4th anniversary “My Town Friday Shout-out”

I received an email from Pauline a few days ago.  She was asking me if I would be posting for our big 4th anniversary celebration.  This group has played such a large part of my life for so long, filled a need not many of you realize was there, that I had to make an effort to write up a few of my memories. 

I went back through my posts, sorted the labels for the Friday Shoot–out, made a few notes:  if I’ve not missed labeling any posts, I have done the Shoot-Out on 135 Fridays; the first was on March 13, 2009 – People.  Mid 2009 I started working with Gordon, Patty, and Chef E on the My Town Friday Shootout blog, and by September was practically working the blog solo with the help of Chef E on the photo headings and an occasional ‘member voice’, the person that suggested the topic talking about what the next week topic meant to them.   

Slide show, 1st Anniversary

In February 2010 to celebrate our first anniversary, I made a slideshow using the spotlight photos (idea by Gordon) plus making sure that everyone that participated over that year had at least one photo represented.  This slideshow represents a full 40 hour week of work, looking at everyone’s blog and pulling photos from each, naming and creating.    I loved the task and the result. 

On June 30, 2011, I celebrated my 100th post. 

For this post, starting with the first post in March of 2009, I started looking backwards, reading comments to see if I could track down when, and who ask me to join ‘the gang’.  I never found a direct reference but it was sure fun reading all the comments.  Patty or Reggie girl must have sent me an email.  They both showed up in comments starting the 28th of February, 2009.  Before ‘the gang’ I would have 3 or four comments, if lucky, for my posts.  That first week I had eleven, in April 25 and by July I would have upward of 40 per week.  Just like today there are often not as many comments as participants; I think at our highest point we had 52 posting for the Shoot Out.  In the year that I was involved with the FSO blog as an administrator, I spent nearly 4 hours a week reading, commenting, emailing, meeting the friends I’d made.  I even talked on the phone with Chef E and with Reggie girl.  Plus the work I did on ‘Flowers’,  2009 was a very productive year for me.  Proving once again that the more you do the more energy you have. 

As a group we gained and lost participants, our ‘founding fathers’ Patty and Reggie Girl, Gordon and Jen as the first FSO admins, dropped out or stepped back.  Real life many times getting in the way with the time it took to post / read / and comment on a regular basis.  We lost friends and gained others.  We lost Barry in July of 2010....  Not one of us failed to grieve that loss and possibly some of the light went out of the FSO for those remaining.  Following each other, celebrating the birth of children and grandchildren, awards won, books published, illnesses, and loss, we were close and committed.  We were the FSO Gang.

Over the four years we have gone from a small group taking snapshots and talking about our towns to a very large, warm and friendly group, cohesive, appreciative; then back to a small group now focused more on the quality of the photos, less about our towns and the people in them, growing, changing but remaining always The New Friday My Town Shoot-out Gang.

Reggie Girl  - visiting with me in Houston June, 2011  

  And other member in 2009               

Chef E	Gordon	Butler & Bagman	Barry
PattyH	Kent	Sol	Linda
Audrey	Natalie	The Pink Birdhouse	Kerry
J9	Shabby Girl	Strawberry Girl	Sarah
NanU	Redlan	Simply Heather	Carrie
Noe Noe Girl	JarieLyn	Pauline	Robyn
Jen	Doreen	Denise	Sarah
Kim	Sara LuLu	Kathy in CA	Melissa
Kelly	Zaronga	Sandra Leigh	Gigi
GigiSxm	Mary	Rebecca	Kerri
Ann	Jama	Elaine	Si
Scriptor Senex	Claire	Lena	Noida

.And many more.  (Sorry if I missed you – tell me I’ll add you to my history list.)

Hello to all of You - GingerV