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My name is really Kathy Kramer, from Pa. I tend to think a whole lot, so I call myself Thinker. My dear friend, Mindy moved away from here, she now lives an hour and a half away. It suddenly became a long distance phone call. After about 6 months she convinced me to try the internet. This was in May of 95.
I know a fair amount about computers but this internet stuff was all new to me. I made all the newbie mistakes! (Such as you don't send chain letters through e-mail!) Believe me I made lots of mistakes. Funny though, I over did it and by June I was bored with the internet. Then I stumbled accross Geopages Homestead program where you can sign up for free home pages. Well, suddenly I had to have my own homepage. I didn't know anything but I learned, as usual everything the hard way.
I had fun with my home page. Then in July I put on my home page that I weighed 250 pounds and wanted diet buddies. People to help me lose weight. Folks to share the joys and sorrows of weight loss, I didn't want to be alone. I put up that I was going to start Aug. 1. I also posted on a newsgroup about what I was going to do starting Aug. 1, a brand new life. (IT SURE WAS!)
Well about 6 people responded to me. One asked "WHY are you waiting? Why not start now." My lame answer was that I was mentally preparing myself first. After some thought I decided they were right. I began dieting in the middle of July. As a way to correspond with all I started writing "The Ramblings of Thinker". My way of sharing who I am, what I'm doing, and using them to try and encourage us all.
I was very
happy. I had new friends to diet with me. One of them came up with the
name and a motto we sometimes use. The Net Loss Club, we profit by our
losses. Another, Myron got excited about what we were doing. He
advertised diligently in the Newsgroups about us. BY AUG. 4 we had over
40 members. (I know that date only because it was when I went to see
Richard Simmons in Lancaster, another story there.) We also started
doing a newsletter for our members. Nancy edits many of them, but we try
to share th
e burden of the work.
Word of our group spread and folks kept wanting to join. Some members felt we were getting too big. Myself, I was stunned! I never planned on doing anything like this! I just wanted a few diet buddies. BUT I saw a huge need to allow anyone to join because we couldn't let anyone all alone that wanted to join us. Back then I handled all the names of who was in or who had quit. It was a huge task. I used to send members names around so folks could contact everyone or else they'd forward it to me, then I'd mail to the whole group. It really was agonizing back then.
In Oct. I found a server to
put a listserv up for us but it was expensive. Something I myself can't
afford the cost of it. I began taking donations from members to help
cover the fees involved with it. In Nov. I had enough money for set-up
and the first two months fees. It was ready for use in the Middle of
Nov. Once it was running I advertised more, we went from 122 members to
almost 170 in 2 weeks time. We're still growing daily.BY Jan 96
we had over 200 members
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