Happy Birthday Surfacehippy!!

[Guest guest]

Happy Birthday to Surfacehippy!! Surfacehippy is 4 years old on March 3rd.

Thanks to all of you for making this support group work. Lately I seem to be

taking more and more work home from the day job so I have less time to

answer questions here, but all of you are doing a great job of covering the

questions of the newcomers, helping those who have run into problems, and

keeping us up-to-date on the changing policies and events with resurfacing

around the world.

Despite the efforts of a few misguided individuals to derail our support

group, the membership has increased to over 1200. Each time the membership

crosses a hundred mark I figure that will be the top, but so far the growth

is unabated.

So now you're wondering, , how can I help keep Surfacehippy and

ActiveJoints going?

Here are some ways:

1) Help spread the word.

If you have a website or weblog, cut-n-paste the following links

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/surfacehippy " >Surfacehippy: Hip

Resurfacing Support Group

http://www.ActiveJoints.com>ActiveJoints: Total Hip Replacement and

Alternative Options

Including the additional words in the link text helps those who are looking

for information using a search engine.

2) Help pay the bills.

Surfacehippy is a free site, as you may have been reminded by the Yahoo

ads now and again, however ActiveJoints costs about $35 a month to keep

online (including hosting fees and misc expenses). Despite a few generous

contributions in 2003, and some active shopping by some, I had to cover part

of the bills. You can support the site by clicking on the Amazon.com,

VitaCost or other links on the ActiveJoints pages before you make purchases

from those vendors.

You can get yourself a t-shirt

http://www.ActiveJoints.com/shirts.html

or make a direct monetary contribution. See

http://www.ActiveJoints.com/donate.html

3) Volunteer

I'm looking for one or two people to help moderate the Surfacehippy group,

especially while I am out on travel. Doesn't take much effort since we

don't screen posts, you'd just have to look out for spam posts and the rare

obviously inappropriate post. I am hoping to hear from a few of the

" oldtimers " who I'll recognise. Email me at kbrews AT cox DOT net.

Lets make it a great fifth year!!

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