Well, it was supposed to be a behind the scenes adjustment to our GLRF membership database but as you all saw, it went out to everyone, and some are probably either mildly irritated or puzzled. For the latter, we thank you for your indulgence and consideration and for the former, we're SORRY!!!! :(

An explanation is in order. In the past two years, we automated the sign up process with GLRF so that members could join without the GLRF team having to manually update each and every record. When we imported all of the previous memberships from our antiquated database, some 780 in all, in May 2009, we made the strategic decision to set the Shoreside membership level to expire after one year. It was our hope that this setting, along with automated emails for renewal, would encourage everyone to update their email addresses, and to ensure everyone was still interested in participating in the GLRF community. We also wanted to ensure that personal messages sent by active members would be sent to folks who would be "responsive."

When the renewal date arrived in May 2010, many of the Shoreside memberships were not renewed and our efforts to encourage folks to renew were only so successful. After looking around at the social community landscape on the internet, we decided our "strategic decision" was out of step with most online communities and therefore we adjusted everyone's Shoreside membership to a lifetime status.

Again, our profuse apologies for the confusion.

The GLRF Team