Greetings, Tripod members!

I’m writing to tell you that you really ought to volunteer for Tripod. That might seem like an obvious thing for the Volunteer Recruiter to do. In fact, it might be a shameless, self-serving thing for the Volunteer Recruiter to do. Well, that's precisely why I’m doing it! Yes, I have agreed to sell my soul in the name of volunteerism. I can think of worse reasons for doing it!

Volunteering at Tripod is about getting a chance to do what you enjoy with people who have the same interests, all from the comfort of your own computer. Volunteering is about creating an Internet community — a truly fascinating thing.

Volunteering is also about meeting us wacky women in Volunteer Services — myself, Mary Beth, and Jaime. Volunteer for Tripod, and you get to know us!

I could waste a lot of words and lots of megs of space describing us — what makes us tick and what makes us so delightful and entertaining that you really must sign up to volunteer today — but instead, I will introduce you to our "stuff." Our stuff speaks volumes about us. In fact, we have so much stuff that we exhibit it on the shelf that separates our area from the hallway. Does that make us exhibitionists? Perhaps, but we prefer to call ourselves "curators."

We call our exhibits "Flotsam," because they represent the flotsam and jetsam of our lives. We invite you to visit our Flotsam homepage. Appropriately, Mary Beth and I, who are both "persons of age," seem to have much more flotsam than Jaime. She's but an innocent, young thing, just beginning to clutter up her life with wedding gifts, pets, broken appliances, etc.

When we aren't balancing things on the shelf, writing manifestos, and pursuing our hobbies, cats, dogs, and (in my case) children, we actually do get some work done. Officially, that work is described as "recruiting, training, and managing volunteers." In our eyes, it is meeting, greeting, and collaborating with some of Tripod’s coolest members. We laugh together, gnash our teeth over vexing software and hardware problems, and just generally have fun.

My philosophy has always been that a job, to be worth doing, should be fun at least 50% of the time. The fun ratio for a volunteer job is considerably higher than that! The wacky women of Tripod's Volunteer Services are dedicated to making fun for ourselves, for our coworkers here at Tripod world headquarters, and for our volunteers.

So, why don’t you join us?

Sincerely,
Gail