As you can see, the Collector Forums again has a 'new look' thanks to the moderator of our Lighthouse Photography Forum, Jenifer Selwa.

Jen took this image of Rock of Ages Lighthouse off the tip of Michigan's Isle Royale while on a cruise and tour arranged by one of our other members, Suzanne Murphy.

If you look closely at the 'home page' of the Collector Forums, www.LighthouseKeepers.com/ you'll notice a number of new 'Cruise Directors'.

First a word of thanks for those who have moved on from their roles. I appreciate the help in the past and hope they will continue to be active members or return to active status as time goes by.


And here's a tip of the new head gear for the new cruise directors who are stepping in to fill the roles:

flacoastie - Welcome & Anchor Bay
Shortcake - Wish List & Lighthouse Humor
AZLightkeeper - Collector Club News & Info
Daniel - By The Numbers & The Secondary Market
PFC - Lighthouse Duty
MrsTLC - Personal Time (With veteran Nana)
Bob Ott - Nothing to Do With Anything
SeaGirt - Lighthouse Games
Dennis Whelan - Map Room
Bert Guerin - The Latest Models (Added 8-9)

Some others continue in their Cruise Director service, but with more responsibilities and added Forums 'under their hat'.

We've added a BRAND NEW FORUM on the United States Coast Guard and Hal Dean, an ex-coastie and Lightship sailor has agreed to act as Cruise Director for this one. We've got a number of coasties on these forums who I'm sure will give Hal a hand in populating this new Forum with threads of interest to all.

I'm still waiting to hear from a couple of people I sent invites to so you may see a couple more additions to the Cruise Director list.

Dave H has agreed to take on more responsibilities -- although you can't get higher in rank than a Saint. Dave will be the guy who receives emails from the Forums and helps out in the Forum About These Forums and Play Room Forum.

I like the new look and lineup! I'm pleased to still be a part of it all. This place is number one in my book of visits to the Net.

Bob

As I stated several time during the past week, "the Collectors Forums are still the best" and we should all strive to have them continue to be the best. There are more interesting and juicy forums on this web site then any of the other sites and with Harbour Lights being our 1st thought, we have it "made in the shade" so to speak and in Florida the shade is very important.

I love the new Photo!! Thanks Jen!! And thanks to all John, Dave and the Cruise Directors for all your efforts!

I love the new photo! It reminds me of the wonderful calm day at Rock of Ages light. It felt so peaceful!

Congratulations and thank you to all those who have accepted new positions as Cruise Directors. A big thank you also goes to those who have served and are taking time off. Without your help the Forums would not work as well as they do.

All the new Cruise Directors will be pleased to hear that the Council of Saints met late last night in the basement of the FSB (thanks Saint Tim) to work out the details of your initiation process. Saint Tim will notify you by registered email when and where to report for the initiation ceremony. No one had a calendar showing the phases of the moon, but expect the ceremony to take place sometime during the full moon. Please be sure to have the correct varieties of Krispy Kremes for all the Saints when you report for initiation. (The exception is Saint Bob - instead, please bring tokens to be redeemed for fuel for his yacht.) You will also be glad to hear that effective immediatley the pay rate for Cruise Directors has been doubled.

Apologies to Dennis Whelan, whom I accidently left off the list of new Cruise Directors (since rectified) and who will be directing the cruises of the very popular 'Map Room' Forum.

Thanks, Dennis. Let's take a lot of Lighthouse Journies together!

Hay Dave, after reading your post, I just couldn't wait! I ran out to celebrate without you all……and the HOT light was ON !

Oh, and as for that new pay rate…..let's see, I'm not too good at math.
That's 00 x 2 = 0000. There is that right?

Another group of newbie cruizees to break in, eh? Well that happens now and then, we've survived it before, I suppose we'll survive it some more. Looks like we got a poop deck full of 'em.

Congratulations newbie cruizees!

Some of you have been here a while and know the drill, some of you have been here for just a few years (oh, say since Y2K) or even less.

Initiates should report to Clearing No. 3 behind the FSB tommorrow night at dusk (the one with the large Shoney's 'Big Boy' statue). We'll have apertifs and the Cruise Director Induction Rites. Larry Storch (yes, from F Troop) will once again return as Master of Ceremonies. Inductees are advised to empty their pockets of any articles made with aluminum foil. Upon reciting the pledge and signing the waiver, you will receive your t-shirt, single wooden match, your raw egg and your blindfold. And thanks to a grant from the Valentina Tereshkova Foundation we've rented enough bandwidth to broadcast the entire event planetwide on Fresnel in real time. Should be a lotta fun! Bring the whole family. Parking is $7.

After the festive part of the ceremony, inductees will depart on the FSB yawl Maid of Helsinki. Ever handle an oar? This years initiation takes place on beautiful Pilot Island located in the straits of Death's Door. Please Watch Your Step. Just cuz you see a happy picture of a hat that looks like it came off the skipper from Gilligan's Island doesn't mean initiation is gonna be a 3 Hour Cruise.






The following morning, after the wash down and medical clearance, you may take possession of your new forums. Some of these forums have been in the hands of their original caretakers since the CF began - aka the beginning of time as we know it here. Some have been in the hands of people we might not even recognize if they showed up. Its your forum and your decorum - new traditions are yours for the creating, old traditions are to be respected.

Because of certain, uh, 'incidents from the past', we will be invoking FSB Codicil #139 Paragraph 4 (commonly known as the BobM Rule) which states in so many words that you may solicit for participants within the confines of your own forums but may not poach, solicit, or otherwise spam for participants in other peoples forums. Let's get things off to a good start. Be mindful you are entrusted with a tremendous and time honored responsibility. Remember: Your Customers Come First - unless they act like a twit or use abusive language.

And everyone ... pray for Hannum.

T

So glad to have you back St. Tim. But do you have to scare the bejeezus out of the class of new recruits on their first whole day of duty? 'Death's door' and things hinted at, but not directly said ain't gonna make them feel comfortable in their new role.

I haven't even given them the secret password and handshake instructions yet.

Is there a KK near Pilot Island? Is there ANYTHING near Pilot Island? I thought we'd agreed not to mention the 'oar' thing until they showed up?

And Larry Storch? AGAIN? Didn't he double bill us last year? Did you hear what happened at his appearance in Detroit last month?

Next thing I know you're going to tell them about 'wintering over' on Isle Royale 'helping' with the wolf study.

Fire up the new-clear generator in the Fog Signal Building, but please, no radiation burns THIS year. What century is it going to be safe to go back to 'Clearing No. 3' again, anyway?

John,

Well at least you got my name right when you added it. So many people on many of the lists I'm on think my name is actually Dennis Wheland because of my screen name.

I was a bit confused as I kept checking my e-mail and private messages for a response from you and had gotten none.

I just figured I waited too long to respond with my list and you had moved on to other volunteers.

I still haven't gotten anything directly from you except for the post above, though.

Are we having e-mail issues again? Is your spam program eating my e-mails like it did in the past? I thought I gave the secret password and hand signal to get throught the barriers.

Dennis

Dennis, I emailed you, but got no response or kick-back from your postmaster. But you're in and you're in the place you wanted to be. Thanks for serving; don't let St. Tim scare you off. Most of the recruit class from last time survived -- and the rest all have forgotten the incident with Larry Storch and Valentina Tereshkova. (I suspect that's how St. Tim got the money from her foundation -- by NOT forgetting it.)

Don't worry about the parking fee. While it's steep, the money will go to the 'Pilot Island Lightkeepers Memorial Foundation'; they're a 501(c)3 organization, so it's tax-deductible if you itemize. Door County's Board of Supervisors waived the overnight tent-camping permit fee so it's a wash anyway.

Hey, look, I go to the Greenbrier for three days and look what happens! New design, new forum, and I'm a Cruise Director! Had to double take when I saw my name next to games...but I can say that I look forward to taking on the role. I'm going to try to think up some ways to liven up the dying games forum this week. Any ideas, let me know!

Jen, great photo! It is the perfect header to our great forum. John, you did a great job with it. It looks great! A hearty congrats to both of you.

The USCG forum looks like it will be a fun one. We've been posting so much USCG stuff recently, it'll be nice to have it all in one place! Plus, I'll give it plenty of click throughs thinking it's photography!

I'm looking forward to this refreshed CF! I'm excited!

Just one idea...just noticed that all the "Closed Topic" indicators have the water scene. Perhaps we could have a lantern for new posts and water for no new posts? That'd make it easier.

Greg that's just what we have. The 'Closed Thread' text overlaying the water just indicates a third possibility -- a closed thread.

OK, that was confusing. I mean using the new/old post images washed out behind the Closed Post words. That way, if the topic is closed but has new posts, you can tell. I think we used to have something like that.

I love the new look and it is great that you change it frequently. It doesn't get old.

Eskilady

I was going to have John use Marquette, but maybe we'll need a winter scene if he changes it later this year?! I thought Rock of Ages was fitting since so many of us Wackos were on the cruise and I think it was my favorite of the day. The conditions could not have been better!!

Love the new look and hope that it helps to put the contensiousness of the past couple of weeks behind us. We've all been in positions that have overwhelmed us and hopefully we have survived. I know I have. It was possible because of the support and understanding of good friends, like the WACKO's on these forums.
Let's get back to what is important to all of us, lighthouses, particularly HL's and the camraderie that goes with it.
CONGRATULATIONS to ALL the new and continuing Cruise Directors!!!
Rick

Jen I love your new photo for the collector forums (of course I'm a little partial to that lighthouse as well).

Thanks to all the cruise directors. All of us appreciate your time put in to make this forum happen.

One more newbie to the Cruise Director list - Bert Guerin is going to get his feet wet in "The Latest Model" Forum. Thanks Bert.

[He's been away from the PC for a bit; hope he hasn't seen Tim's post yet.]

Congrats to Bert! Excellent choice, John!

Bob

John,

I've sent an e-mail directly to you but it seems only some of our e-mails connect so I'm posting it here also.

I never got any e-mail from you with instructions on how to perform my duties as a moderator of a Forum.

I'd appreciate it greatly if you could send that info along ASAP.

Thanks,

Dennis

Let me pass along the instructions to all 'The New Cruzees' as St. Tim called you guys:

1. As a moderator, you'll now see that you can delete threads and close threads in your own Forums, but not in the other forums.

2. When a thread reaches 50 posts, you want to first start a new one with the same name and append the appropriate #2 or #3, etc. In the first post in this new thread, provide a link back to the previous thread. Copy the URL of the new thread and go back to thread you are going to close. Add a last post and indicate that this thread is continued on... and paste in that URL. Then click on the CLOSE THREAD button.

3. Some Forums need fresh ideas peroiodically to keep people active; others manage to thrive on their own. If yours is one of the former, try to create posts that require people to do more than just agree or disagree, but rather do some thinking and make comments. "Why" "How" "What For" and "What do you think..." are the kinds of questions that open up a thread to lots of comments.

4. If there are duplicate posts in your Forum, it's usually because someone accidently hit the 'Post' button more than once. Make sure the posts are duplicates and, if so, delete one of them.

5. You have the ability to MOVE a thread. If it should be in a different Forum, move it, but check the box to send an email to the person who posted it. If there are already a bunch of posts on a thread, better to open a new thread in the other Forum, provide a link to the 'continued in this forum' new thread and close the one that's in the wrong place.

6. You have the ability to EDIT a post in your Forum. About the ONLY time you want to do this is to make a link work, not to correct spelling, change 'facts' or remove nasty words. If you fix a link to make it work, at the bottom of the post, add a comment such as "To make the link active..." and the system will then append the date, and time and your username. If you believe a post needs to be edited by the person who posted it, send them an email and let them know that and, if the facts are wrong, let them know the correct facts. (Opinions are never wrong.)

7. Stay active in the Collector Forums. Most of the Cruise Directors who retired in the recent round had not been active for several months (some even longer.) If you want to be relieved, send an email to Dave or myself. The link 'Contact Us' at the bottom of EVERY page will send an email to Dave H. My email is webmaster@lighthousekeepers.com

8. Enjoy yourself.

As I promised several of you, no heavy lifting. It is possible for one of the Saints to set up the control panel so that you can receive an email everytime someone posts to your Forums, but you don't really want to do that, do you?

The rumor posted earlier is also true. Pay rates for Cruise Directors were doubled yesterday, by action of the 'Council of Saints'. Fortunately, this won't affect your income taxes AT ALL.

Any questions? A pop quiz next Tuesday.

And hey, wasn't that some time we had last night back in 'Clearing Number 3' behind the FSB! Storch was never funnier, nor Navratalova lovlier.

Don't forget to wear your WACKO badges 24/7, at least when in front of the computer.

Question...why do I still show up as a Super Wacko everywhere but in my forum? It happens on new posts, too, not just the ones from before the weekend. Is this a glitch in the software? Just curious...

Looks like you're not the only one, Greg. I think it's a software problem, but I'll investigate tonight.

John,

Thanks for the info. It is appreciated.

Dennis

John,

Your eight-point list of instructions and guidance is sincerely appreciated. THANK YOU.

Bob

DITTO here too John,

Some of it I knew, some I suspected, but now I know!

TRITTO here! I find it quite helpful! I'm going to print it out and stick it to my bulletin board.

Thanks John for the instructions. A very big help to me. Hal

I want to also thank you John for the instructions. Hopefully, when the time comes, I will be able to muddle through them. Of course if I can't, I know a lot of new moderators that will be experts at it if I need help.