Thursday, May 19, 2011

Appreciating SGS Volunteers

The SGS Board sponsored a "Volunteer Appreciation Day" at SGS on Monday, May 16th. We provided lunch and/or dinner and offered help with research problems. I am thrilled to report that 35 of our dedicated volunteers came, but sorry to say that I didn't manage to talk to many of them. I was too busy searching for missing ancestors. Thank you to all who came and to the board members who made this event possible.
Several attendees asked me why one group of volunteers (the SGS Board) was doing all the work. My answer: We want to make sure that our member volunteers understand how important they are to the Society's well-being. Granted, Board members spend many, many hours volunteering on behalf of SGS, but we aren't the people who keep the SGS library open 30 hours a week, make most of the presentations, keep track of memberships, catalog new library books, inventory our archival materials, etc.
Director of Volunteers Becky Kaufman reports that 90 SGS members have volunteered this year. That's almost double the number we had last year. And that's undoubtedly the reason so much has gotten done at SGS this year. Please come to the Annual Meeting on Sunday, June 5th, and learn what SGS has accomplished this past year.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Reading Genealogy Blogs

Do you read any genealogy blogs on a regular basis? Please take the poll at right and let me know.
I've followed several geneablogs off and on for several years, but lately I've gotten hooked on Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings (http://www.geneamusings.com/). I've added his RSS feed to my Google home page, so when I open Internet Explorer I can see immediately if Randy's made a new post...which is every day, often multiple times a day. Certain days of the week are "theme" days, which many geneabloggers follow. Randy also summarizes what's happening on a large number of other blogs every week, which I find particularly helpful (since I don't have to check them all!).
Today Randy wrote about planning genealogical seminars (in response to a topic suggestion by Thomas MacEntee (http://www.geneabloggers.com/). Randy makes a number of very interesting points based on his experiences with the Chula Vista Genealogical Society. Check his comments out at http://www.geneamusings.com/2011/05/planning-genealogical-seminars-my-view.html and let me know what other seminar planning suggestions you have. I agree with most of his points...do you?