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I received an e-mail today from one of the Mentors asking why we didn’t have pictures of members and asking if he could post his picture.
We did consider this when we first set up the site, but in days of dial up connections and very limited broadband (and the way the site was set up then) this would have made for very slow downloading.
But…things are different now and if any of you want the world to see what you look like, by all means send me a pic attached to an e-mail.
Just a couple of points:
1. The picture doesn’t have to be just of you – by all means include your loved ones – partner, children, dogs, car motor bike if you like - but please reduce the size of the file before sending it. The simplest way, in Outlook is to check the ‘small’ box in the attachment option.
2. Many people are concerned about privacy issues so, as I remind you on the Update and Join Us pages, be aware that anything on the Internet can be accessed by anyone with a browser – and your picture could be downloaded. Now that doesn’t bother me, but it does bother a lot of people, so if you are including anyone other than yourself, please make sure that they are happy with that.
3. Please identify yourself clearly, if and when you send in your shot, by the name you use for your experience story – a number of you use pseudonyms, although I guess none of you who do that will be sending in your shots as your identity will then be revealed.
Now to broader issues. Are there any improvements you can suggest for the site? If so, post them here for discussion or send them in to me – my preference would be for posting here because that may trigger other people’s ideas or we may refine those put forward.
At the moment I am working on the following:
• Finding a better search engine so that it will be easy to find information on the site – names of doctors for example or medications to think of just two pointers
• Providing more information on potential side effects, including depression (thanks Joe!) for the various forms of treatment
• Re-writing my booklet A STRANGE PLACE and ‘internationalsing’ it.
But if you have any ideas, please send them in. working as a one man band sometimes puts blinkers on.
Terry, your booklet called "A strange Place" should also be part of the "don't panic" section of your website. It is such an important booklet that you should consider having it prominently identified on the home page with a brief discription of its contents. I am wondering if one could purchase copies of it for their support groups either for their library or as handouts.
My basic idea is to use some of the donations that generous members like you have sent in to have a small print run and offer to send hard copies to anyone who would find the booklet useful. The material would also be downloadable from the site but many of gthe men who are most likely to be diagnosed may not be computer literate - hence the offer of a hard copy
I would not be selling the booklet as such but asking people who ordered it to make a donation if they find it useful. I did this in South Africa and found that I got enough in donations to re-print as necessary.
Of course I must do the re-write first – I intended doing it before I went to Italy!!
Let me know when you have done the rewrite as I would be interested in getting several copies (30) for my prostate support group to be distributed to those that are newly diagnosed and any others who would like to get more information on the prostate cancer.
