What Is Happening Today On Gather - Thursday March 25, 2010

After being away from Gather for a day, I come back to find that it has been very busy.  I have missed out on a lot of action but I also found some great stuff to share with you.  Grab a sweater, a coke and put on your hiking shoes.  We are going to tour the community for a bit.

 

 

There will be a live chat with Author Angela Arno, Thursday Night @ 9 PM ET.  Click HERE to join the chat.  If you will not be able to attend the live chat, you can post your questions for Angela now in the comment area of the chat post.  Angela will answer your questions during the chat.  Hope to see you there.

 

 

I also found some wonderful posts.  Hope you have enough time to check them out. Be warned,  they will make you hungry and long for those walks outdoors while helping to fight breast cancer and read a book. Wow!  I hope you have time for all that stuff!

 

1.   A veritable feast.........

2.  Our latest homeschooling project

3.  Image Life Without Breast Cancer.

4.  Genre Shorties Week 28 -- Death Drop Inn

5.  Genre Shorties: Week 28- My Fake Review of Murderers Inn

6.  ~*Design a Flag*~ Art Theme Winners in the Drawing Challenge Group

7.  Saturday Writing Essential Western Scene: Zeb's Folly

8.  Ever want to Slow Down an Every Day Thing and Have a Better Look

9.  Attention Authors! Outer Banks Publishing Group is looking for manuscripts!

 

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The Perfect Gardening Project for the First Flush of Spring- Win A Free Gardening Book!

This is a wonderful post, filled with information on how to plant in those awkward areas of your property.  After you read the post make sure you enter the contest to win a copy of  gardening book "How To Grow Practically Everything".  It has 100's of gardening projects absolutely anyone can do. For your chance to win all you have to do is comment on the main post by Tuesday March 30th. Gather will draw one winner to receive a free copy of the book.

 

 

 

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Become a Mommy Matinee Movie Reviewer and Receive Free Tickets to See "How to Train Your Dragon"!

It’s Mommy Matinee time! Gather is giving away FREE Fandango tickets to the new movie premiere, How to Train Your Dragon for the purpose of writing a review. Kick off your weekend with DRAGONS! This Friday, March 26^th we are hosting a special screening for you & your little ones! Make sure to come back and share your thoughts!

Gather will randomly choose five (5) moms to receive tickets to see a matinee this Friday, March 26^th. If you’d like to participate, comment on the main post listed above  by Thursday, March 25^th to be eligible.

 

 

 

 

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We have been having some great chats with authors.  Many of these authors have shared tips for beginning writers as well as published authors.  Click on the following post to see the latest dates for chats and/or the links of transcripts of previous live chats.

Live Chat With Author - Live Chat Series - Calendar of Events

 

 

 

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James Hynes Book & CD Giveaway

Gather is giving away 10 copies of the critically acclaimed novel, Next, written by James Hynes. But wait, there’s more-you could also win 2 CD's featured in the novel - Sticky Fingers by the Rolling Stones, and Asleep at the Wheel’s Greatest Hits give a great musical flavor to the story.

For your chance to win, all you have to do is answer a few quick questions.  Gather will also draw 10 respondents who comment to receive the book. Comments must be posted by Monday, March 29^th,

 2010.

 

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NEW Daily Points Promotion: Comment to Win 25 Gather Pointsâ„¢ or More!

Gather has launched the Best Kept Secrets travel program in travel.gather.com sponsored by HomeAway and we need your help! Share your tips for beach vacations and you could win Gather Pointsâ„¢!

Each day gather give away 25 Gather Points™ to a commenter on each article – that’s 100 Gather Points™ a day! You can win more than once so if you have more tips to share then comment on all of them. This promotion will run until Wednesday, March 31st so comment by then to be eligible.

Note: You must comment on the article links below to be entered.

Best Kept Secrets of Beach Getaways:

Best Kept Secrets of Beach Getaways (Let the Ocean Work Its Secret on You)

Best Kept Secrets of Myrtle Beach, SC : Something For Everyone!

Best Kept Secrets of Maui, HI--A Tropical Paradise

Best Kept Secrets of Cape Cod, MA: Our Family Shares a Few

 

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What are your best tips for a beach vacation? Tell us and you could win Gather Pointsâ„¢!

Each week, we’ll have a new travel discussion where we want to hear your best stories, tips and secrets. Please leave your comments in the comments field of each discussion article. If you comment, you could be one of 10 members to receive 20 Gather Points™ just for doing so!

This week’s topic is: What are your best tips for a beach vacation?

Please comment on the above post no later than Thursday, March 25th. Gather will then take the top 10 suggestions and create a guide that will live in the Travel Essential.

 

 

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Genre Creative Challenge ~ Photo Challenge for March 2010

"Standing out from the crowd" will be your photo challenge for the month of March.

1. As always, no more than three photos can be entered in the Month.

2. And make sure you have GCC in the title (or NGCC if you have no interest in being a judge for April 2010). Posts without those letters in the title are not eligible.

3. Deadline is March 31, 2010

 

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Join the Home & Garden Channel for Your Chance to Win Gather Pointsâ„¢!

 

Join the Home & Garden Channel  Group

Comment on the  above post AFTER  you join it – simply say “I’m a member!”

• Gather will give the first 1,000 members to join 20 Gather Pointsâ„¢ each just for joining
• You must be a member by March 29^th to be eligible.

 

 

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 CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE WINNERS!!

 

 

 

 

 

Winners of 25 points for commenting on the following posts for March 24th are:

 Best Kept Secrets of Cape Cod, MA: Our Family Shares a Few - Winner is: Gloria Loftus

 Best Kept Secrets of Maui, HI--A Tropical Paradise - winner is: Shing Wedzi

 Best Kept Secrets of Myrtle Beach, SC : Something For Everyone! - winner is: Connie C

Best Kept Secrets of Beach Getaways (Let the Ocean Work Its Secret on You) - winner is : Jayrene ~!

 

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Winners of the Cornelia Read Book Giveaway!

Diana P

Jenn P

Ann W

T W

Diane H

Elizabeth V

Renda B~surviving the storm by dancing in the rain.

Marsha S

Dinghy Sharma

Marjorie Roy

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In the spirit of friendly competition Gather has decided to award BOTH teams (Peas & Corn) with 25 Gather Points per member. So the members on Team Peas will also be receiving 25 Gather Points each! Congrats to everyone to a very fun challenge!

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WELCOME TO THE GATHER COMMUNITY

 

 

 

 

Do You want To Make More Points On Gather

 One of the questions members frequently ask the Support team is for tips on how to get more views to their content so they can earn more points. An easy way to do this is by checking to see what is being searched for on the major search engines and to pick a topic that interests you from the list of top searched trends to write about.

The Google trends list is updated very regularly throughout the day.  MaryAnne be publishing this list daily to the Earn More Points and SEO groups. Feel free to check out these posts for ideas. If you write about one of the items on the hot trends list, and use the keywords that are being searched on, your content will be one of the items returned in the search engines and you’ll draw more viewers to your content.

 

 

Tom Gerace, CEO and Founder of Gather has submitted some great posts to help you with your Gather experience:

 Amplifying Your Voice (or, If a tree falls in the forest, and only 1.3 million people hear it…)

Step 1: Find Something that You Love to Do

Step 2: Evaluate the Appeal of Your Topic

Step 3: Consider the Competition (and Learn from Them)

Step 4: Creating a Consistent Experience

Step 5: Using Gather Groups: Create, Curate or Both?

Step 6: Check the box, expand your reach