Happy Birthday, RevGalBlogPals!!

Born in a comment thread at St. Casserole's blog, RevGalBlogPals celebrates its fifth birthday today! Within 24 hours of that post, we had a webring, a group blog and a CafePress store. In our short history we've published two books of reflections and sponsored three Big Events. Today we have about 300 member blogs.

But what we cannot count are the friendships made through the ring. Don't let anyone tell you Internet friendships are not real. RevGalBlogPals has been the source of connections for far-flung clergywomen, of kindnesses in disaster, and a vehicle for the movement of the Holy Spirit through our lectionary and book discussions, preacher parties, sharing of wisdom and experience, prayers, and even our memes.

The board of our 501(c)3, RevGalBlogPals, Inc., is evaluating some of the guidelines established early on about ring and corporation membership. First, we are moving away from the idea of having dues-paying members of the corporation, and will let you know more about this soon. For the time being, we are not taking dues payments. Since there are by-laws to revise, it will take some time to transition.

Second, given some changes at Ringsurf, we are going to discontinue use of their service. Blogs applying for membership now must provide a 1000 word description, and while we appreciate the desire of Ringsurf to protect against spam, this feels onerous. Please go ahead and delete your Ringsurf code, and instead install our new button on your blog. Include a link back to http://revgalblogpals.blogspot.com/

(That's a picture from BE 2.0.)

In the next year, we have plans for Big Event 4.0, with Carol Howard Merritt, and more specifics will be coming on that soon. Meanwhile, please use the comments to share a favorite memory or thought from the past five years, or to leave a link if you blog about it.

Many thanks to all the ring members who have given their time and energy over the years to make the webring go and to provide the content on this group blog. If you haven't been a participant before but might like to try it, send us an email.

Happy Birthday!!!

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To grab our button, right-click on the image in the sidebar (that one has less gobbledygook than the one in the blog post), and save it to your computer. Go to your blog software and add via your picture or link instructions. In Blogger use the gadget for a picture, very easy to add. In Typepad, you have to save it to your Typepad files, which is a little more complicated, but they have instructions for doing it and embedding a link. If anyone has WordPress advice, please add it to the comments and I will cut and paste here. Thanks!