Concerning Reflections
Welcome to Reflections. Watch future posts for snippets of the history of Reading for the Future. Stay up to date with current activities. Get details on our projects. Meet our volunteers. Examine our goals and philosophy. You can also share our links, book lists, author interviews, book reviews, K-12 lessons, and more.
Concerning Reading for the Future
This post is just a brief overview. Watch for details in future accounts of RFF Historical Musings and other blog posts.
RFF Historical Musings
The first email in the rff Yahoo Group welcomed members with this statement:
"Readers of the Future is an internnational advacacy geared toward secondarary school students and reading science fiction."
(OK, so volunteers do their e-groups messages in the middle of the night after long days on their real jobs. Don't let the misspellings fool you. There are active, accomplished people in this group. Quotations of messages will include errors since most whip off an email in a few minutes between other tasks, amid constant interruptions and with minds preoccupied with plans for numerous activities and projects. Also, they type fast and click send—sometimes before they remember to proof!)
Since then, librarians, professors, teachers, home school parents, authors, artists, and speculative fiction fans have joined together to advance the mission of Reading for the Future, which quickly expanded to cover fostering reading within the age groups K-12 and the early college years.
Within the e-group, email dialogs coordinated efforts of the members in such activities as these.
- creating book lists
- sharing links
- creating and presenting teacher workshops
- forming and sponsoring panels at science fiction conventions
- creating and sharing lesson plans for using science fiction in college and k-12 classrooms
- donating science fiction and speculative fiction books suitable for grades K-12 to schools and libraries
- collaborating with other like-minded organizations in various projects
Amidst the collaborating, these passionate science fiction and speculative fiction fans have shared their personal opinions and insights into science, science fiction, reading, and teaching.
For years, all this was done in a voluntary collaboration within a half dozen or so Yahoo Groups opened to unite people regionally and to work on specific projects. United by shared postings amongst all the e-groups by David Glenn Anderson and the membership of a core group of highly active members, the e-groups formed a community of volunteers loosely organized by a common mission and mutual encouragement.
Dave kept the groups on track with his ownership and moderation of all the e-groups; his sharing of messages among all the e-groups; his newsletter "Bits and Pieces" that he used to summarize and bring closure to a bit of the ensuing chaos of so many simultaneous group threads; and his acceptance and encouragement of a constant flow of ideas and projects, stepping in now and then with an invitation to brainstorm for new projects.
Today, the group has coalesced into a strongly active volunteer collaboration with a stated mission and an organically developed group organization. Recently, the members have decided to make the organization official. Now, the members are part of Reading for the Future, Inc. As of this year, the group is a non-profit corporation registered in Utah, the home of David Anderson and a few of the other highly active, core members.
Furthermore, we Members are all united by the ideas of certain documents that we look to for definition, guidance, and goals in all projects and collaborations:
- The Letter from the Killer Bees
- The Reading for the Future Mission Statement
- The Reading for the Future, Incorporation, Bylaws
We refer to ourselves as RFF or RFF, Inc. We have adopted working group nomers over time, so watch for those labels, too. Now that we are officially a non-profit organization, we might have to adopt a stable label for use in referring to ourselves and our volunteer activities, but we are a fairly free-wheeling group. Sit back and watch to see what ensues.
Learn More about RFF
Find out more about Reading for the future from these online sites:
Website:..............Reading for the Future
Blog:...................Reading for the Future Reflections
Facebook:..........Reading for the Future on Facebook
Yahoo Group:.....rff Yahoo Group
Observers welcome--Feel free to lurk in the background until you get inspired to go active.
Note from Valerie: Today, 10/12/10, I added links to the ideas that unite us. The Mission Statement and Letter from the Killer Bees (I also corrected the originally incorrect spelling from B's to Bees) are now posted on permanent pages.
Furthermore, the original Letter from the Killer Bees is posted online at
http://www.seattle2025.com/Proposal.htmSince Reading for the Future used the letter in its incorporation papers, I felt it would be an important addition to the RFF blog.
Finally, the link to the bylaws is an email address. Request a copy and I will forward your request to the RFF Board who handle your request.
Finally, the link to the bylaws is an email address. Request a copy and I will forward your request to the RFF Board who handle your request.
Great to see the RFF renewed and marching on.
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