~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~. From usna-net-owner@westpoint.west-point.org Sun Apr 1 15:28:44 2001 Received: (from root@localhost) by westpoint.west-point.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA18170 for usna-net-outgoing; Sun, 1 Apr 2001 15:28:44 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <000201c0baea$8c3d11e0$3601d4cd@sandi> From: "Mike Zets" To: "" Subject: usna-net: USNA-Net Newsletter - 04-01-01 Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 16:19:05 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Precedence: bulk ================================================================ USNA-Net Newsletter April 1, 2001 ================================================================ In this issue... 1. What's New - New Web Addresses 2. Our Classified Ads REALLY Work. 3. Recruiting '05 Parents 4. Heavy Topics Welcome 5 New Feature - "Rule Reasons" ================================================================ This Newsletter is sent to all members of our USNA-Net Listservers. It is published approximately three times each month and is intended to provide insight into our service, answers to Frequently Asked Questions, and Technical Assistance and Information to our membership. ================================================================ 1. What's New - New Web Addresses To make it easier to find us and to tell your friends about us, we've now have TWO new web site addresses: www.USNA-Net.org and www.USNA-Net.com. BOTH will take you to the same ol' web site that you've come to know and love but the address is now much easier to remember. We've always been USNA-Net to everyone and now our Web address and our name are the same. Just remember to use the DASH in the middle and you've got our web site address memorized. Everyone knows that the "www" is supposed to be in front and almost everything is DOT com anymore. So are we... www.USNA-Net.org or www.USNA-Net.com 2. Our Classified Ads REALLY Work. If you thought the USNA-Net Classifieds were only for advertising Cookie Sales, think again. Since their inception last fall, we've sold everything from Church Group Home Baked Cookies to TWO Cars. That's right, we've actually connected buyer and seller on two automobiles in the past few months. Ads are left in place for about two weeks and are viewable only by USNA-Net members. Currently we have advertised... a beautiful Stained Glass USNA Window; a 4 bedroom home For Rent for Commissioning 2000; an Annapolis Condo For Sale; 1-800 Phone Service at unbeatable prices; a member looking to share lodging expenses during I-Day; Cookies for sale; and a whole lot more. Check them out on our web site at www.USNA-Net.com and click on Classifieds in the main menu on the left. (User Name: brigade Password: courage (all lowercase), in case you forgot.) You've got nothing to loose except a couple of minutes of your time and a lot to be gained if the thing you're looking for is there. If not, why not place a free ad and ask if it's out there? 3. Recruiting '05 Parents With the coming of Spring and the resetting of our Clocks, it's also time to find and recruit all of those new '05 Parents. Our single biggest recruiting tool is YOU! That's right, USNA-Net needs YOU to find and bring all of those new Plebe Parents to our Listservers. We DO NOT get names or addresses from the Academy. We DO NOT have any way of contacting the incoming Parents unless YOU tell them about us and make sure they know our web site address. To make it easier, remember our new web site address, www.USNA-Net.com or www.USNA-Net.org Remember all of the help, advice and encouragement you've received in the past and how much more difficult the past months or years would have been without USNA-Net. Please don't let a single '05 Plebe Parent go through Plebe summer without signing up for membership. It's free. You'll meet potential members at Club Picnics, at Club Meetings and at the Yard - Let's not forget I-Day and just how many new Plebe Parents will be there. Hand every potential new member a copy of our business card with our address on it (you can find it at the bottom of the main web page where it says "Help us help other parents..."). Print it out and hand it out to everyone who you think should be a member. Our current members are our best advertising and our very BEST recruiters. Don't forget to wear your Red, White and Blue Ribbons everywhere you go related to Navy Parenting. It's a great way to recognize other members of our Lists and an even better way to start a conversation about USNA-Net membership. 4. Heavy Topics Welcome A member recently asked us (privately) why everything on our lists is "Sugar and Spice." It's not. It just seems that way some times. Our advice topics run the full spectrum of light and easy to HEAVY and DIFFICULT. It's just that it's easier to write about the fluff stuff and more difficult to ask the really tough questions about the heavier subjects. So we get a few more weather reports and a lot fewer questions about the hard stuff. The biggest part of the problem with HEAVY questions is that you may not feel comfortable writing to everyone about "YOUR" problem and signing your name to the bottom of the message. There's a way to get around that. You can address our group anonymously by sending your message to your Moderators and letting us forward it to the lists without any identifying information attached. You have Sandi's and my promise to keep any such correspondence completely confidential. We respect the fact that working as your Moderators is largely a matter of trust and we would never do anything to violate that trust. Your privacy is paramount to us and is an absolute necessity to the continued operation of our lists. So... If you have problems or situations that require the group to offer help, advice or encouragement, send your questions to us at mzets@mail.com or jsandi@mail.com and we'll get the word out to the group without letting anyone know who you are. Replies can be sent to the list for all to share. That's the real purpose of our lists, to facilitate the sharing of help, advice and encouragement between parent members. We want to be here in your time of need but we can't help if you don't write. 5. New Feature - "Rule Reasons" To help our new members and remind our old timers about the "Why" behind each of our Rules of Operation, we're adding a new feature at the conclusion of each of our newsletters. We'll call it "Rule Reasons" and each week we'll spend a minute explaining the WHY about a different one of our Rules. This isn't intended to be a sermon but rather, an explanation of the reasons behind the Rules which govern our use of the Listservers. Please read them, each time they appear. It will help us all participate better and the Lists run more efficiently. Rule Reason #1 "1. All messages must support the Mission Statement. - All messages must have some connection to The United States Naval Academy and/or Navy Parenting." We have a large membership. We have to keep our focus on our Mission Statement as we participate in the Lists. We absolutely insist that every message sent to our Lists MUST pertain to Navy Parenting or the Academy. With over 1,600 families subscribed (that will probably be more than 2,200 by the end of this Plebe Summer), you have to consider the shear numbers involved. If just 1 in every 50 members decided to send a message about something other than Navy Parenting each month, you would get and extra 384 messages a year. That's more than one a day for the whole year. I can hear a few of you saying, "One extra message every day? That's not too bad. I can hit the delete key." Sure you can but YOU only get one copy of each of those messages. Our server has to send them all out to every member. That would mean an additional 614,400 messages every year for our server. That's a whole lot of excess email. Then, too, almost every email message to our lists generates a comment or a reply or two to the lists by other members. Pretty soon, those extra messages would clog up our system and even drive some of our members out of the group because there is too much email to read. We never want to loose a member. We can't help those we don't reach. We need to emphasize that ALL of your Navy Parenting related messages are welcome - the important ones and even the trivial ones. We just want to remain focused on helping other Parents with their Parenting issues in every way possible. Messages about non-Navy Parenting topics dilute our mission and ultimately do a disservice to our membership. Each member needs to remain committed to being the best Mentor possible in every message they send to our lists. This means thinking about what we write before we send it and making sure that it deals with Navy Parenting. Part 2 of Rule #1 covers: "No Calls to Action, Charitable Causes, Virus Warnings, Jokes, Poetry, Prayers, etc." We'll look at these, next time, in our next Newsletter's new "Rule Reasons" feature. Bye for now... Your Moderators, Mike and Sandi Zets Westlake, OH Moderators for USNA-Net Listservers Webmasters for www.USNA-Net.org *** USNA-NET post by: Mike Zets ***** DO NOT FORWARD THIS MESSAGE ***** to non-members under any circumstances! ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~. From usna-net-owner@westpoint.west-point.org Fri Apr 6 17:02:54 2001 Received: (from root@localhost) by westpoint.west-point.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA09673 for usna-net-outgoing; Fri, 6 Apr 2001 17:02:54 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <005f01c0bee5$8332b2e0$e301d4cd@sandi> From: "Mike Zets" To: "" Subject: usna-net: Opinions, Books and such... Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 18:04:08 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Precedence: bulk To All, USNA-Net is a lot of things and we are different things to different members. But one thing we can firmly say we are not, is a forum for the panning of books. A member's opinion of the worth or worthlessness of a particular book is just that... the sole opinion of that member. It shouldn't be posted simply because that member feels that a particular book was a disappointing purchase. USNA-Net is not responsible for the opinions of a member nor for anything said on its Listservers by its members, either good or bad. Nor do we assume any liability for damages, either real or perceived, caused by the posting of such opinions on our Listservers. Our Mission is... To provide a convenient means to share support, advice and information about Navy Parenting between members. The operative words here are "about Navy Parenting." If your advice or information does not pertain to "Navy Parenting," it does NOT belong on our lists. Advice and information are based upon facts and experience not opinions. I would very much appreciate it if our members would not post "opinions." We have plenty of other things to discuss. We have loads of facts and real life experiences to share and thereby help each other without exposing our group to unnecessary liability. Thank you for your understanding, Mike Zets Westlake, OH mzets@mail.com Moderator for USNA-Net Listservers Webmaster - www.navy-usna.org *** USNA-NET post by: Mike Zets ***** DO NOT FORWARD THIS MESSAGE ***** to non-members under any circumstances! ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~. From usna-net-owner@westpoint.west-point.org Mon Apr 9 07:28:13 2001 Received: (from root@localhost) by westpoint.west-point.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id HAA04212 for usna-net-outgoing; Mon, 9 Apr 2001 07:28:13 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <001701c0c0f0$b73d3620$a101d4cd@sandi> From: "Mike Zets" To: "" Subject: usna-net: Use the Correct List... Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2001 08:29:24 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Precedence: bulk To all, The recent rash of Plebe and Sports related messages which have been sent to USNA-Family leads me to believe that there are still some of you out there who are confused about the concept of DIFFERENT LISTS for different topics. So here's how it works. USNA-Family is the main listserver to which EVERYONE belongs, all 1,650 Subscriber Families, including Plebe through Firstie Parents and even some Alumni Parents from the Classes of '99 and '00. The use of USNA-Family is reserved for Upper Class topics and subjects of GENERAL INTEREST to ALL members. Of those 1,650 Subscriber Families, 1,120 of them ALSO belong to USNA-Plebe which is the list for ANYTHING related to Plebe issues. The Subscriber Families who belong to USNA-Plebe are NOT all Plebe Parents. What good would that be? The blind leading the blind. Over half of the subscribers to USNA-Plebe are Upper Class Families who belong to USNA-Plebe for the sole purpose of offering advice, information and support to Plebe Parents while not bothering the rest of the general membership on USNA-Family with Plebe Stuff. The same thing goes for USNA-Sports. As hard as it might be for some of you sports buffs out there to believe, nearly half of our general membership do NOT want to get messages about Rugby, Crew, Football or LaCrosse. So those who do, extend the courtesy to those who don't by keeping all things related to Sports on USNA-Sports. It also helps to not mix subjects within a message. It makes selecting the correct list much easier if the message only talks about one subject at a time. Sending a message to the wrong list is a violation of our Rules of Operation and will get you a reprimand from your Moderators. Repeated violations of our Rules may result in your removal from our lists. So please re-read our Rules and visit our Frequently Asked Questions on our web site where all of this is explained in detail. Sending to the correct list and following our Rules of Operation will result in a more organized and beneficial resource for all of us. Thanks, Your Moderator, Mike Zets Westlake, OH mzets@mail.com Moderator for USNA-Net Listservers Webmaster - www.navy-usna.org *** USNA-NET post by: Mike Zets ***** DO NOT FORWARD THIS MESSAGE ***** to non-members under any circumstances! ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~. From usna-net-owner@westpoint.west-point.org Wed Apr 11 18:46:55 2001 Received: (from root@localhost) by westpoint.west-point.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id SAA27027 for usna-net-outgoing; Wed, 11 Apr 2001 18:46:55 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <00ae01c0c2e1$abac4d80$5601d4cd@sandi> From: "Sandi Zets" To: "" Subject: usna-net: USNA-Net Newsletter - April 11, 2001 Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 19:46:45 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Precedence: bulk ================================================================ USNA-Net Newsletter April 11, 2001 ================================================================ In this issue... 1. What's New on YOUR USNA-Net Website. 2. Using the Correct List. 3. Recruiting '05 Parents 4. Medical Treatment while on Leave. 5 What you're looking for in the Site Index. 6. AOL members PLEASE READ!!! ================================================================ This Newsletter is sent to all members of our USNA-Net Listservers. It is published approximately three times each month and is intended to provide insight into our service, answers to Frequently Asked Questions, and Technical Assistance and Information to our membership. ================================================================ 1. What's new on your USNA-Net Website. ***New Wallpaper!!! I have added 8 new Wallpapers to the Wallpaper page. Three are Academy related - Noon Formation, Bill the Goat, and Assembling for a Formal Parade. The other five are Navy related... the flyby of an F14 close to the edge of a carrier (we have all seen this terrific shot) , a great shot of the flight deck with a rainbow over it, the photo of a jet breaking the sound barrier (again, we have all seen this fabulous shot - this is the wallpaper that I am currently using.), a shot of a submarine, and a photo that I was sent this week called "The Lone Sailor Keeps the Watch." This is a photo you have to see to appreciate! If you have any photos that you would like to see made into a wallpaper, send it to me. It must be fairly large - at least 800x600 pixels and should be sharply focused. Please take a minute to look at these new wallpapers. ***We have added easy links on the Main page of the USNA-Net website for quick access to the Postcards, for Wallpaper, and for USNA-Net "Must Read" Books. For those of you who do not know what the postcards are - you should take a look. You can send free USNA, Navy, Marine Corps and basic electronic postcards from our USNA-Net site. You can share these with friends and relatives who can send them as well! You will find these new links on the right side of the page, near the bottom. ***I have added a link to Locks of Love in the Parents' Handbook under Plebe Summer - Prep for I-Day. This is a very deserving charitable organization that uses donated hair to make wigs for children with hair loss due to medical problems. For all of the '05 gals who will need to have their hair cut anyway, this might be an option for them. 2. Using the Correct List. Please remember to keep anything relating to Plebes on the USNA-Plebe List, and anything relating to Sports on the USNA-Sports List. If you do not belong to a list and have something that you feel MUST be posted, send it to Mike or me and we can forward it along to the proper list. If you see a message about a subject posted to the wrong list (like a Plebe issue on Family) and wish to post an answer, please send the response to the CORRECT list. 3. Recruiting '05 Parents Yesterday, I received a membership subscription from an '05 parent who heard about us from another '05 parent. The ONLY way that we can get the word out about USNA-Net is by word of mouth. YOU must be our ambassadors across the country. Be sure to let the '05 parents in your area know about us . . . and pass the information along to upper-class parents as well. I believe we are a valuable resource for any parent who has a Midshipman at the Yard, regardless of their class!! 4. Medical Treatment while on Leave. The subject keeps coming up. What do we do if our Mid needs medical care while he/she is at home, or while away from the Yard?? Your Mid should have a paper with him/her which explains the procedure. If he/she does not have this - guess what - we have the information on the website. You can either look for it in the Site Index - under "M" for Medical Care while on Leave, OR you can find it by going directly to the Parents' Handbook and find it under "Plebe Year." 5. What you looked for in the Site Index. Let's go over some of the items that were searched for in the Site Index: ***Sports: like Judo, wrestling, baseball, powerlifting....You need to go to the USNA Website (www.usna.edu) and click on Athletics. ***Amazingly enough, someone was looking for West Point Wallpaper. So, you can find USMA wallpaper at: http://www.west-point.org/parent/parent-forum/wallpaper.html But I can tell you they are not as good as MY wallpaper!!! ;>) ***Admissions, Graduation, Officer's Club...Please remember that many things you will not find on our USNA-Net site might be found on the USNA website (www.usna.edu). Things like Admissions - there is a whole section of their website dedicated to Admissions. This website is easily searched by typing in what you want to search for and hitting your ENTER key. ***Mid's and parents' names...you will not find a Mid or a Parent by searching our website. We do NOT list the Mids by name anywhere on our site, nor does the Academy on their USNA Website. There are privacy issues involved here. ***Class of '67 - Try going to the USNA Alumni Association Website: www.usna.com click onto "Communities" and then on "Class" You will then have a list of Alumni classes that will link to Contact info and the website address. In the case of the Class of 1967 you can access their website at: http://www.usna67.com/ 6. AOL Version 6.0 Users - You CAN post to the lists... We have been telling our AOL members who have downloaded the new Version 6.0 that they could not post to the lists with 6.0 because this version ONLY sends in Rich Text Format. While this version still does not send in Plain Text, you can use something called AOL Mail to compose your posts to the lists. - Sign on to AOL as usual. Then put http://www.aol.com in the box for keywords or web addresses and click "go." AOL Anywhere will come up and "Mail" will be an option. Click that. Read and write mail as usual. It will be sent in plain text format. You can still use Version 5.0 to compose and send your posts if it is still in your computer. That's all from me for awhile!! Please let me know if there is anything you would like Mike of me to bring up via these Newsletters. We are here to serve! :>) Go Navy, Beat army!! Sandi Zets Westlake, OH (jsandi@mail.com) Moderator: USNA-Net Webmaster: www.navy-usna.org *** USNA-NET post by: Sandi Zets ***** DO NOT FORWARD THIS MESSAGE ***** to non-members under any circumstances! ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~. From usna-net-owner@westpoint.west-point.org Wed Apr 18 14:48:09 2001 Received: (from root@localhost) by westpoint.west-point.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA21257 for usna-net-outgoing; Wed, 18 Apr 2001 14:48:08 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <03dc01c0c840$9f8c2d40$4301d4cd@sandi> From: "Mike Zets" To: "" Subject: usna-net: FD9 Fund Raiser Kicks Off Today... Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 15:49:01 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Precedence: bulk To all of our USNA-Net Family, Today marks the kick-off of Fund Drive Nine (FD9). For some of you this will be a familiar experience and for others, especially our newest members, it will be a first time event. We hope to be able to explain it well enough to be able to count on each and every one of our members for their support and generosity this time as we have in the past. USNA-Net is a non-profit organization established a couple of years ago for the sole purpose of benefiting Parents of Midshipmen attending the United States Naval Academy. Sandi and I have been its Moderators and webmasters from almost the very beginning. When we took over as Moderators back in February of 1999, the one listserver that USNA-Net ran had only 70 members and did not have a supporting web site of any kind. Today, our Listservers mentor over 1,650 Families with advice, support and information and that number will grow to over 2,200 by the end of this coming Plebe Summer with the addition of the Plebe Parents of the Class of '05. Our lists re-broadcast thousands of separate messages to our membership annually on four specialized lists dealing with Family, Plebe, Sports and Club issues. In addition, we have begun several regional lists for Parents' Clubs with membership spread over large areas and have introduced a new list in support of NAPS and Foundation Parents for the Class of '06. Our USNA-Net web site has become a valued resource with hundreds of pages, filled with information, photographs and helpful links to other sites that cannot be found anywhere else on the Internet. It's been visited almost 200,000 times in the past two years by Net members and others interested in USNA. All of this takes a great deal of time and effort to build and maintain. Sandi and I have been working at making USNA-Net the best service of its kind available because we feel USNA is the best Service Academy and its Parents deserve only the very best as well. We continue to hear from various members thanking us for all we do to Moderate the lists and maintain the web site. It certainly makes us feel good about the hours we spend each day doing something for USNA-Net. But we haven't done this alone. Sandi and I have built all of this on the supporting structure of a fine and generous organization called WP.Org. Founded seven years ago by ditus Bolanos, a graduate of West Point, WP.Org is our benefactor organization which maintains the software, servers, telecommunications lines and equipment necessary for the efficient day-to-day operation of our USNA-Net Listservers and web site. Unfortunately, all of these facilities and services cost money to operate and that brings us to FD9. Twice a year, in conjunction with WP.Org, we ask our members to send in something appropriate in the way of a donation to offset the costs of T1 lines, computer hardware, and other operating expenses. Every penny of every donation goes toward supporting the continuing operation of our Parents Network. Sandi and I are totally volunteer and receive no compensation for our services. USNA-Net is a branch of WP.Org which is a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Organization. All donations are 100% deductible. We even have the ability to accept matching contributions from your employers if they offer matching donations as many do. So, if you feel that you have been helped by our USNA-Net Parents Network in some small way over the past months, you can show your appreciation by sending in a donation. We've made it as easy as possible again this drive by setting up a secure server web site which will accept all major credit cards. You can find the On-Line donation site at... https://www-secure.west-point.org/wporg/donate Or visit our web site at www.navy-usna.org and click on the DONATE button on the main page. When using the On-Line Donation web site, PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU SELECT "NAVY" AS THE AFFILIATION so that USNA-Net is properly credited for your donation. (Ignore the "Year Group" - this is mainly for WP Alumni.) If you feel so inclined, you might tell WP.Org just how much you appreciate this service by leaving a short note in the "Personal Remarks" area. If you prefer to make your donation using a check, please make it out to WP.Org and mail via Regular US Mail to: West-Point.Org (Remember to write "Navy" on the memo line of your check.) PO Box 2108 Abingdon, VA 24212-2108 Your help and generosity will be greatly appreciated by all of us who work to make USNA-Net the finest Parental Support Group on the Internet. Go Navy - Beat Army! Mike and Sandi Zets Westlake, OH Moderators for USNA-Net Listservers Webmasters for www.navy-usna.org *** USNA-NET post by: Mike Zets ***** DO NOT FORWARD THIS MESSAGE ***** to non-members under any circumstances! ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~. From usna-net-owner@westpoint.west-point.org Sat Apr 21 17:06:31 2001 Received: (from root@localhost) by westpoint.west-point.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA08512 for usna-net-outgoing; Sat, 21 Apr 2001 17:06:30 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <001f01c0caaf$95f4a660$8c01d4cd@sandi> From: "Mike Zets" To: "" Subject: usna-net: USNA-Net Newsletter - April 21, 2001 Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 18:07:37 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Precedence: bulk ================================================================ USNA-Net Newsletter April 21, 2001 ================================================================ In this issue... 1. Army Navy Tickets Go ON SALE April 30th. 2. A bit of History - WP-Org and USNA-Net 3. Rule Reasons - ================================================================ This Newsletter is sent to all members of our USNA-Net Listservers. It's published approximately three times each month and is intended to provide insight into our service, answers to Frequently Asked Questions, and Technical Assistance and Information to our membership. ================================================================ 1. Army Navy Tickets Go ON SALE April 30th. The Midshipmen purchasing period for Army-Navy football tickets begins on Monday, April 30th at 0900. Mids are able to purchase a maximum of 2 tickets. Midshipman orders are ONLY accepted by walk-up. The ticket office is in Ricketts Hall. All Midshipmen will be able to buy TWO tickets for the Army/Navy game (held this year in Philadelphia on December 1, 2001). They MUST go to Ricketts Hall to buy the tickets, and they MUST go in person. If they do NOT, Mom and Dad, and you are not season ticket holders, or are not a USNA Alumni, or do not already belong to the Athletic Association, you will NOT have the opportunity to buy tickets to the game until they go on sale to the general public via Ticketmaster. Last year it was on August 1st - and there were only 500 tickets that went on sale that day!! Those of us who remember last year, we recall that no one got through before they were SOLD OUT!! IMPORTANT - Your Mid will not need a ticket, the ones he/she can purchase will be the ones YOU will use. Do whatever it takes to "encourage" your Mid to buy the tickets!!!! Once this window of opportunity is closed, it is closed. We do not know how many tickets have been allotted to the Mids, or how long they will have to make their purchases... but keep on your Mid until the tickets are bought. If you are NOT planning on going, you might want to have your Mid buy his two tickets, anyway. Perhaps one of our members may be able to use them, or someone in your local parents' club. Extra tickets can be placed on our classifieds page - but can only be sold for face value or below. No scalping allowed on USNA-Net! :>) (Class of '05 parents, you will be given an opportunity to buy two tickets sometime this summer - do not delay - send in the order as soon as you get it!) Each parent's club has been pre-assigned a group number. If the Mid does not know the specific number, the office can supply that information when they order. Group numbers do NOT reserve a block of tickets for a parent's club. They simply serve as means to group seating together when seats are assigned. 2. A bit of History - WP-Org and USNA-Net Because you will be hearing a little more than usual about our benefactor Internet Host Organization, WP-Org, in the coming weeks with the start of our latest fund raiser, I thought I'd tell the tale here for all of you who haven't heard it before. USNA-Net exists solely due to the forward thinking and generosity of WP-Org. That's right. Our Naval Academy Parents Network is a direct result of the efforts of West Point Alumni. A decade ago, an accident just before Graduation prevented the commissioning of a West Point Cadet by the name of Expeditus B. Bolaņos, '90. Following his graduation, ditus (as he prefers to be called) formed an Internet based Alumni service organization in an effort to assist his classmates and his Academy. Thus WP-Org was born. A few years later, WP-Org expanded its services to extend List services to WP Parents. Today, WP Parents operate various lists for about 2,200 parents with various interest groups. Then, three years ago, the Advisors at WP-Org decided to extend this Internet based support effort to other Academies. A WP Parent by the name of Dolf Biel volunteered to begin the operation for USNA Parents. He contacted the web masters of various USNA Parents' Club Web Sites and invited them to join a new Listserver for Naval Academy Parents. Those original webmasters and Club Officers numbered about 30 members and were the beginnings of USNA-Net. Sandi and I joined the group three years ago this summer when the membership had swollen to a grandiose 70 families. By then, Dolf had established the Rules of Operation based upon those used on the West Point side of the organization and was looking to turn over the leadership to a real live Navy Parent. I was recruited to take over the List since I had earlier helped design and execute the West Point Bicentennial Web Site (www.west-point.org/family/bicent) and was the only Navy Parent with the gullibility (or web experience) to replace Dolf as Moderator. That was February of 1999. We have grown a bit since then... We are almost 1,700 families now and have five main lists - Net, Family, Plebe, Sports and ClubNet. In addition we've added a list for Class of 2000 Alumni Parents; several lists for the use of local Parents' Clubs and we now host six Club web sites for free for those clubs who have requested our hosting services. But our biggest pride and joy is our web site (www.USNA-Net.org)! We are approaching 200 pages of information. We have the most comprehensive Parent's Handbook on the Internet and a Photo Gallery with almost a thousand images. It started out as a single page with a huge "Under Construction" image and absolutely no content when Sandi and I took over. Since then it has grown, been rewritten and redesigned countless times until it now is the best resource on the entire Internet for Academy Parents anywhere and in the two years since we put the Hit Counter on the site, 194,000 visitors have agreed with us. Nobody else even comes close. Well, that's who we are and how we came into being. For the past three years we have existed through the generosity of our members who have responded each time we have asked for support. WP-Org has non-profit 501(c)3 status which qualifies every donation as 100% tax deductible and we truly appreciate everything our members and Wp-Org have done to make USNA-Net the best thing to ever come along for USNA Parents. 3. Rule Reasons - The "Why" behind the Rules. Rule #1 - Part 2 "Calls to Action, Charitable Causes, Virus Warnings, Jokes, Poetry, Prayers, etc. are forbidden." I know it sounds terrible but all of these things are forbidden on our Lists. Let's look quickly at each for the reasons behind them. Calls to Action - USNA-Net is an advice and support network and will not be used by any of its members as a activist forum. We are here to help members and are not a soapbox for the Cause d' jour. Charitable Causes - While we share our members concerns about the needs of others, there are just too many worthy (and not-so-worthy) causes out there. We can't support only a few so, with the exception of our own fund raisers, all other causes will have to find support elsewhere. Virus Warnings - A very few of these are real. Most virus warnings which circulate around the email circuit are fakes or hoaxes. What's worse, the fake ones tend to make us all a little less watchful for the real viruses. Please send any warning to your Moderators instead of directly to the lists and let us check them out first. If they're real, we'll pass them on to our group. If they're fake, we'll let you know so that you don't pass the "chain letter" warning on to everyone you know. Jokes and Poetry - Tastes vary widely and what is funny or poetic to one member may be offensive or tasteless to others so ALL jokes and poetry are forbidden. We do allow some humorous "real life" stories on our lists BUT they MUST relate to Navy Parenting. Jokes making fun of other services might offend those members who are career Army or Air Force but have a Mid at the Yard. If you have a great piece of poetry, send it to your Moderators and if it's appropriate, we'll put it on the web site's Family Interest pages. Prayers - ALL religious references are inappropriate on our lists. We hail from all parts of the world and hold all sorts of different beliefs among our members. I like to think we are all good people but we're not all Christian or Jewish or Muslim or whatever. What may be innocent to one member may be highly inappropriate to another so ALL religious references or prayers are strictly forbidden. Hope this helps with a few more of our Rules. Next time we'll talk about "Negative Incidents & Fast Breaking News Stories" In the mean time, please remember our Fund Raiser. Donations are starting to come in and we NEED YOUR HELP to keep USNA-Net up and running. See our web site for details. Go Navy - Beat army!!! Mike Zets Westlake, OH Moderator - USNA-Net Listservers ________________________________________________________________ WP-ORG gratefully recognizes Armed Forces Insurance (http://www.afi.org) for its continuing sponsorship. FD9 is the fourth consecutive fundraising drive receiving AFI support. *** USNA-NET post by: Mike Zets ***** DO NOT FORWARD THIS MESSAGE ***** to non-members under any circumstances! ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~. From usna-net-owner@westpoint.west-point.org Tue Apr 24 06:30:39 2001 Received: (from root@localhost) by westpoint.west-point.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id GAA01348 for usna-net-outgoing; Tue, 24 Apr 2001 06:30:38 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <007401c0ccb2$173ea3c0$5201d4cd@sandi> From: "Mike Zets" To: "" Subject: usna-net: How have you benefitted? Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 07:31:21 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Precedence: bulk To all, How have you benefited from USNA-Net? It doesn't take much more than that simple question to get most of us expounding on how great it is to be able to communicate with other parents from across the country and around the world about Navy Parenting. Every on of us are better off because this service exists. From advice that got our future Plebe-to-be into shape for Plebe Summer and got us through the withdrawal of not having him (or her) at home during those first few weeks to advice on what to wear to the Graduation Ball, we've all benefited. WP-Org and USNA-Net need you to recognize just how much it means to have this service available and to help us meet our operating expenses for the next 6 months. Sandi and I do all of this as volunteers just because we enjoy doing it. We know that we have made a difference in some small way in so many lives. Now we're asking that you step up to the rail and do your part to make a difference too. It doesn't matter if you have written volumes to our lists or if you simply read and never write a word. You're still a valued part of this organization because without you, our members, Sandi and I would be writing to each other. This whole thing works only because you signed up for membership along with about 1,600 others. We're not asking for huge bequests (donors of $1 million or more WILL receive the free USNA-Net tee shirt) because if we all donate something, we'll all benefit accordingly. Last time our average donation was something like $35 with one member giving $5 and one member giving $500. Sandi and I don't know who gives what but we do know what is given. The truly sad part about last time was that only about 20% of our members actually took the time to donate anything. We'd like to do much better than that this time around. And the sooner we reach our goal, the sooner we'll stop nagging you for donations. We like to think of USNA-Net being like Public Television... If you donate in support of the cause, you get to receive all of the finest programming for the next six months. If you don't send in your donation, you still get to receive all of the benefits of membership but you won't feel as good about yourself as the rest of us. (How's that for laying on the guilt??) :>) We've made it as easy as we could for you to do your part. You may donate on-line using our secure server at https://www-secure.west-point.org/wporg/donate When using the On-Line Donation web site, PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU SELECT "NAVY" AS THE AFFILIATION so that USNA-Net is properly credited for your donation. OR visit our web site at www.navy-usna.org and click on the DONATE button on the main page. OR if you prefer to make your donation using a check, e make it out to WP.Org and mail via Regular US Mail to: West-Point.Org (Designate NAVY on the memo line) PO Box 2108 Abingdon, VA 24212-2108 Your help and generosity will be greatly appreciated by all of us who work to make USNA-Net the finest Parental Support Group on the Internet. Why not do your part? Donate today. Show everyone just how much you feel you've benefited from membership in the finest Parental Support Group available anywhere on the Internet. Mike Zets Westlake, OH mzets@mail.com Moderator for USNA-Net Listservers Webmaster - www.navy-usna.org ________________________________________________________________ WP-ORG gratefully recognizes Armed Forces Insurance (http://www.afi.org) for its continuing sponsorship. FD9 is the fourth consecutive fundraising drive receiving AFI support. *** USNA-NET post by: Mike Zets USNA-Net's services are funded by its members' generosity. Your support is needed now to fund operations for the next 6 months. =================================================================== https://www-secure.west-point.org/wporg/donate or mail donation to: WP-ORG, P.O. Box 2108, Abingdon, VA 24212-2108 =================================================================== Please specify NAVY on the donation form or your Check's Memo Line.