Quick ML check-in survey

We will have a more extensive survey about your entire MLing experience in December, but we started doing this October check-in survey last year to capture your feedback on things we could do now to better support you through this year's NaNoWriMo.

I also thought it might be useful to get your thoughts on some of the earlier ML support resources, as I often find it can be hard to remember the specifics I wanted to bring up by the time the December survey rolls around. This survey should only take you a few minutes—thanks for sharing your input!

ML testimonials that speak to community

As part of future elements of our ongoing 25th anniversary campaign, but also in anticipation of the fairly frequent occasions where we are asked for quotes from our volunteers and examples of community impact in places like grant applications, we are hoping to gather some ML testimonials about your experiences with NaNoWriMo and its community.

Reminders about additional volunteer opportunities

Additional volunteer opportunities are still available for interested MLs!

1. Applications for forum moderators are still open and we'd love to have more MLs on the team! All the information about the role as well as the link to the applications is in this forum thread, and you can also ask any questions you have there as well.
    
2. The Global Write-In Crawl (aka GWIC) is happening the first weekend of November and still has a few slots available for stop hosts. If you aren't quite ready for that yet but want to get more involved in the event behind the scenes, they're also happy to have more moderators. They're closing down applications for stop hosts on October 12th, so hop on over for more information in this thread. 
    
3. One Hundred Hours of Writing (aka OHHOW) is also taking volunteer sign-ups for their next Twitch streaming event, happening November 9-14th. You can learn more about the different roles available for that event on their website!

Approving submitted events

I had a few questions this week about events that MLs weren't sure whether to approve, so I started a forum thread where you can ask for input on approving events you aren't certain about! As a general rule, if an event doesn't have a mandatory fee and isn't in a private residence, you should largely be approving it, but I know there are sometimes grey areas where a second opinion would be valuable. 

I also shared some clarification around a good example of a grey area that someone asked about earlier this week—common areas in places like apartment buildings and dorms. 

Please do keep in mind that this is the time of year where people will be submitting more events to your region, and make it part of your regular rotation to check for pending events and approve them as frequently as you're able to. We're sending out a message to CWI spaces this week with information on how to submit events, so you may see a bump in those over the next few days.

Eventually we're hoping to have an "approved event host" status that MLs can assign to their regular hosts so it's not all on you to manually approve, but until we have that up and running, this is at least a better alternative than you having to enter all the information yourself!

There are so many moving parts and so much information all the time, sometimes it can be helpful to just do a quick check-in with what you should have done by now and what you should be getting ready for:

Immediate to-dos:

• If you haven't received your ML kit yet, double check that you did in fact order it! (Search your email for hello@dftba.com to find your confirmation email.)
  • Shipping times will obviously vary widely depending on where you are, but if you placed a pre-order, you should have received a shipping confirmation and can check to make sure it's still on its way.
     
• Host any October events you planned
   
• Finalize any November events you're planning and hosting
   
• Encourage your region to plan and host write-ins and submit them to the events tab

Ongoing to-dos:

• Adding your events to your events page as they're confirmed
   
• Approving participant-submitted events in your region 
   
• Coordinating with your co-MLs to send regular regional messages about upcoming events, how they can submit their own events, and where they can find conversation and community in your region

Task to complete by next May:

• Complete one of the ML workshops (which one depends on whether you are a new or returning ML, though you are of course welcome to participate in all of them if you want!)

Frequently used ML links

ML Support Hub
ML Forums
Join the ML Discord
ML Facebook group
New ML Training Google Classroom
ML workshop information