New Member --- Martin David from Across the Water

It gives me great pleasure to welcome Martin David of Martin David from Across the Water as a new member in Blogpower. This young man hails from the Isle of Man but if you are not familiar with his site please go over and explore and introduce yourself in the comment section.

His site has now been added to the blogroll and I am sure he will be displaying it along with the BP banner very shortly, as a fully fledged member.

Martin David from Across the Water

We have a new application for membership in Blogpower from a relatively new blog in the blogosphere, Martin David from Across the Water, this young man being on the Isle of Man. However he has been around for the required three months, although not a frequent poster.

Please take a look at Martin David from Across the Water and make your feelings known in the comment section here. Any objection will move the discussion and voting to the mailing list, with comments subsequently being closed here.

The voting countdown will commence at 8 am GMT Thursday, Feb 21st.

Blogpower Common Room

Further to a discussion in the forum, I have provided a meeting place in Second Life for Blogpower members. It's on a deck of one of my spacecraft there. Just follow the link above to launch the software and go right there.

When in Second Life, search for the Blogpower group and join it. We will then be able to send you in-world notices. If you are ever in difficulty, send an in-world "instant message" (IM) to me, LastDitch Writer. If I am not online, it will be forwarded to my email.

I look forward to meeting you all there.

New Member --- Miss Wagstaff Presents

It gives me great pleasure to welcome Pippa Wagstaff of Miss Wagstaff Presents as a new member in Blogpower. I know she has some testimonials from blog friends already in this group but if you are not familiar with her site please go over and explore and introduce yourself in the comment section.

Her site has now been added to the blogroll and I am sure she will be displaying it along with the BP banner very shortly, as a fully fledged member.

Re-application to join Blogpower -- Miss Wagstaff Presents

You may recall that Miss Wagstaff applied previously to join Blogpower however did not fulfill the three months' requirement for membership. With that now accomplished Miss Wagstaff has asked once more to join, so for your consideration: Miss Wagstaff Presents "the One Wales Government in all its glory (or simply the lack of it)", thereby keeping the members of the Welsh Assembly under scrutiny.

Please take a look, and make your feelings known in the comment section below. As always, the first objection will close comments, and further discussion and voting will take place via the mailing list.

I am starting the clock at 8 AM GMT, Monday, Feb 4th.

Blogpower Initiative for February

Now I am nowhere near the idea person that James was for Blogpower but I have been tossing around an idea that came to me recently. It was prompted by the concept of Delurker Day which was earlier on in January and it pertains to visiting and commenting.

We all know that the idea of BP is visiting each other's blogs but somehow I think we've let that slip away a little. The truth of the matter is everyone is very busy with their working lives, their families and their own blogs. Not only do we have the BP blogroll in our sidebars but we have other blogrolls with our personal favourites listed and whom we want to visit. This all takes time and spare time is something we don't have a lot of. My bloglines feed consists of 232 blogs which I check on a fairly regular basis but then I'm retired. I'm sure you have lots on your reader of choice too. I think lots of us only read blogs that way because clicking over takes precious time while the blog loads.

It's also very easy to make little circles in BP because you have more interest in some blogs over others. That's only natural and totally understandable. But I'd like to make a suggestion that each of us make just a tiny effort to visit some blogs in BP that we usually don't and delurk. Yes, leave a comment. It doesn't have to be a brilliant comment. Just the equivalent of a hi, fellow BP member, well you get the idea, you'll think of something. If, every few days we were to visit one extra blog on the list and leave a comment then it would not take too much time or trouble and I think it would make us all feel like more of a group again. Let's make a small effort to reconnect with each other and let's take special care to welcome the recent new members.

I hope you will join me in doing this, but in any event I'm going to start the ball rolling by visiting and commenting on some of the BP blogs that I've let slip under my radar. If you have another idea, feel free to suggest it.

New Member -- Letters from a Tory

It gives me great pleasure to welcome A. Tory of Letters from a Tory as a new member in Blogpower. I know he has some blog friends already in this group but if you are not familiar with his site please go over and explore and introduce yourself in the comment section.

His site has now been added to the blogroll and I am sure he will be displaying it along with the BP banner very shortly, as a fully fledged member.

Blogroll Housekeeping

Our main and sleeping blogrolls need a little bit of tidying up.

Due notice is given that on February 1st, any Blogpower Blogs that have not made a 2008 posting will be moved over to the dormant list (Sleeping, Perchance dreaming). Conversely, any sleeping beauties that have woken up will be moved back. (Any that become 404 not found will be deleted).

Letters from a Tory

We have a new application for membership in Blogpower from a relatively new blog in the blogosphere, Letters from a Tory. However he/she has been around for the required three months and a few of our members appear on the blogroll so some of you may be familiar with this blog already.

Please take a look at Letters from a Tory and make your feelings known in the comment section here. Any objection will move the discussion and voting to the mailing list, with comments subsequently being closed here.

New Member --- The Poliblogs

It gives me great pleasure to welcome Garbo of The Poliblogs as a new member in Blogpower. I know he has many blog friends already in this group but if you are not familiar with his site please go over and explore and introduce yourself in the comment section.

His site has now been added to the blogroll and I am sure he will be displaying it along with the BP banner very shortly, as a fully fledged member.