annual reports
WebWhispers Semi-Annual Reports
WebWhispers officers are required by the bylaws to file semi-annual reports to the membership. You will find the history of our growth in these current and past reports.
2008 reports
WebWhispers, Inc.
2008
Semiannual Officers' Report to the Membership
July 1 - December 31, 2008
Semiannual Officers' Report to the Membership
(1 January - 30 June 2008)
President's Report: Jan 1 - June 30, 2008 - Pat W Sanders
Our membership is climbing rapidly and there is a good mixture of new laryngectomees and long term larys. Many found us on the Web or just got a computer and came straight to WebWhispers. Some have been told by a friend to look for WebWhispers, some given a brochure by their SLP/Doctor or found one at ACS. With our still new and growing website, we offer even more educational material for laryngectomees each year. Our volunteers are adding more to the website and putting out a great newsletter/magazine. We have excellent services and activities and I think this is what people are hearing about us.
WHISPERS ON THE WEB
Whispers on the Web is offering additional contributors and lots of variety in articles. The wonderful people I work with are VoicePoints coordinator Lisa Proper, Editor Donna McGary and Webmaster Len Librizzi. Our volunteer Gary Metz has finished the new tables of content for Whispers on the Web. Len has put them in an Index of Contents and gives you a choice of HTML or PDF, which is easier to use for printing copies or articles. We will shortly launch the next project to get the same thing done for the former newsletter, the WebWhispers Journal. Gary will be preparing the lists of authors, topics and titles and Len will be getting them placed on the web. These are time consuming projects but the results are well worth the time and will be there in the future for all new members to find.
It is really easy for anyone to go to the Index of Contents http://webwhispers.org/news/WotWIndex.asp and look down the list for an interesting title or subject. Sometimes, you can get the exact answer you need from one of these articles.
WEBSITE
Leonard Librizzi does all of the heavy work on our website, makes up the pages, designs new sections, and gets the newsletters published. He is relieved of some of the lighter posting by Sunny Bakken, who is posting all of the extra lists, such as the WW Dinner attendees, the Memorial page, New Members, not yet added to the regular roster and Extra Donations. I work on sections of the website relating to new additions in the Library, starting other new sections, or moving old ones. My next major work on the website is to clean up and make the suppliers area easier to use. Ed Chapman is working like crazy as you will see from his report. He is dedicated to getting things right and is a great leader for our team.
DATABASE
Buck Martin is keeping up with all of the postings into the database sent to him by our other departments. He posts new members, changes in information, notes who has become a sustaining member, who has joined the forum and who is no longer wih us. It is wonderful that we no longer have to enter everyone directly onto web pages. With the sorting capabilities of the database, it gives us all of the options we need to make charts and post information. This is how Jeanne Graden gets our Roster and By-Location lists ready for Len, and where I can pull information on membership records. For instance, our totals as we reach the half point of this year.
Account Name: CRG (420 records)
Account Name: MED (35 records)
Account Name: PAT (1,503 records)
Account Name: SLP (279 records)
Account Name: VEN (45 records)
Grand Totals (2,282 records)
CRUISE
Our WW sponsored cruise this year, from Acapulco to Seattle, on the Star Princess was highly successful with a total of 84 people sailing (near 60 were WebWhispers folks). About two dozen flew in early and spent a couple of days in Acapulco.
Terry Duga kept a journal of what he saw and enjoyed (people, food, scenery) and we added photos as we put his journal into Whispers on the Web, July 2008 edition.
Our next cruise is a long time off, Oct 1, 2009, and is sailing up the opposite coast. It is on the website under Activities/WWCruises. Our Royal Caribbean ship, Explorer of the Seas, will go from Port Liberty, NJ to Quebec in Canada and we already have 22 people signed on.
IAL AM - VI
Our Awards Committee has met and made decisions for this year. We are planning our WW table which will be open at the IAL and we will man with WW Members for the Annual meeting. Plans for the WW Dinner are well under way and I am looking forward to seeing many of you there.
I thank our 4 VPs and 2 BODs who are reporting below. I won't steal their thunder by reporting on their activities, but I am grateful to all of them and the other volunteers who do a superb job in keeping WebWhispers up to date and growing. Thanks for being there. As I checked through my sent file for this period, I must have pestered you to death because I wrote over 2275 messages and 98% of them were for WebWhispers, mostly to the volunteers. Bless Their Hearts!
Pat W Sanders, President
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VP WebSite Information Report: Jan 1 - June 30, 2008 - Ed Chapman
The web site library is continually being updated and added to. This is paying off as it is being recognized as the place to go. This was pointed out by another web site that was requesting a link from ours to his. "You have a wonderful site - I was very surprised at how much you cover aside from larynx cancer." This is due to the hard work of many people.
President Pat Sanders, webmaster guru Leonard Librizzi and Gary Metz have made it much easier to research the past issues of the Newsletter with the table/index of contents.
Buck Martin with his surfing of the Web has come up with several good links that he has passed on to be listed.
Even with her busy schedule, Barb Stratton has agreed to start some of our programs until we can pass it on to another volunteer.
Tammy Wiggington M.S., CCC/SLP our Library advisor has edited the definitions in the dictionary section. She also researched and recommended some links for the "Tests and Scans" section.
Debbie Walters took over the "Caregivers" section and has made it viable and informative . She has added comments and suggestions from members as well as giving links to various sites that will assist care givers.
An example of how we try to keep the library updated can be found by looking at the "VA" section under "Common Concerns". This is a area that constantly changes yet we are attempting to stay on top of it in order to give our webbie friends the most up to date information.
We are bringing on new programs. One is a "Video" section where information will not only be able to be viewed in the library but educational materials will have the capabilities of being downloaded. We feel if one picture is worth a 1000 words we are going to reduce a lot of words. Case in point: Bill Whittle has produced a power point program that will come with an instructors outline and you will be able to download and use it as a educational tool about laryngectomees for ambulance and hospital staff.
I have one volunteer that I would like to especially recognize. She has the tenacity of a bulldog. You give her a project and away she goes. The next thing you know, she's done. Vickie Metz was already giving her husband, Gary Metz, ideas with the start up on the table/index of contents, while she was still working. Upon her retirement in January she agreed to take on her own projects. So far she has researched, updated and added to "Stoma Care/Humidity", "Acid Reflux", "Travel-Near and Far" and "Stoma Covers" and she is adding a new piece today on maintenance and protection of ELs .
We have a great site going that we could not maintain without the dedicated volunteers, board of directors, executive board and most of all you the members. If you have a chance to thank any of these hard working people please do. I know they will appreciate being appreciated. Be Well!
Respectfully submitted,
Ed Chapman
VP-WSI
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VP Member Services Report: Jan 1 - June 30, 2008 - Libby Fitzgerald
It is truly amazing how much our membership list continues to grow. For several years, we averaged about 30 new members per month, but in the past six months, we averaged over 45 members per month. This included laryngectomees, caregivers, speech pathologists and other medical personnel and laryngectomy supply vendors who hailed from throughout the US, plus Canada, UK, Pakistan, Israel, Australia, Ireland, India, Ecuador, Dubai, South Africa and Turkey.
While continuing to send out thousands of our free color brochures, we are near the end of our current supply, which began with 30,000 copies, four years ago. With the capable designing talents of Len Librizzi and Pat Sanders, plus input from the rest of the WW BOD, updates were made that better reflect what WebWhispers now has to offer. The printing order has been placed and by increasing the copies to 50,000, the cost per brochure has been reduced and will enable us to send them out for a longer period of time before needing to reorder. Requests for these brochures come from individual members, local laryngectomee clubs, speech pathologists, university hospital medical centers, doctors and their nursing staff, and medical supply vendors. If you are unfamiliar with the WebWhispers brochure, you can see it at the following link on our web site: http://webwhispers.org/services/free-brochures.asp. To place an order, contact me directly at Lijofitz@aol.com. We plan to have the new brochures with us at the IAL Convention in Little Rock and encourage you to check them out and bring some back home with you.
To make this printing possible, maintain our web site, cover web hosting fees, listserv fees, computers, software and other operating expenses, your ongoing support through member donations plus memorial donations are necessary and deeply appreciated. These donations also cover the mailing costs for sending out our brochures and loan closet equipment, plus purchasing the Casey-Cooper and other awards. We currently have 239 sustaining members, that is, those who have donated at least $5.00 per year, and that donation entitles you to vote on all issues of importance to this organization. There is no membership fee for joining, but with more than 2,000 members, we hope more of you will give us your support as sustaining members. Donations may be made online through this link:
http://webwhispers.org/donations/donations.asp
or you may mail a check made out to "WebWhispers"
c/o Terry Duga,VP Finance & Administration.
6115 North Park Ave.
Indianapolis, IN 46220.
I will be sending out donation letters for 2008 income tax purposes throughout the year.
Bruce Medical Supply continues to generously provide free Neckbreather pins mailed at no cost to us for all members who donate a minimum of $15.00 in US funds or $50.00 from overseas. We also have WW pins and patches available to purchase. Pins are $5.00 each or 6 for $25.00. Patches are $1.50 each, 4 for $5.00 and 9 for $10.00. To view our pins, patches and Neckbreather pins, go to: http://webwhispers.org/services/ww-pins-patches.asp.
For several years, Bill and Judy Ramboldt have been housing our loan closet equipment and mailing out that equipment to members in need. We were all very saddened when Bill recently lost his battle with cancer, but Judy has faithfully continued this vital service and we thank her for her dedication. The following items are available on a temporary basis for members only, including SLP members who may need them for some of their patients: Servox Digital and Servox Intons with chargers; Cooper Rand, Tru-Tone, Solatone, Romet, Aurex, Nu Vois, and Optivo, plus batteries for those units which were generously donated by an anonymous vendor. We also have 2 Chattervox units, AA battery charger and speaker charger. For further information, contact me at Lijofitz@aol.com.
We are now getting ready to host our annual WebWhispers dinner on Thursday, August 28th, during the IAL Convention in Little Rock. It's always a fun-filled evening with a great turnout and this year's Southern Hospitality Buffet should please your palates. I am putting the seating chart together, so be sure to make your reservations soon. Again, we thank Bruce Medical Supply for their sponsorship of the pre-dinner reception and InHealth Technologies and Bruce Medical Supply for continuing to pay a portion of the dinner cost to help keep it affordable for our members. http://webwhispers.org/activities/ww-annual-dinner.asp
We honor the memories of members we have lost between January 1 and June 30th, listing them on our Memorium Page at: http://webwhispers.org/about/inmemorium.asp, along with those we have lost in previous years. At our WebWhispers dinner, their names will be called and a haunting memorial bell will be rung for each member lost within the past year. It is a touching ceremony and a beautiful way to remember them. If you know of any others not listed on our Memorial Page, please let us know.
Respectfully submitted,
Libby Fitzgerald
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VP Finance & Admin Report - Jan 1 - June 30, 2008
As of June 30, 2008, we had:
$29,706.16 in unrestricted funds.
$10,523,00, which came from a life insurance policy on Dutch, plus interest, is to be used in an emergency to keep the list and website running.
$674.00 in advance payments received for the 2008 Awards Banquet in Little Rock.
We received $3,595.87 in donations during this time. We also had $29.16 in interest income.
We had the following expenses (in U.S. Dollars):
Annual fee for the Indiana Secretary of State to keep our incorporated status 7.14
Bank Card Fee to process credit card donations and payments 127.82
Copying costs .60
Envelopes 6.35
FAX 3.98
Forum Expense 49.50
Hosting Plan Renewal 20.00
Listserve 299.50
Postage and Delivery 114.63
Software 699.63
Thanks to the generosity of our membership we remain fiscally sound.
I wish to thank Carla Lynch for acting as back-up for me.
Submitted,
Terry G. Duga
VP Finance & Administration
~~~~~~~~~~~
VP Internet Activities Report: Jan 1 - June 30, 2008 - Michael Csapo
Greetings Webbies and Avid Reading Enthusiasts,
It's hard to believe that another six months have passed already and it seems to me that I must have the wrong set of gears installed in my clock. Every year, time just seems to pass more quickly than the previous year. I hope this report finds you all in good health and spirits and I appreciate your taking the time and interest to review the following:
EMAIL LISTS:
Recent tallies on our email distribution list reflect 947 recipients on the Regular List, 590 recipients on the Digest List, and an additional 225 email addresses presently subscribed to the Vacation List. This calculates to 1762 unique email addresses subscribed to one of our email lists. In addition we have 305 email addresses currently subscribed to the WebWhispers Health Help (WWHH) list for professionals.
Of continuing concern is the number of members who (often accidentally) continue to report our email as SPAM to their ISP's. If you are reading an email you don't like, please hit delete, not SPAM. Every time someone reports one of our emails as SPAM, whether it be accidental or intentional, it reflects badly on us.
A note of appreciation is also appropriate here for our List Manager "Sunny Bakken" who has continued to put in countless hours processing applications and subscribing new applicants to our email lists, removing members, keeping the memorial page up to date and all the other numerous tasks she performs which presently escape my mind. Mahalo Sunny!
A special thanks to "Buck Martin" who has done an excellent job of entering all of our membership applications and update submissions into our secure database for reference and safekeeping. Cheers Buck!
MODERATORS:
A note of appreciation to all our Moderators for performing the constant task of moderating our email lists and keeping our list discussions productive.
Barb Stratton is still our resident "Chief Moderator" and I can assure you that this gal really puts in the hours! I suspect they must serve up some really strong coffee out there in Massachusetts for her to keep the hours which she does! Randy Lemster has also done a terrific job as "fill in" moderator for those rare occasions where Barb has been unavailable. Carl Strand recently successfully completed a week long moderator refresher course in order to remain adept at his proficient moderating skills as a backup moderator to Barb and Randy.
Mike Rosenkranz, Pat Sanders and myself remain available as backup moderators and advisers for Barb, Randy and Carl on those rare occasions as needed. I commend you all for your efforts!
MEMBERSHIP:
Amazingly, our membership is growing in leaps and bounds! In the period between January 1, 2008 and June 30, 2008 we have inducted the following into WebWhispers membership:
Caregivers..........53
Medical.............,...2
Patient..............176
SLPs..........,,......33
Vendors......,,......12
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Total................276
For our statisticians out there, this calculates to an average of just over 1.5 new members every day! While I often find it disturbing that the numbers are increasing so drastically, I am relieved to know that those who might benefit from WebWhispers are in fact finding their way to us!
CONCERNS:
One of my primary concerns is members Unsubscribing themselves from our email lists while retaining membership with us. While that is not so much a problem in itself, it does make it difficult to keep these members up to date and informed about what is going on in our organization. Note that our email lists have been our primary source of communication not only to address individual problems and concerns, but also to convey important information such as elections, bylaw changes, projects, special events, contribution requests, and a once-a-week changes in membership notice, etc....
When members remove themselves from our email lists we pretty much lose all contact with them. We are not well enough staffed to be able to contact them all individually or email them all separately. This leads me to the next part of my report (Upcoming Projects) which offers a solution to this complex problem.
PROJECTS:
Our President Pat Sanders and myself have discussed this for some time now and one of our upcoming projects will be to set up an announcement list. It is much like our email list except it is only a "One Way" transaction. In other words there will be no replies or discussion made available on this list. It will be used only to send "WW Related" material from administration to the entire membership. We are still etching out the details but most likely it will be mandatory for members to have a working email address to receive these few notices from our announcement list, in order to retain their membership with us.
We are, after all, an "Internet" based organization and it is the Internet which binds us all together. We must have contact with our members somehow and this seems the most reasonable and most economical solution at this time. The cost is modest to maintain a medium sized announcement list which should suit our present needs. This would be run by the same company that now handles our other lists.
It's been quite an experience (mostly pleasurable) to serve as VP Internet Activities these past 6 months and at this time will thank you all for taking the time to read the reports submitted by your officer's.
Thanks also to Forum Managers Mike Rosenkranz and Logan Grayson, Database worker Jeanne Graden, Webmaster Leonard Librizzi, Loan Closet custodian Judy Ramboldt and all those others deserving of whom I have not previously mentioned specifically by name.....?
Respectfully Submitted,
~Michael Csapo
~VP Internet Activities
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BOD - Forum Report - Jan 1 -June 30, 2008 - Mike Rosenkranz
Your forum managers Mike Rosenkranz and Logan Grayson are pleased to report that forum membership has grown to 526, an increase of 84 over the previous six months. It remains at almost 25 % of the total WebWhispers membership. The paradox is that while our membership has grown, the numbers show that activity has decreased.
During this past six months, there were 741 new posts, 139 new discussions, and 44,506 page views. These posts were made by 63 of our forum members. Every one of these figures is lower than the previous six months, but one thing remains constant. The vast majority of posts were made by a very small number of our enrolled members, while the remainder of our forum devotees were content to check in, read the posts, and continue on their way.
There has been a recent flurry of requests for the forum code. It is pleasant to see such increased activity, but we would request that all new members post an initial message upon entering the forum. Think of it as introducing yourselves so that we may all get to know you that much faster. Several of our new members have done that, and we find that those who have posted a message soon after joining continue to post thereafter.
The forum is here so that you may enjoy socializing with your fellow larys, caregivers, professionals and vendors. We are very informal, and everyone is invited to come on in, relax, join in our discussions, post a bit of humor, talk about your hobbies, swap recipes, share memories and chat with your new friends. We look forward to your posts, but if you prefer to just read and leave, you are still welcome. This is your forum to use as you wish. All we ask is that you use good judgment, good taste, and good manners so that this can be a comfortable Clubhouse for all of our members.
To join the forum, click on www.webwhispers.org/members/forumboards.asp and follow the instructions. When you request the forum code, which you will need to join, please remember to sign your full name. That will help us to quickly respond to your request. Address any questions to forummgr@webwhispers.org
Once again, I must acknowledge the tremendous contribution that is constantly made by Logan in keeping the forum operating smoothly and in enrolling new members.
Respectfully submitted,
Mike Rosenkranz
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BOD WWHealthHelp Report -Jan 1 - June 30, 2008 -
Carla DeLassus Gress, ScD, CCC-SLP
The last six months has seen an increase of 10% in the membership of medical professionals, as we continue to spread the word about the benefits of WebWhispers online connection to speech-language pathologists (SLPs), otolaryngologists, and other health care providers who specialize in head & neck cancer treatment, particularly larynx cancer.
At professional meetings that I attend, such as the Stanford University course in Tracheoesophageal Speech last April, I devote extra effort towards introducing SLPs to our organization and encourage them to not only join, but to pass along membership information to the laryngectomees whom they encounter in their practice. My participation in ASHA's Special Interest Group on Voice Disorders and its listserve provides another opportunity to reach speech pathologists and otolaryngologists who are looking for sources of information and support related to laryngeal cancer and living after laryngectomy.
We continue to try to update addresses on our membership rolls that are no longer valid. We ask that you please remember to notify us of any address changes so that we may maintain current listings, and prevent any interruption in your subscription.
Many thanks to all of the hardworking volunteers who are charged with the tedious nuts and bolts of the project, including Michael Csapo, Buck Martin, and Sunny Bakken.
I continue to participate in the WebWhispers mail list, serving as a professional resource to answer questions when needed, as well as the Forum when time permits.
Feel free to contact me at Carla_Gress@hotmail.com if you have questions or comments.