E-Mail Newsletter
August 23, 2010	august 2010
	I normally write something to help our members deal with the season or the holidays or share what helps others. This month I will be sharing information about GROWW and its rules; yes there are rules. Many of us stay at GROWW to help support members figure out how they grieve. There are no handbooks or rules on grief. Most people need peer support, caring and sharing to get through this journey. When Judy Divers started GROWW it was meant for people to come and join others who understood their feelings and share what upsets them and helps them, learn who they have now become and move along. She made many friends and missed them when they moved on and no longer needed to talk about grief all the time. This is still the mission of GROWW. I have been the Executive Director of GROWW for over 8 years now. I used to feel blessed that I could keep GROWW running. I knew I would never be Judy, but my heart is in the right place. I was committed to keeping GROWW funded and alive so people could come here and feel the pain in their heart subside. Over the years, GROWW has had fewer Hosts than ever; people are out there getting 2^nd jobs, taking care of their families, moving on with their lives. Some of us stay forever to try to keep GROWW safe. Most of us have been taken for a fool on one or more occasion. Liars and phonies suck us in with the horrific story and we believe them and then find out we wasted so much time on someone who just was a liar and looking for someone to love them, I hope. I can’t tell you how much time I have vested in fakes, cried when they supposedly died. Yet, I stay, because I truly believe most people are good people. I have always tried to be patient and tried to give people compassion and share what worked for me and the thousands of people I have probably met on GROWW over the past 13 years. This leads me to today’s diatribe. If you don’t like me or staff, you may as well just delete this now. You probably won’t like us any better when you are done reading this. This is for all of the people who take advantage of coming to GROWW when they want to. There are no fees, no dues, no payment required to come here. GROWW wants members to be able to stay anonymous. Anyone can come to most of our rooms without providing names, addresses or proof that someone they loved really died. How sad is it to think we have to be careful because some people are just coming to find a social network, have no loss and are just there to prey on innocent people. They love being mean and rude, complain about our rules, and call people names. The folks being called the worst names are the people that give up their free time to help people, to help keep our rooms safe, to ask questions. After you do this for a while, you can see when the stories change or the details are vague. You can’t believe the nasty letters we receive from “members” telling us we have no rights, we can’t tell a child under 18 that they can’t be in our chat rooms after midnight eastern time. People will openly argue with a Host about this and tell the child not to listen to them. Let me say to you, mind you own business. We have rules to keep GROWW safe; we have this rule to keep our children and your children safe. These are the people that call our Host’s B*****s, talk to their friends in pc and say they wish so and so was dead. Imagine THAT, it mortifies me that people actually type this and berate people who are here to help, here to keep our site safe.
	There is an old saying that my Dad always said, if you don’t like my rules, there’s the door, don’t let it hit you where the good Lord split you. GROWW is for GRIEF RECOVERY, it is not your personal place to go and talk to your friends. The internet has grown and almost anything can be found here. I am sure I don’t even know all of the private message services available. Yahoo, AIM, AOL, Facebook are just a few - these all have private chatting available. If you want to chat with a friend or even a few, sign in and get a chat going. I almost find it ironic that I suggest this, as this is basically how GROWW was started. Read Judy’s writings. She started by being a moderator on AOL, started chatting with others; back then you paid for AOL by the amount of time you stayed on and we were all on dial-up. When AOL didn’t like what she was doing and thought they should be making more money from her meeting in private rooms, they asked her to leave. Hence, the beginning of GROWW. Effective Friday night August 13^th, 2010 the GROWW chat rooms will be locked. First let me say to those of you in other countries, we are sorry that the time differences may affect your ability to be able to chat. Do you care about GROWW, are you here for the RIGHT reasons, if so email me, we may be able to find a way to have you become a Host. For now we need to keep the rooms locked after the last person with administrative powers leaves for the night. It could be midnight, 3am, 5am. It will be hit and miss for now. I will personally open GR each weekday morning by 6:15 at the latest. Weekends, I sleep in, whoever wakes up first and has admins and is so inclined can go unlock GR. Our loss specific rooms will only be open during meeting times. Since we moved to our new chat system, people tend to “roam the halls” more, so to speak, and go to other rooms to meet their friends. Let me reiterate GROWW is NOT a social network, the rooms are not here for you to meet with other mean spirited friends and discuss the Hosts and Staff and call us names and wish us dead. If this is how you feel see above. We hear over and over how we have no rights, we can’t tell you what to do or how to behave. You are wrong. First of all, common decency and manners seem to barely exist anymore. People attack Hosts who are trying to get them to chat in the chat room - what a novel concept. Believe me, if we could shut the pc off, we would, but we haven’t been able to figure that out. That, in my opinion would be sad, because there are people that want to talk to someone who has become a friend, someone who may not want to talk about an issue to everyone in the room. We get this, we understand this. The private chats are not for members to wait and prey on a new member and tell them the Host is a b**** and not to listen to her or answer her, just stay in pc with me and talk to me. That’s NOT what GROWW is about, it is about talking to people who understand, people with whom you can share your thoughts and feelings in an anonymous setting. You can pour your heart out and not be judged. Will everyone be able to support you? Absolutely not, we are all individuals with our own thoughts and opinions. If you cannot support someone, don’t pass judgment, there is a good chance some will understand what they are dealing with. The following is a list of GROWW’s rules. You know how you read things on websites and you have to check the box that you understand something like when you sign up for something online. The rules will be posted on the website. We aren’t sure if we can get the checkbox to work yet, but we are working on that. People will argue where are the rules? You will now find them front and center on the main page of GROWW. Unfortunately, our last step will be to password all rooms and anyone who wants to join will have to answer a series of questions and be given a password to enter ALL rooms. This is not something we want to do for several reasons; people who find us when we aren’t all awake would have to wait until we could get to pending submissions. Most of us work full time jobs and only get to do GROWW work at night. We think this would be an injustice to anyone who needs to find caring and compassion when they need it. Locking the rooms is unfortunately the first step towards doing this. Let’s try to all work together and keep GROWW the place it was built to be, a place of comfort and friends helping friends to get through the worst days of their lives. I could probably go on and on about incidents that have taken place but I will end here. Below please find our rules.
	GROWW Rules of Conduct Intent of this section: This is a community of mutual respect. You will see this reflected throughout all of our rules. We have tried to set a standard that will keep everyone feeling safe and comfortable. · Respect your fellow Members, GROWW, Inc., and the GROWW Staff and Hosts. Comments of a disparaging nature directed at other Members, GROWW, its Staff and/or Hosts will not be tolerated. Members who violate this policy ( and/ or the various rules of etiquette that follows) will be formally asked to stop, and will be barred from  GROWW chat rooms if such conduct continues · Strong language and vulgarity are prohibited. Use a similar standard of language to what you might hear on major network TV, on the radio, or in any other public forum. Crude sex words are strictly prohibited. Using asterisks or other symbols in place of letters generally does not make a word okay to use. Please use common sense and courtesy. If you wouldn't say it in polite company you shouldn't say it here. · No personal insults to others. · No flaming others. If you don't like what someone has to say, the chat room gives you the option to ignore their posts. If you aren't sure how to do this, ask a host. · Members must request permission prior to starting a person-to- person chat. · Members have the right to refuse to give out any and all personal details. · Members have the right to refuse any request for person-to- person chat from another member. They may not, however, refuse a person-to-person chat from a host. · You may PC a Host without asking permission. Please respect the fact that hosts are responsible for multiple duties at the same time and with them unless it can't be handled in any other way. Also, please be understanding if they do not stay in PC with you.. It is very stressful for them to have to be in multiple PC's and monitor the room at the same time. Intent of this section: We are not equipped to properly help people who are contemplating suicide. We want to keep you safe by encouraging you to seek professional assistance. · Our chat is a support group only. We are not trained or equipped to be a suicide hotline. Please contact one of the suicide hotlines, your personal physician, a hospital emergency room or your local 911 or emergency contact number for professional assistance. · If a member is overwrought and we cannot talk to them, they may be booted out to protect the rest of the group. · If you give your personal information to a host or other member and later threaten suicide we reserve the right to contact appropriate authorities, however, no guarantee is made that someone will contact emergency personnel for you. As stated before, we are not equipped to handle crisis situations. · Discussion of alcohol or drug use is prohibited. Members who make it known that they are using alcohol or drugs--either through their behavior or a statement to that effect--may be asked to leave until they are sober. Discussion about recovery from alcohol or drug abuse is, however, permitted. If you feel that you are unable to remain sober while participating in chat, a host can make a recommendation for an alcohol or substance abuse recovery chat  which may be more appropriate for your needs. _________________________________________________________ · Intent of this section: When members use the same name each time, other members feel more secure that they know who they are speaking with. It also allows you the opportunity to form deeper friendships because people come to recognize you. Certain names are restricted in order to keep members feeling safe. · Always use the same membership to log into the forum. We understand that you may more than one membership for perfectly valid reasons, but the nature of this forum requires that people be able to trust who they are speaking with. Please select one membership to use for this forum and stick with it. · Members cannot select names that are offensive in nature. Names that you may be asked to change are those that refer to: death, suicide, self-harm, harm to others, sex, bodily functions, put downs to others, drug or alcohol abuse, hatred or prejudice. · Please note that it is strongly suggested that members do not select names which are derogatory to themselves since our negative thoughts can influence our mood. This is only a suggestion, however. We realize that your chosen nick communicates how you are feeling at the moment. Our goal is for you someday to request a nick change that better reflects your true worth as a person. _______________________________________________________ Intent of this section: To keep our room safe and reasonably on-topic. · Triggering topics are not allowed. Triggering topics include but are not limited to: suicide, self-injury, rape, sexual abuse, drug or alcohol abuse, and domestic violence. · Joking and having fun are permitted provided that it is not interfering with the ability of other members to seek and give support. If even one person is in need, members will be asked to get serious until that person has been assisted. Remember, our primary purpose is to offer each other support. · Cybersex and picking up "dates" is not allowed in this chat. · You may be asked to change topics if the topic is controversial and is creating a great deal of arguing in the room. Religion is one example of such a topic. · Jokes which are off-color, racist, homophobic or otherwise offensive are not permitted. · No spamming the forum or chat room with advertisements of any type. · Please bear in mind that all room logs, including private chats, can and will be read by Staff when a situation in a room, or private chat, warrants it. Each of us is accountable for what we say to others in GROWW chat. _________________________________________________________ Intent of this section: To make this a pleasant user experience with minimal distractions. · All caps are considered to be shouting. Please don't use it. · Don't monopolize the screen by posting excessively long song lyrics, long stories or jokes, or other off-topic messages. · Don't make the same post in multiple forum folders. GROWW STAFF