Guest guest Posted January 13, 2009 Report Share Posted January 13, 2009 Hey Trish, Kudos, Kudos, Kudos! My GOODNESS! About your hosting fees and such... Have you checked out Godaddy.com? 1 year renewal for .com is like 9 bucks (prolly the same for .org) and hosting fees are like 9 or 10 bucks a month. Even cheaper if you renew by the year like I do. K > > > -- Kathleen Petrides Bead Hussy http://www.BeadHussy.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 13, 2009 Report Share Posted January 13, 2009 Hey, kudos as well~! I locked in years ago @ 4.95 a month~glad I did now~ Go daddy is great~ sindy ATFE2@ Gearing up for Sierra Leone! Hey Trish, Kudos, Kudos, Kudos! My GOODNESS! About your hosting fees and such... Have you checked out Godaddy.com? 1 year renewal for .com is like 9 bucks (prolly the same for .org) and hosting fees are like 9 or 10 bucks a month. Even cheaper if you renew by the year like I do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 14, 2009 Report Share Posted January 14, 2009 Grrr, GoDaddy is the bane of many. lol! --\ ------------- Designer at Scrapbook-Bytes http://www.takeapick.com/2IH *Some people only dream of angels; we held one in our arms.* Remembering Jacob March 8 - 9, 1996 Our Angel: http://sids-network.org/fp/jacob.htm - " Sindy Anderson " <sssoap <ATFE2 > Tuesday, January 13, 2009 10:14 AM RE: [ATFE2] Gearing up for Sierra Leone! > Hey, kudos as well~! > > I locked in years ago @ 4.95 a month~glad I did now~ > Go daddy is great~ > sindy > > > ATFE2@ Gearing up for Sierra Leone! > > Hey Trish, > > Kudos, Kudos, Kudos! My GOODNESS! > > About your hosting fees and such... Have you checked out Godaddy.com? 1 > year > renewal for .com is like 9 bucks (prolly the same for .org) and hosting > fees > are like 9 or 10 bucks a month. Even cheaper if you renew by the year like > I > do. > > > > --- > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 24, 2009 Report Share Posted January 24, 2009 What fantastic work you do Trish! Well done - and thank you for caring and doing it. LLx 2009/1/13 Patricia Ross <trishmcross: > Happy New Year to you all! > > We have been frantically busy since our return from our last trip. > We've... > been the recipient of some grants, > been in conversations with a half-dozen volunteers, > been the subject of a nice newspaper article, > refined the curriculum, > raised some badly needed funds, > continued our own education and development, > launched a new web site, and > managed to sneak in a little vacation time. > Many thanks to volunteers and the Board for their patience and support > and diligence. > > You can read the article from the SF Chronicle here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/02/BASB13H0H7.DTL & hw=pa\ tricia+ross & sn=001 & sc=1000 > .. It has some inaccuracies, and the comment about Chris and me being > in our " golden years " is stunning, but it is a good article and we > really enjoyed talking with Meredith. > > You see that we have a lot going on, so here is a summary: > > Thanks for Support! > Many thanks to Marge Clark of Nature's Gift for naming MOMS as Charity > of the Quarter - link here: http://www.naturesgift.com/special.htm. > Marge has provided us with essential oils for several of our trips and > always has kind words for me. I appreciate her humor and support a lot! > > The Tides Foundation and New Field gave us an unrestricted grant. > Thank you! > > We also received a grant from the Kansha Foundation, and one from the > Episcopal Church. Thank you all, too! > > In addition, some of you have registered with iGive.com. IGive.com > works with over 750 vendors who donate 1% to 25% of your purchase to > MOMS - without costing you a cent! You just register with iGive.com, > then link from the iGive site to Amazon, Chicos, Land's End, or > whoever, and make your purchase normally. Each quarter, MOMS gets a > check from iGive with the donations. Cool, huh! Here is the link: www.iGive.com/GlobalMidwives > .. IGive leaves you alone, just sending you an email to note your > totals. > > Chris and I were also named as women " Making a Difference for Women " > by the El Cerrito Soroptimist Club, which puts MOMS in the running for > a grant from the national group. The Soroptimists' international > focus is on Sierra Leone, which is very cool. We'll be speaking to > that group soon. We're really excited about getting an award like this. > > Next trip! > We are getting ready for our next trip to Sierra Leone. We're leaving > on the 24th of January to return the 10th of March, again a 6-week > trip. The best news is that the airlines have rolled back their > prices a bit as the cost of fuel has gone down, so each ticket is a > couple of hundred dollars less than in July. We'll be able to put > that savings to good use, paying for extra baggage! > > We'll be working with our third cohort, in the town of Daru in Jawei > Chiefdom. Our class will draw from several area villages, and we hope > it will have no more than 25 or 30 women! Daru is the seat of the > Jawei Chiefdom, and our favorite Paramount Chief, Musa Ngombuklah > Kallon, lives there. It is a larger town than we've worked in before, > with about 10,000 people or so. A nice clinic is in the middle of > town, with several skilled staff members, so the environment will be > very different from what we are used to having. > > Needs! > We need to take lots and lots of supplies and mama/baby packets as we > are supporting several areas now. Each mama/baby pack includes the > following if we have enough to go around: > 1 hat (lightweight crochet is nice) > 2 onesies or tshirts (one plain and one cute) > 1 pair socks (2 if we can get enough) > 2 simple receiving blankets > 1 cloth diaper (2 if we can get enough) > 1 travel-sized bottle of shampoo > 1 travel-sized bottle of lotion > 1 travel-sized bar or bottle of soap > > We'd like to take 200 packs if we can. The critical pieces are the > hats, tshirts, receiving blankets, and luxuries for the mothers. All > the cloth items will be washed by hand and dried on a line, so > lightweight, sturdy cotton with little decoration is best. > > We need to take gloves to the MOMS' TBAs in the Jokibu area, as they > are out. We weren't able to take any last trip, so we'll take as many > as we can, and put 20-25 in a baggie for each MOMS' TBA. They are > very careful with gloves, washing them and hanging them to dry in a > protected place. If we get nitrile, they will last longer, even > though they cost more. > > (It will be glorious when Sierra Leone gets trustworthy mail and > delivery service. For now, sending a 50-pound packing box costs over > $400. We could fit two dozen boxes of gloves in it, but we can't be > sure we'd get it, we'd have to spend 3-4 days at DHL's office trying > to pick it up, and it would cost us several other " processing fees " . > Boo. We do take extra bags on the plane with us - they cost about > $200 each.) > > We also need to take other supplies to them, and gloves and supplies > to Pellie and to Daru. Umbilical tape is one request, along with > scissors and hemostats. > > Also, we found last trip that our posters for teaching had gotten > mildewed and nasty, so we need to replace them. I'll be buying the > laminated kind, which will last longer. We also like to take flip- > chart paper for ad-hoc drawings! Thank you, Cindy, for the markers. > > If you'd like to send us some of these items, wonderful! If you'd > like to help us buy them, please send us a check or use your credit > card on PayPal. Our website has links. > > Volunteers! > A new volunteer will be joining us this trip. Ami is a CPM and is > studying for her BSN and will use this experience as part of her > training. > > Our trip last August provided another volunteer, Lisa, with her > capstone activity for her MPH. Another volunteer, Vivian, works with > us on the administrative stuff, and is applying her experience with > MOMS to her MPH program. We are really excited about leveraging our > work like this. It is very cool for our volunteers to be able to gain > a scholastic benefit while teaching TBAs to change the lives of the > women and children of their villages. We can work with students in > programs in areas like public health, midwifery, nursing, > international development, non-profit management, women's studies, and > so on. > > We are talking with several women about our next trips. We do flex > the timing of the trips by a few weeks to accommodate our volunteers, > but we also have to consider the workload of the women we teach. We > are tentatively planning to make a trip in the summer, which may focus > more on visiting former sites to evaluate and consolidate learning. > We're considering then an additional teaching trip in the Autumn. > Then, we'll very likely have a trip in January of 2010. I'll let you > know. > > We would like to begin taking two or three volunteers with us on each > trip, as we are covering a larger area and need to spend time with > more groups in more places. We'd love to have a certified midwife and > someone from another discipline on our trips. We want to keep the > groups fairly small, to limit infrastructure needs, but a team of 5 or > 6 will work well for us. So let us know if you are interested. > > Registering! > You recall that we went through the difficult process of registering > with the Sierra Leonean government as an International Non- > Governmental Organization (INGO). This was expensive and time- > consuming. However, we believe we must work ethically and legally in > all ways, and not take short cuts, even if they seem expedient. (I'm > really surprised, perhaps appalled, that some folks working in Salone > don't understand this.) So, we don't pay bribes and we do follow the > government's guidelines for operating. We've been in the process of > re-registering for 2009. > > Sierra Leonean Staff! > The registration process is being handled by Mr. Cecil Samba, our new > director of operations. He is a Sierra Leonean whose father was from > the Kailuhun District, where we work. Cecil came to the US to study > and work and stayed for over 20 years. He took the opportunity to go > home to work as the government's NGO coordinator. When that role > ended, we were delighted to offer him this key role in working with > MOMS - and he was happy to accept. He understands how both Americans > and Sierra Leoneans work and smoothes the way for us at the national > and local levels. (In other words, he keeps our " directness " from > biting us in the butt.) > > We also hired Alpha Seisay ( " Junior " ) as our part-time finance king. > He works for another INGO, for several years, in this capacity, and > very ably brings his knowledge and organizational skills to the job. > He is also studying for a degree in business management. We enjoy > working with Junior a lot. He is smart and funny and caring. > > And we haven't forgotten Jitta! That dear young woman is still > working with us, while in her second year of nursing school. She has > finished her first rotation of clinical practice, and is so excited > about all she has learned. We'll be taking a load of textbooks to her > again, along with some good fry pans and knives to support her > prodigious culinary skills. > > And you might recall that Jitta's sister Tiangay was our " support > staff " on our last trip upcountry. She took care of us capably and > gained good experience in working on projects like this. Her efforts > freed Jitta to be able to focus on translation and act as liaison with > the women. > > A Vehicle! > In addition, MOMS is the proud owner of a used Land Rover. In the US, > it would be considered a 5-seater, but we can pack the back with 6 > more people (or " goats " as we call them in that situation!) or 4- > weeks' worth of supplies for a trip upcountry. Renting a sturdy > vehicle has cost us about 1,000 per week on previous trips, so we'll > defray this expenditure in a couple of years, but it was a challenge > to send off that chunk of change. > > We tried renting less-sturdy trucks, and spent too much time and money > repairing them (ask me about the time the rivets popped on the roof > rack, and all the luggage slid down onto the windshield). We also > arranged for vehicles to drop us off, then return to pick us up; this > really limited us by stranding us in one remote place. Now that we > are working in several areas, we need to be able to move around more > freely. > > So this purchase is the logical next step for us, although we debated > the pros and cons for some time. As an INGO, we do have tax breaks > with the vehicle and we have put our logo on it. This gives us > additional credibility with the government and other agencies. > > Web Site! > Please look at the new web site at www.globalmidwives.org. > > We've tried to simplify the navigation, reduce the repetition, improve > the pictures, and focus more tightly on MOMS and what we do. The site > has a blog integrated into it, which will supplement and perhaps > replace some of these emails. Please, oh please, give me your feedback. > > This is a good example of some of our invisible costs - the software > to build the website was about 60 dollars; monthly fees for hosting > are 20 dollars; annual domain name confirmation is something. I am > the webmistress and donate my time - I spent about 125 hours on this > update (including the 20 hours I spent trouble-shooting when the new > site crashed, and I still haven't fixed the logo yet). Not much, > really, but it does add up - yet we need a web site to provide > information and give folks an easy way to donate and communicate with > us. We get many donations through PayPal, plus our distance-learning > program students mostly pay their tuition through the site. > Volunteers find us and can download the forms we need them to sign, > and so on. > > Wrapping up! > OK. Once I start these emails, I find myself getting awfully long- > winded. Thank you for your indulgence and support in so many other > ways. > > I'm off to search the internet for things like cheap scissors and a > couple of new linen tank tops! Goat stew tends to leave indelible > stains. > > As always, if you have questions, comments, suggestions, please let me > know. You've offered so many great ideas and have helped us so much. > > Take care, > > Trish > > Patricia Ross > Midwives on Missions of Service > Healthier birth worldwide through education and service. > www.globalmidwives.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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