Hi cousins, Vicky Bowers-Gieslau and I have been coordinating efforts all week long to open a secure family site at <myfamily.com> where we can have chats [genealogical or just fun] and display pictures of ourselves that we were talking about several weeks ago. There are a lot of nooks and crannies at myfamily.com where we can do quite a bit. Vicky has done a lot of work on the site and is chairing this entire effort, at the beginning anyway. She is going to train a small group of cousins to be administrators for the site and, from there, those administrators will help train the rest of the family. Particularly for benefit of our newbies, the administrative team will consist of two cousins representing each of the prime surnames being researched in our family -- two each of Bauer, Bower, Bowers cousins -- for a total of six site administrators. We have both Bower representatives. Still needed are: 1 Bowers researcher from the BOWERS-L 1 Bauer researcher from the BAUER-L 1 Bauer researcher rom the BOWER-L Vicky will represent the Bowers surname from the BOWER-L. Rob Bower and I will represent the Bower surname. Admin training starts on Monday, the 24th, at 9:00a.m. PST - so, wherever you're at you'll need to gauge the time from there. It may last about four days - 1 hour a session - and perhaps not even that long. The next 2-3 days admins will spend sending out invitations and getting those who are interested enrolled into the site in time for our first chat. At this point our first, full-family gabfest is scheduled for Sunday, April 30th at 1:00 p.m. PST. Vicky will head that first one. Since myfamily.com is a private site, membership is by invitation only. That means all the administrators will: 1.) have to send invitations to those cousins who are interested, then manually enroll those cousins who want to be a part of the chat group, or even simply to access our area. 2.) oversee the chat sessions, holding a scheduled one at least once a week or whenever they happen to see a group of cousins at the Retreat [our site's informal name]. 3.) need to have at least one year of genealogical research experience. The reason? To be able to help our newbies if they have questions. I'll send out more information next week for all the family to be able to enroll and get signed up for the Retreat, but for now we need to know who is able to help administrate. Are you interested? Please contact me as soon as possible as I need to pass the word on to Vicky. She will set up your logins and passwords, then send your invitations to you. Colleen