Guest guest Posted January 13, 2009 Report 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
Guest guest Posted January 13, 2009 Report 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
Guest guest Posted January 14, 2009 Report 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
Guest guest Posted January 24, 2009 Report 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
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