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The History of VioletReflections by Pat D. June 14,
2000 Not finding all she wanted from other online e-mail African Violet groups, Rachel (wagon@baynet.net) decided to start her own group. She intended this new list to cater to the needs of people who were new to violet growing and needed some basic answers to questions that could easily have been passed over in some of the more experience groups. She dubbed this new group VioletReflections and started it on e-Groups May 2nd, 2000. She launched it with a few invitations to join sent out to members she had met in other groups. Those invitations were meant to include some folks who had some experience with Saintpaulias and who would be patient and caring to new members with lots of beginners questions. In less than a week, the list was already up to 32 members. Rachel sought out her first moderator by selecting a member of the list who promptly accepted. Sue from Ontario (suetom) became that first moderator. Within a few days, Rachel had a technical question and posted to the board. This was answered by Pat (TrikaKeep@aol.com) who then was requested to become the second moderator. Again, this was accepted promptly. Things were starting to take off! The list expanded quickly and one of the early members, Beth, was posting often and offering suggestions and assistance to the new growers. A member of the list commented that they were throwing out leaves and extra starters plants and Beth responded that perhaps she could pass those on to other members who did not have many plants. In one day, the posts were flying back and forth and in less that 36 hours, Rachel's 'Share the Joy' program was born. Between May 31 and June 1, the groundwork for this program had been roughly worked out and donors and adoptees had been assigned and the program was in full swing. Members who have extra starter plants and leaves from grooming, were encouraged to donate these to other members who were either brand new to growing these beautiful plants or those who had only a few (usually grocery store type) plants. The adoptees were only asked to offer to reimburse the donor for the price of postage. Whether the donor accepted was entirely up to them. All of this happened before VioletReflections had even been in existence for a whole month! Beth (Birdmama98@aol.com) was asked to keep track of the program and has been doing an exceptional job keeping names and addresses of adoptees. Beth was asked to become the third moderator for the list and after a little coersion from Rachel, accepted that job. Within two weeks, 16 adoptees had been listed and very generous donors had responded to each request. Some of our donors or Violet sharers, have adopted more than one newbie, and the appreciation expressed by the adoptees indicate that they are very pleased with their gifts and are excited about becoming sharers themselves.. The list has a files section where members can post photos of their own plants, a links section for addresses of other sites on the web for photos or information, a chat area for members to get together, and even a poll area for members to answer survey questions. One member in particular, Janet Stromborg, has been very generous in posting photos of her own hybrids as well as a folder full of beautiful flowers showing different bloom types that she posted on June 12. This has been well received by the newer members as differences between single, star and pansy, double and semi double flower types can be hard to determine just from a type-written explanation. Not a bad start for a group that has been in existence for only six weeks. As of today, June 14, there are 73 members on the list and it is growing every day. |
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on to newsletter #2 |
VioletReflections Newsletter