Introducing the Support Team for the March SOLSC!

Back in January we asked for assistants to come on board and help with the March Slice of Life Story Challenge. You answered the call as we are grateful to your response and willingness to help. We have a great support team that will undoubtedly make this challenge run smoothly. Allow me to introduce our team!

Concierges: Two members of our community are available, via email, to answer questions that may come up when both the classroom and adult Challenges begin. These are point people who have years of experience in the SOL community. Therefore, they should be your first point of contact should you have specific questions about the March Challenge. For the adult Challenge: If your last name begins with A-M, contact LeAnn Carpenter (aka: Elsie): leannecarpenter[at]sbcglobal[dot]net If your last name begins with N-Z contact Amanda Villagomez (aka: Mrs. V.): amandavillagomez[at]gmail[dot]com For the Classroom Challenge: If your last name begins with A-M, contact Linda Baie: LindaB414[at]gmail[dot]com If your last name begins with N-Z, contact Margaret Simon: margaretsmn[at]gmail[dot]com or her school email masimon[at]iberia[dot]k12[dot]la[dot]us

Each of these women are volunteering their time, but have other obligations. They will write you back at their earliest convenience.
There is no need to cc- the co-authors on your e-mails. These ladies are very knowledgeable and can probably answer almost any question you ask them about the Challenge. If they cannot answer your question, they will contact us on your behalf and we’ll send them a response to forward to you.
If your link doesn’t post automatically on the first three days of the Challenge, please do not e-mail your concierge immediately. Most likely it’s being held in moderation since you’re either new to the Slice of Life Story Challenge or you included two or more unique URLs in the body of your comment. Stacey and Anna will be moderating comments every few hours. However, if it’s been 12 hours since you posted a link to your slice of life story and it doesn’t show up in the live comments, then please e-mail your concierge.
- Sometimes comments, including those of long-time Slicers, get thrown into our blog’s spam folder. Sometimes this happens when you post the same comment more than once. Sometimes it happens for no reason. Please know Stacey and Anna will check the spam folder often and will fish out your comment if it lands there.

Giveaway Guru: Robin Sheldon has taken on this position. She will be tracking who writes on a daily basis and cross-checking the list at the end of the Challenge. The people who win prizes at the end of the Challenge will be notified by Dana in early April.

Tech Support: The first few days of the Challenge are always busy since people’s links are often held for moderation and/or people link to their blog, not their actual post. Therefore, we have a team of people to assist us with tech-related issues. Our Tech Support members will notify you by leaving a comment for you on your blog if you linked incorrectly. They will also alert us about back-end updates we need to make. If you’re participating in the adult challenge, you might hear from Beth Scanlon, Donna Smith or one of the c0-authors. If your classroom will be participating in the classroom challenge, you might hear from Tara Smith or Anna Gratz Cockerille.

The Welcome Wagon: While we encourage everyone to reach out to newcomers to help them feel welcome, it’s hard to know who is new. This team, which is being headed by Bonnie Kaplan, will identify first-time participants. Using a form (which Stacey will post later this month). Bonnie will divide the first-time participants amongst all of the members of the Welcome Wagon. Each member of the Welcome Wagon will commit to commenting on each new participant’s writing every day (barring any unforeseen circumstances) during the Challenge. The members of the Welcome Wagon are:

We thank everyone in advance for taking on these duties to help make the March Challenge even better. If you are still interested in helping with the Welcome Wagon, please contact me via email at bets577[at]gmail[dot]com. Thank you again to all the volunteers.