First, apologies to those of you outside the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area… I’ve backed off from using my blog as a mouthpiece for local announcements, but we’ve got a couple of things going on that need some additional publicity.

Mailing List Changes

Those who are engaged with our e-mail distribution list know that we’ve had some issues with our listserv for several months.  Spam has gotten out of control, and messages were delayed by several hours (or simply never arrived) on more than one occasion.  Last week, it was brought to our attention that a number of people on the list had stopped receiving messages completely.  We contacted our host to report this most recent occurrence, and their staff responded with news we weren’t quite ready for: they were going out of business, and we were given 30 days notice to move to another provider.  Fortunately, my fellow board members and I had already been discussing a new group list provider anyway, and had begun a pilot program to test Google Groups as an alternative.  We were able to get the word out to group members, and sent out invites from the new list.  We also created a second group just for announcement, to separate the general group discussions from administrative announcement and group reminders.  If you’d like to sign up for one or both of the groups, visit our website for instructions.

Leadership

We have a problem – our group has grown!  A great problem to have, to be sure, but it also means that there’s more work to go around.  To accommodate our growth, the leadership has voted to add another position to the board.  We are accepting submissions for candidacy until noon on Thursday, and all interested candidates are invited to briefly address the group during the monthly meeting on Thursday.  Members are invited to vote starting Friday, and voting will continue for a week until the following Thursday at midnight.  We will announce the new board member on Friday, August 27th.  If you’re active with the NTSSUG group and are interested in being part of the leadership, consider joining the board!  You can find full details here.

… And a special guest for January

Yeah, I know it’s quite a while away, but put the January NTSSUG meeting on your calendar.  We’ve got a special guest coming in who I’m sure you’ll enjoy meeting.  Don’t miss it!