January 2020 Blast

Happy New Year everyone! 2019 was a busy year and hopefully a good one for all of you. Hold on to your hats, we think 2020 will be even busier and better.

2020 Conference

We have firmed up our plans to hold our general membership conference next September in New London, CT. We have kept costs down at both the hotel and with the conference to make next year’s conference one of the most affordable in years. At the same time, planning is already taking place to ensure it will be productive and enjoyable. More specific information is available on our website:

https://www.mwsadispatches.com/events/2020-conference

While you're visiting our conference page, you can also reserve and pay for a conference slot for you and your guest(s). As long as you're visiting that conference page, you might as well take advantage of early-bird conference rates, which will be in effect until the end of May.

If you have any questions or need any help, please contact our conference organizers, Jim Greenwald and Phil Keith at NewLondon@mwsa.co.

Elections 2020

No, not that election, our MWSA election of board members. We will be issuing a call for any MWSA member who would like to run for office or to become a director at large. We will need a slate of candidates by next spring, so don't be shy.

We'll be posting details on our website, but if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to let me know. I'd be happy to describe the duties, term of office, or any other aspect of our MWSA leadership positions.

Reviews & Awards

Our 2020 season will kick off in a few days (on January 15), with the opening of our book submission window. We're looking forward to having a look at our members' work at that time. Our submission window will stay open until June 15, which gives us enough time to read, score, and review all books in time for our announcement of awards finalists on or about August 15.

As always, we're expecting a very busy season. If you're interested in helping out as an MWSA reviewer, we'd love to have you join our reviewer force.

Click here: https://www.mwsadispatches.com/awards to learn more or to sign up for reviewer training. You can work as much... or as little as you want, and the training is now done online at your own pace. Please join us!

Volunteers

We are still in need of volunteers to help in a variety of ways. If you would like to be a book reviewer, help us maintain our website, work on one of our social media outlets, or be an MWSA Ambassador, please let us know. Information on these programs can be found on our website and you'll find contact emails at the bottom of this email [see email contact list below].

Cookie Monsters and MWSA Websites

For a host of reasons (technical and otherwise), MWSA uses two websites. Our main website is the one almost everyone visits to see what's going on and where members can take advantage of all our offerings and member benefits:

https://www.mwsadispatches.com/ (the site you’re looking at right now)

Our second website deals with all our membership activities and online payment of dues. Because it handles secure online payments and member contact information, this website is secure and relies on "cookies" to be sure it's keeping track of YOU and your information after you sign in.

We've tried to simplify your navigation through our websites by combining the two websites into a seamless experience for our members. Unfortunately, the integration doesn't always work as well as we'd wish. Sometimes, the Cookie Monster gets in the way. :-)

If your computer gives you a warning about cookies (telling you that they're required or disabled), you should click on the nearby link that says "Click here to go to our membership website." That should take care of your "Cookie Monster problem."

If that doesn't work--or if you have any problem you can't solve on your own--please don't hesitate to email our membership team (if you're trying to pay dues or update any of your membership contact information) or our event coordinators (if you're trying to register for the conference).

Sincerely,
Bob Doerr
MWSA President

Where to go for information. Who to contact with questions.