetry everywhere.
Increasing Literacy around the world this way is a great
thing!
We will be rolling out more information about this program
to those expressing interest as soon as this Visions edition
goes out off of the presses. Stay tuned. Currently we have
almost 20 people from around the world who have sent me emails
expressing interest in this volunteer program.
We have also assigned Grace Joyner as the head of the International
Poetry Ambassador program. We will tell you more about Grace
and this program in future issues of this publication.
If you are interested in this program, then send an email
to jj@voicesnet.com
Poetry Forums
We have made recent changes to our forum software. We do
not display any email addresses and are no longer displaying
members' AOL, or ICQ links. It was never our intention to
be a chat community, but to be a place where members could
post their poetry, get public critiques of their poetry, or
just read poems and critiques. These email changes allow us
to better protect our members from web predators, which is
an ongoing concern of ours. Now we do not carry the email
addresses or AOL or ICQ Instant messaging features, and also
do not allow posting of websites in our forums unless we approve
of them first. We still allow member to member instant messaging
in the forum software but that will be removed shortly in
our ongoing efforts to stick with our original goals with
the forums.
We handle other website URL link requests via our link request
program which can be accessed at www.voicesnet.com/poetrylinks.htm.
We were going to make some forum room changes this month,
but we are putting those off until further notice. We will
keep you updated here about those changes,
A great thanks goes out to Dave Moore and the 15 or so forum
moderators who keep an eye on postings and make sure that
they are family friendly and also make critical comments on
poems posted by writers. Also, goodbye to Titch and Squall,
who have left our moderator ranks and welcome to Mage and
Tanshi, who have just joined our moderator ranks. Coming or
going, we really thank these people for their efforts providing
feedback and their personalities in our forums.
Also, we are looking at choosing some special poems from
posts in the forums to have highlighted on their own pages
off of the main site home page. Stay tuned as we work this
out, possibly over the next few months. I resist calling this
a contest, because we can already confuse enough with our
re-occurring quarterly VoicesNet Anthology contests, but lets
just call it a selection of Special Forum poems for now.
VoicesNet Anthology International Poetry Contest
First, thanks to all of you who have participated. A special
thanks goes to those of you who have purchased the contest
books. That is great support and we appreciate it.
Currently we have built a VoicesNet Anthology II master book
which contains poems submitted from June 1, 2002 to August
31, 2002. These books should be mailed internationally by
the end of this month (June 2003).
We have also just built the VoicesNet Anthology III master
books which contains poems submitted from Sept 1, 2002 to
November 30, 2002. These books should be mailed internationally
by the end of this month (June 2003).
The Special Recognition and the top 3 winners for Voicesnet
Anthology IV, which is for poems submitted between December
1, 2002 and February 28, 2003, will be announced by June 30,
2003.
VoicesNet Anthology V, which is for poems submitted between
March 1, 2003 and May 31, 2003 is currently being judged.
We have about 500 more poems to judge. We received just under
9000 during this contest cycle, so you can see why we can
be behind a little - your patience is really appreciated.
VoicesNet Anthology VI (can you believe it?) is now under
way and will be taking submissions until August 31, 2003.
Other News
Book sales for our VoicesNet Anthology Contest Books are
going good, but we have a long way to go to get to the financial
level that we need to be at to sustain this business venture;
but everything is improving all of the time on all fronts,
and the thousands involved should all be proud of this fact.
The software needed to keep track of the thousands of poems
that we get each month and the book production and distribution
process in general is incredible. Its not perfect (as we often
find out) and we are always working to make it better, but
it is pretty cool stuff. Please forgive us if you experience
any computer problems when working with our contest and/or
our site.
Conclusion
Well, I can carry on .... but, I know there is a lot to do.
We hope that you like where we are going here at VoicesNet.com.
Your suggestions are always welcome.
Sincerely,
Jeff Humphrey
VoicesNet.com
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