Hello All!
Boy!! Have we had a lot of new members lately!!! Welcome to all of you! And thank you for choosing to join this community! I know there are a lot of them out there to choose from, but we seem to have something that others don't - or we wouldn't keep getting so many new members!
So, what I need to ask though, is for all existing members to stop for a minute and think what it would be like if no one ever responded to your very first message, watching the number of "views" piling up, but without one post ever being done in response. Would we have stayed? Not likely. Would we have felt good about
this community? Not likely.
I've noticed a reluctance to welcoming new members. Believe me, I do understand - once upon a time, I was a newbie as well - and didn't particularly care for the way I was treated simply because I hadn't been here long - but I'm a hard one to run off. (LOL!! Obviously, as I've been here closing in on 10 years now!!)
It really only takes a few words to welcome a new member. It doesn't matter if you can answer every one or even most of their questions, or if you know of a LLMD in the area they are looking for. Just pop in and say Hi, or Welcome! We're glad you're here! You can point them to the 'New to Lyme?' thread too.
One of the things that I keep reading over and over in this community is how we all love the 'community feel' (to paraphrase) - but we do NOT have that when it comes to brand new members - and yet we were all once a brand new member - no matter how much we did or didn't know when we joined, we were still new and someone welcomed us.
This is NOT a job just for Mods. To be perfectly honest, a Mod's main job is as a rule monitor!! Those in this community just take it further - and boy am I grateful!!! But - I believe that it's the job of every member of a community to help and to make the new members feel more comfortable.
So, please, let's ALL start welcoming new members and continue to help support the current members!! If we love this community as much as I've seen posted lately by many members, remember..... it US that make it this way, and if we don't all help out, this forum will be no more than a message board and not a community where we all turn for help, compassion and understanding.
And, I won't be here tomorrow morning, and I surely don't want to think that members aren't being welcomed or helped just because I'm not here!! I'll be back on Wednesday morning, as usual, but we really will need your help tomorrow in general, but always with welcoming new members and not allowing posts to get half way down the thread listings without responses. So, I'm counting on you all to pitch in and lend a hand!!! Please??? Believe me, it's not just the mods that make this a wonderful place, it's everyone caring and helping each other, looking out for each other and sharing whatever information or hugs that we have!
Thank you!!!!