We need volunteers! We need your help to manage the CFS discussion group by monitoring, moderating, greeting newcomers, and giving technical support. This CFS group is run by volunteers, and the group will only be as good as you help make it!

Here is what these volunteers do:

MODERATORS help ensure that we all stay within the rules that have been developed to enable this group to be a fair and effective forum for exchanging information and support.

MONITORS assist the moderators by reading certain topics and alerting the moderators to problems. Monitors do not need to read every message posted to CFS-L. They usually take up a certain topic, and/or may be assigned to certain days of the week.

If you read this group regularly, you may be a big help to us by considering to share our monitoring work. Monitoring work, as simple as it may be, is essential for keeping CFS-L the effective forum that it is for exchanging information and support about CFS.

WELCOME WAGON GREETERS will assist newcomers to the group by helping them to understand the group's rules and procedures, and advising them on where various information resources can be found.

TECH SUPPORT volunteers help to:

answer technical questions about how to receive the group's messages

give direct assistance to those who have trouble sending email commands to the Listserv for altering their "subscription status"

give advice to outsiders who write into the group who ask about CFS, health resources on the net, or about this group itself

give assistance to those who have difficulty editing their messages to keep quotes brief.

and other technical odds and ends.

Can you help with any of these tasks? If you are able to volunteer for a day or two a week, or whatever time you can give, then please write to the Moderator Team by e-mail at:

cfs-l-request@maelstrom.stjohns.edu

All of us on the volunteer management team are PWCs as well, and we understand your needs as they are also our own. But this group is only as good as we can all make it. If you can help even on a limited basis, please contact us!

 

Thanks to the Volunteers

The CFS-L discussion group works because of the hard work of the many volunteers who manage the group, who are ill themselves.

The founder and Group manager is Roger Burns, who is originally from New York and has lived in Washington, DC for most of his adult life. Before becoming ill Roger was a government economist and a local community leader. Barbara Fredsberg of Ontario has been our Assistant Group Manager through thick and thin during most of CFS-L's existence. Our moderators currently include: Judi Jech of Washington State, who has been helping to manage CFS-L in many capacities and for more years than just about anyone else; and also the multi-talented Felicia Jackson, RN of Missouri. David Wood of Bedfordshire, U.K. has been helping us with technical matters for many years.

Thanks also go to those who have volunteered in the past. Jim Dalton served as our tech support super-chief for several years. Sarah Howell was CFS-L's first co-moderator. Dorothy Roberts was our first assistant Group Manager, followed later by Ashley Allerton. Important work was also done by Ray Colliton, Bethany Wilson, Jane Sable, Hanni Hallen, Kathleen P., Marilyn Kerr, Karen Grant, Helen D., Patricia Morton, Rika Kageyama, Jean Harrison, Claudia Carroll, Natasha Dehn, Jennifer Vaudin, Marjorie Panditji, Linda Moon, Gerry Harris, Iris Read, Craig Hull, Lara Rooney, Linda Stolz, and Davey Kelso.

There are many others not listed here who also do vital work in the background, i.e. our monitor team and our software advisors group. And as mentioned, the distribution of the group's messages is sponsored by St. John's University of New York City, which over time has made a considerable donation of services.

The thousands of patients who have participated in CFS-L over the years owe all of these volunteers a great deal for their efforts in making this group an effective, and sometimes a vital, forum for exchanging information and support among CFS patients.

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