A Letter from Mark, Treasurer of MS MOMS regarding the membership change:

    This letter is to inform all the good people of this wonderful group that a big change is in the works. For years now Lorna has tried to be the web designer, the updater, the whole thing that is MS MOMS. As a lot of you know, Lorna has been missing on the chats and hasn’t had the chance to write much. But she is always thinking of you and in some way still working on MS MOMS. There are taxes to do, papers to file, web work etc etc. Lorna also is a full time mom with three and one half kids. Let us also remember Lorna has MS.

The board had a meeting and it was decided that MS MOMS must go in a new direction. The way it was run just doesn’t work well enough and it is so out of date that it is always in danger of total collapse. Here is what the board decided to do. We will no longer offer the site for free. There will be a small fee, of $15 dollars a year. That’s only $1.25 a month, less than most website subscriptions.

                We have tried to use volunteer web workers; we have tried to raise money. This was fine in the beginning but we never got anywhere. MS MOMS needs to keep up with the times and GROW! In order to protect the site as well as offer the best possible services, we feel we have no choice but to set a fee for full access to the site.

Any old time MS MOM will know that the old site had a lot of great services to offer and so will the new site. Even more than in the past. The money from member fees will go for a full time web person. Money raised will also go for the designing of a whole new site. The list of what we will offer is too long for this letter, but it will amaze you. As we grow more people will join, and as they do there will be more money for things like setting up the convention we so hoped for in 2004. At a convention fellow MS MOMS can get together, meet, and let their voices be heard.  That’s the money part so on to Lorna’s new job.

The board informed Lorna that she serves the MS community and MS MOMS best as a writer and a leader. That’s what Lorna will do, it will not be Lorna’s job to update the site, contact sponsors, or spend her time trying to undo web catastrophes, like the hacker that attacked in January of this year taking away our chat room and message board.  

Lorna will write, be a part of MS MOMS and do what she does best, motivate people. For these reasons the board has made the move to a member ship site. There will be a pre-registration for people to use. The move to the new site will take place in two months. As of that date, if there is not enough interest in MS MOMS the board wishes to close the site for good. We need to raise $1000 to start, for the new web designer and new site.  It may seem like a big number but there are over 500 MS MOMS out there! 75 members can cover this cost!

Membership fees are not the only way MS MOMS will begin to bring in more funding. There will also be fundraising put on regularly with our new production house. Rusty Sword Productions is becoming the production branch of MS MOMS. Through the many shows and productions RSP does we should be able to afford things like paid staff people, advertising, and gain more sponsors. All this is needed for MS MOMS to grow. But what we need most is Lorna to be at the helm and not wasting her time digging out a virus from a backdoor that was over looked.