So, guys, we have some stuff coming up – big stuff – and I’m here to ask all you readers and writers to pitch in and make this stuff totally awesome.
To help make EdenCafe totally awesome thru the next few months.
We love having some of you write for us, we love doing contests, we love when you comment on our writers posts but we want more! We want more involvement, we want to really come together as a community who loves, works, shares, plays and gives together.
World AIDS Day
First of all, we have World Aids Day coming up again on December 1st. Last year, SexIs ran a WAD project with articles from some of their best writers all week long. EdenCafe joined in and we got some amazing, truly amazing, sentiments, stories and thoughts from you all. Want to check them out?
We’d like to do the same thing this year and are counting on you to fill up our pages with your thoughts about AIDS, HIV, how it’s affected you, how it hasn’t, your personal stories and your rants and raves about what HIV has done to the world, your thoughts about sex ed and HIV, swinging and HIV, polyamory and BDSM and HIV…
It doesn’t matter what you write or what angle you write it from. AIDS has effected us all in some way and sharing our stories and our thoughts is an important part of actively campaigning for AIDS awareness.
If you don’t want to write a post for us – or if you do but also want to do more – SexIs and EdenFantasys are doing a video collage of video clips and photos from the community, from writers, bloggers, staff, and anyone who would like to contribute.
[box]The World Health Organization established World AIDS Day in 1988. World AIDS Campaign is the leading international organization which plans and implements the observance. 
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Victoria put up a post on the forums last night about how, exactly, you can become involved in this. You don’t need to show your face or even know how to make a video, a simple picture will work. Please check it out.
Holidays
We also have some holidays coming up – Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. For some reason, these three holidays always seem to affect all of us deeply on some level.
Over at EdenFantasys, we adopted two families for Thanksgiving thru the Eden Community Gives Back Program. Not only is EdenFantasys putting up money to help these needy families but the community itself rallied together and donated points and gift cards, which EF converted to cash, to raise a total of over $500 to provide food and other necessities where they are truly needed.
We’re doing the same for Christmas, only this time it will be for five families. Please visit the forum and participate if you can!
[box]“This is my wish for you: peace of mind, prosperity through the year, happiness that multiplies, health for you and yours, fun around every corner, energy to chase your dreams, joy to fill your holidays!”
–D.M. Dellinger
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Beyond that, I’ve been thinking about how all these holidays make me feel.
Thanksgiving, of course, turns me soft and sentimental, reminds me of all the things I have to be thankful for.
Christmas is, for me, truly a time of joy and giving, of feeling close to those I love, of time spent surrounded by family and friends, good food and drink, of celebration and childlike wonder.
The New Year sees me turn a bit inward, a bit reflective. I find myself looking at the past year, at myself, at what I would like to have done differently and what I would like to change in the coming year. I don’t make resolutions but it is definitely a time of change, of growth.
I would very much like it if some of our writers – and those of you who haven’t written for us yet but would like to do so! It’s so easy and we pay in gift cards. Yes! You earn something for writing for us! – would submit posts about the holidays.
I’d love to do some theme weeks. Here are some ideas I’ve had for topics to write about:
- What are you thankful for?
- What does giving mean to you?
- How do you and your family spend the holidays? Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, share with us what you do and how you make it special.
- Is Christmas too commercial?
- Do you celebrate something other than Christmas? What? And why?
- Do you make New Years resolutions? What do you plan to change about yourself and your life in the New Year?
Life. Sex. Love. Friendship. Community.
Moving past the Holidays, I have some other themes in mind I’d love to see you guys write about.
Not that themes are required but I love when we have weeks full of differing thoughts and views on the same topic. It makes me feel close to you all, it makes EdenCafe feel homey and close, it makes me feel surrounded by friends who are all telling their story.
I’d love to run full weeks focused on some, any or all of these topics:
- What do you think of romantic getaways? Do you ever feel like you need one? What would you do if you could take one? Do they help? Do they live up to your expectations?
- Love. What does love mean to you?
[box]Present your family and friends with their eulogies now – they won’t be able to hear how much you love them and appreciate them from inside the coffin. ~Anonymous
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So, there you have it. Topics we can almost all relate to. Activism. Giving back.
Write something. Participate in Word Aids Day Week. Give back to those in need by joining in the Eden Community Gives Back project.
Let’s make the end of this year something truly spectacular. Let’s join together as a community and write, share, give, love.
Kayla
Oooh. You can expect tons of articles from me coming up then. Lots of great ideas here.
Tori
I’ll definitely be submitting some articles!
Isabel
Thanks for the great ideas. I’ll start working on some stuff.
P'Gell
Sound great, Carrie Ann. I’d love to write more for EdenCafe. Sex Positivity, as well as Kink and Love are near and dear to my heart. Romantic getaways. Hmmm. That linked with Kink and Love, and Sex Positive thinking and action. There IS a story.
I’ve been fortunate, unlike many others HIV has barely touched my life. One or two people I knew at a distance. How did my friends and I get so lucky? (Heaving knows back in the day, condoms were thought to be a thing of the past, with the Pill and other less “intrusive” forms of BC. We were lucky.) I have GLBT friends, everybody seems to have survived the 80s (when we were first completely unaware and then misinformed and then finally aware) and beyond. Maybe there’s a story in there.
I’ll get writing.
Thanks for something to think about. I do better with a template or an idea.
P'Gell
Um, the “save a tree, eat a beaver” wasn’t mine, y’all. It was Lauren’s. To give credit to where it is due. I have NO idea how it got linked to my post.
CLP
Very exciting food for thought, and I’m eager to write to many of these themes. I agree with you, Carrie Ann–theme weeks help to unite the community and I know I enjoy reading different views from those in our community. I am going to get involved–just let us know when the due dates are!
Airen
Thanks so much for the article ideas! I love them…keep them coming!
Charles
as snemooe who works in the stock photography industry, I’d just like to state to “julius” that her mother did not sell this image to this group. Do a littler more research if you’re really curious how stock photography works, but when the picture was taken they usually don’t know how it will be used. She agreed to have her daughters picture taken and sold, but often times there are limits on how it can be used. Those limits include using the image in a negative and/or controversial manner, so she certainly has some right to demand to stop publication of it.