[Anonymous March 6, 1998 at 7:30 pm Post count: 93172]

#1152175

Hi,remember me? Thanks Jake for you level-headed comments.I’ve been monitoring the BB, but never feel much like posting any more. I only post when I feel I can be of service and help with information.But lately the board has gotten so weird. As for Tom, I felt his messages sounded like someone on coke or speed.So Tom, get your levels checked again and calm down-too many words leading nowhere.

[Anonymous March 6, 1998 at 8:28 pm Post count: 93172]

#1051658

I will make this message as generic as possible. This BB is offered free
by support-group.com. Hensley International (aka support-group) does not
receive one dime from corporate sponsors for this or any other board. They
receive some funds from the buttens located on some of the pages (Like click
here to see windows upgrade offers etc). This BB is provided by support-
group.com in conjunction with the NGDF. We provide a facilitator and links
to other sites and try to keep the BB on track to provide support.

The NGDF does kinda sorta have a corporate sponsor. Baush and Lomb pays for
some of our operating expenses. We receive no funds from any drug manufacturers
like some of the other organizations do. Someone posted that (if memory serves
me right) Humm? $24 X 1000 people is $24,000. Nice chunk of change. Now if
we do our math and show we have say 1000 paying members time say $24 that comes
out to say $24,000. Wow a national organization that makes $24,000 in dues. Now
if you will remember I said we keep a database of 7000 people we send mail to
plus the 1000 paying members that comes out to 33 cents per person. A stamp costs
32 cents so that leaves $10 (.01 X 1000) left over to pay expenses and fund research.

None of our directors are paid. None of our support group leaders are paid. We get
the BB for free. All it costs is our time. My time is very valuable and I sometimes
get irked having to try to stop arguing and bickering on the BB. On item I have
learned as a facilitator (not for support groups but the same concept applies (by the
way I have had extensive training as a group facilitator in my day to day job)) is if
you have one or more persons monopolizing the conversation you direct the group back
to it’s goal. If the person or persons continue to do so after they have been asked
to stop you may ask them to leave. We are at that point! As facilitator I have access
to e-mail address for all who post if I so choose to ask for that address (if someone
does not put their e-mail address on line). I have only ever done that once about six
months ago and sent an e-mail to someone who was shall we say distractive. The person
applogized and still posts to this day. I, the server administrator and the person I
e-mailed are the only three people in the world who know who that person was.

If I continue to see e-mail posts that get out of hand I or our director will send them
a polite message asking them to tone down the conversation. If it continues that person
persons will be banned from the bulletin board. I have said we have only ever removed
one post from the BB since it started. We have never banned anyone but we will if it
stops us from providing support. I was hoping to not to have to resort to this but we
need to get back to the business at hand and that is promoting education on Graves Disease.

If anyone would like a financial report please send a legal self addressed envelope (with
$1.05 postage) to the address on our home page and we will send it. I hope things return to
normal soon.

Thank you for your cooperation
Jake George
On-line failitator
National Graves Disease Foundation

[Author]

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