Sunday, February 17, 2019

The Sunday Salon about The Sunday Salon



The Sunday Salon and I go way back. Way, way back. My first blog post was on June 8, 2008; my first Sunday Salon post was on July 6, 2008, not even a month later.

I started my blog for a class that met the requirements for summer inservice hours. I've been a computer person from the get-go. I joined the math club in high school (ugh, math) primarily so that I could play on the room-sized computer that only those in the math club could use. The first real purchase we made as a family was a home computer. (Funny story: I was used to the Apple computers we had at school, but this newly purchased computer was a DOS computer. I had it for a week before I finally, in desperation, called my cousin and told him that I thought our computer was broken; once it booted up, all it would do was sit there and blink C:// over and over again.) I'd joined an online book club as early as 1999.

Becoming a blogger wasn't very interesting at first; I wrote posts, but no one read them or commented on them. Learning about the social aspects of blogging was world-changing for me. That first year of blogging I learned the most important thing: Blogging isn't a monologue; it's a conversation. That first month I blogged other bloggers told me about Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon, the Cybils (Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards), and the Sunday Salon.

It was through these social venues that I began to love blogging. And one of my favorites has always been the Sunday Salon.

The Sunday Salon was started sometime before 2008 by Debra Hamel. She blogged at Typepad and used some sort of complex system called Yahoo Pipes to allow bloggers to share links with each other. It didn't take long for the Sunday Salon to explode. By 2010, the Sunday Salon had 500 participants and could no longer accept new members. Debra moved the Salon to Facebook in 2011 but the intimacy of the original Salon was hard to maintain in this new venue, and by 2019, only a few bloggers were posting links each week.

At the end of 2018, I began to compile information for a post on book blogging memes (see Book Blog Memes: An Exhaustive List for my results). I checked to see which memes were still active, and one of the memes I checked on was the Sunday Salon. Debra assured me she was still the administrator of the Facebook group, but she showed some interest in passing the baton. Would I like to press on with the Salon?

Yes, I would. I am retired now, for goodness' sake, and how better to spend my time than to take this lovely tool and see if I can revive it a bit?

But how to proceed?

I need some input. Could you share your thoughts with me? I am imbedding a short Google Form here and I'm also adding it on Facebook. Could you answer the questions? It's anonymous, though you can certainly reveal who you are in the comments section of the form, if you wish. Please let me know what you think.








10 comments:

  1. Comments submitted on the form. Thanks for taking over the reins, Deb! I'm looking forward to seeing how this group rolls on.

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  2. Form submitted! I’ll be curious to see what the group thinks.

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  3. I love this! Sunday Salon is one of my favorite memes and it's a great way for even bloggers who blog infrequently can participate and feel like part of the community.

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  4. You're a great choice to do this. Good luck!

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  5. I'm excited for you to take over Sunday Salon and can't wait to see what you decide to do with it!

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  6. I had no idea about your long history with computers. I guess I learn something every day. :) I've already responded to a few things on the Facebook page about the Salon, but I will add things later to the form. My mind is preoccupied with something going on at work, but we're having a staff meeting on Tuesday so after that, I'll return to comment. But know this: I'm glad that you're the new administrator and I wish you all the luck. Anything I can do to help, please let me know.

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  7. I love this event, and I also joined when it was a Typepad site. My Serendipity blog (then known as An Accidental Life) was where I first joined in.

    I loved your history of the site.

    My history with computers began in the year 2000, when my eldest son was visiting in the states from Prague. He gave me some tutorials, and continues to chime in on Skype.

    Thanks for sharing...and for visiting my blog.

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  8. I haven't posted a Sunday Salon in many years but maybe I will again soon. We got our first computer in 1995.

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  9. Thanks for taking over the helm of The Sunday Salon. Thanks also for joining in the discussion about AWARD books on my blog.

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  10. 4th Grade - one of the classrooms had a computer. If you were lucky (and got good grades and didn't get into trouble), you could go over and play Oregon Trail before class. That was my first computer experience.
    I've just re-started posting Sunday Salons this year. I feel like even if I don't have time to post during the week, it gives me a place to share.

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