Post by Stal on May 31, 2010 0:44:58 GMT -5
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into Positive Spin, there it is... waiting for you. That feeling of Warm Fuzziness.
It's coming.
September 2010.
---
Haha. Seriously, though, I figured with summer approaching, it'd be a good time to do another Warm Fuzzy Project. Last year's was a great success and a lot of people came away feeling really good about it. But why limit that kind of good feelings to the people that signed up last year? Why not go for it again and give more people a chance?
And so I present Warm Fuzzies Two.
What is it?
The first Warm Fuzzy thread can be found here. That should give some background on it (and the inspiration behind it). To summarize in this thread, as a refresher, people sign a list of participation. You then write something positive, uplifting, and edifying about the other people on that list and send them to me and I will collect them and put them in files to send to the person, keeping all comments anonymous. These comments should hopefully be something more than just "You're nice." Maybe give a two or three sentence comment, or talk about a particular situation or post that meant a lot to you and express it to them.
The point is to let others know that they are cared about, that they matter to others, that they make a difference.
Some tips
This sounds like an easy task, but as many participants from last year will tell you, it's not as easy as it sounds. It took a lot of time to put some thought into what was said about others. Some people even dropped out because they didn't have enough time. So here's some tips in keeping track of all this.
1. Don't try to do it all at once. I recommend doing one or two a day, and just letting it be. You're going to have all summer to do these things. Don't let the number of participants make you feel overwhelmed or anything. Just take it in bite-size chunks and it'll be good.
2. If you don't know someone, spend some time digging through their diary or their recent posts, talk to them, get to know them a bit.
3. If you do start feeling overwhelmed, or if you were a participant last year, concentrate on the people who didn't participate last year and leave last year's participants towards the end. They got warm fuzzies, and while it'd be great to get more, those that didn't get any should take some priority.
4. For all of last year's participants, don't feel obligated to write something for the people from last year if you just don't know what to say/feel it'd be too redundant. That's fine. If you can think of something good to say, maybe something specific or just something nice in general, awesome. But if you can't, again, just concentrate on the ones that missed out last round.
Other tips to be added as thought of/mentioned by former participants.
Deadlines
I'm changing a couple things this year. First, there is no sign up deadline. People can join up to the very last day. However, you should keep in mind the later you sign up, the more likely that you will not get as many early sign ups. People may forget to check back and see if there's been any new additions or not.
The other change is from the get go, I'm entering a submission deadline. I would like all Fuzzies to be turned in by 11:59 PM, PDT (NST) August 31, 2010. That gives you the entirety of June, July, and August to work on Warm Fuzzies. I found last year that without a deadline, things just didn't get done.
Final Thoughts
Think more about the nice things you can say to others than the things people will say to you. And please, keep in mind that this does take some commitment and work--it really doesn't work well if people just sign up and don't do anything with it. So please, please, only sign up if you feel you can participate and follow through on writing things about the other people on the list.
List of participants
1. Stalos
2. Shade (Ciel)
3. Azzie
4. Ithil
5. Dan
6. Ginz
7. Vapor
8. Kit
9. Sarn
10. Robyn
11. Nut
12. Birdy
13. Kina
14. Tamia
15. Squiesh
16. Crystal
17. Craig
18. Nova
19. Candy
20. Friday
21. Fj0rd
22. Tiger
23. Purple
24. TK
25. Alyssa
26. Lemmy
27. Celestial
28. Jo
29. Amnei
30. Jayee
It's coming.
September 2010.
---
Haha. Seriously, though, I figured with summer approaching, it'd be a good time to do another Warm Fuzzy Project. Last year's was a great success and a lot of people came away feeling really good about it. But why limit that kind of good feelings to the people that signed up last year? Why not go for it again and give more people a chance?
And so I present Warm Fuzzies Two.
What is it?
The first Warm Fuzzy thread can be found here. That should give some background on it (and the inspiration behind it). To summarize in this thread, as a refresher, people sign a list of participation. You then write something positive, uplifting, and edifying about the other people on that list and send them to me and I will collect them and put them in files to send to the person, keeping all comments anonymous. These comments should hopefully be something more than just "You're nice." Maybe give a two or three sentence comment, or talk about a particular situation or post that meant a lot to you and express it to them.
The point is to let others know that they are cared about, that they matter to others, that they make a difference.
Some tips
This sounds like an easy task, but as many participants from last year will tell you, it's not as easy as it sounds. It took a lot of time to put some thought into what was said about others. Some people even dropped out because they didn't have enough time. So here's some tips in keeping track of all this.
1. Don't try to do it all at once. I recommend doing one or two a day, and just letting it be. You're going to have all summer to do these things. Don't let the number of participants make you feel overwhelmed or anything. Just take it in bite-size chunks and it'll be good.
2. If you don't know someone, spend some time digging through their diary or their recent posts, talk to them, get to know them a bit.
3. If you do start feeling overwhelmed, or if you were a participant last year, concentrate on the people who didn't participate last year and leave last year's participants towards the end. They got warm fuzzies, and while it'd be great to get more, those that didn't get any should take some priority.
4. For all of last year's participants, don't feel obligated to write something for the people from last year if you just don't know what to say/feel it'd be too redundant. That's fine. If you can think of something good to say, maybe something specific or just something nice in general, awesome. But if you can't, again, just concentrate on the ones that missed out last round.
Other tips to be added as thought of/mentioned by former participants.
Deadlines
I'm changing a couple things this year. First, there is no sign up deadline. People can join up to the very last day. However, you should keep in mind the later you sign up, the more likely that you will not get as many early sign ups. People may forget to check back and see if there's been any new additions or not.
The other change is from the get go, I'm entering a submission deadline. I would like all Fuzzies to be turned in by 11:59 PM, PDT (NST) August 31, 2010. That gives you the entirety of June, July, and August to work on Warm Fuzzies. I found last year that without a deadline, things just didn't get done.
Final Thoughts
Think more about the nice things you can say to others than the things people will say to you. And please, keep in mind that this does take some commitment and work--it really doesn't work well if people just sign up and don't do anything with it. So please, please, only sign up if you feel you can participate and follow through on writing things about the other people on the list.
List of participants
1. Stalos
2. Shade (Ciel)
3. Azzie
4. Ithil
5. Dan
6. Ginz
7. Vapor
8. Kit
9. Sarn
10. Robyn
11. Nut
12. Birdy
13. Kina
14. Tamia
15. Squiesh
16. Crystal
17. Craig
18. Nova
19. Candy
20. Friday
21. Fj0rd
22. Tiger
23. Purple
24. TK
25. Alyssa
26. Lemmy
27. Celestial
28. Jo
29. Amnei
30. Jayee
neo username - dan4884 
This was an awesome project last year.
