Your help needed

For those who've been receiving the HN Notes by email from the Heartland Club I'd like to provide notice of an upcoming change in the Notes.

I've issued the HN Notes as a sort of informal, irregular email newsletter for several years, probably since about 1997 so the series is at or near the four year mark - ancient in internet terms where 12 months is a long life for any project.

The HN Notes will wind down at the end of this year. That's one reason I've emphasized in all recent editions that readers become accustomed to checking this message board. This could serve as a more interactive way for area nudists to stay in touch and pass information on events, sites and legal maneuvering. It could but unfortunately many are shy about posting to an open forum even though fake names are widely used and there's no accountability.

This Message Board averages 60 hits a day so material is read- it's just that the give and take aspect has never truly taken off.

What to do? Well with the closing out of the HN Notes and the rather sparse usage of this message board two things will happen. First the club will provide a members-only group via one of the internet services.It will be available to Heartland members and will provide messaging capability as well as file sharing, polling, bookmarks and chat service. A pretty complete package and by making the resource members-only we hope that members will indeed find it a safe haven and make good use of it. But non-members would need to join the Heartland Club to be admitted to this service. We hope that many do just that - only $50 a year and that gets you the printed newsletter, access to the Club's Group, and info on several members-only events each year. Pluse members receive discounts on events that come close to paying for the year's membership fees.

For non-members there are numerous messaging Groups already in existence on the intene. Thus my query: if you know of a nudist group on the Yahoo system, the MSN system or other group messaging systems and would like to recommend it via this Message Board please do so.

I'd like to find an existing group that serves mainly Kansas City/Topeka area nudists, is moderately moderated, not too harshly but with enough control to keep the dialogue polite and on topic and not tilting toward any one nudist consituency so that all will feel at home and comfortable.

If you belong to such a group I'll take "nominations" or at least suggestions here via the REPLY function. Let us know the group name along with the URL. How many members, geographic emphasis, moderator if you have that info, and a bit about the character of the group. How much fun it is to belong? How active and how helpful the info is to KC area nudists?

There are hundreds of nudist groups on the internet. I'm trying to find the one or two best as a follow on for the 92 folks who're currently receiving the HN Notes. Many already belong to internet groups so there should be a lot of expertise on the subject.

Thanks for your help -- post the info here via this message board or if you're still cyber-shy you may email me and I'll sanitize the pertinent info and repost it.

Dick Williams rjw@sky.net
Heartland Naturists