There have been few announcements around Mere-O that I have been more excited about than this one. In fact, I can’t think of one. Based on your feedback, we decided we needed to shake things up a little around here at Mere-O. Here are the changes.
The bad news: two of our writers have “gone into retirement.” This has actually been the case for a while, but I didn’t want to clutter up Mere-O with too many business announcements. Andrew Selby and Elliot Ravenwood, names with which long-time readers will be familiar, have become “free-agents.” We hope to see a series or two from each of them from time to time, but their real-life obligations have become so busy that they aren’t able to contribute to Mere-O consistently anymore.
The good news: Meet Nick Dalbey. He’s Mere-O’s first official “Starving Intern.” Nick has agreed to come on board for a trial period (trial for him, that is–we already know he’s a stud!) that will last the rest of this calendar year and may stretch into next year. His responsibilities will be (at first) entirely on the back-end–sifting through the news to find interesting and relevant content for us to blog about. If he likes it around here, my hope is to transition him into a managerial and editorial role for us, as well as an occasional contributor.
I have known Nick for three years now, and he is a brilliant man of noble character. To be frank, I suckered him into this position to have an excuse to stay in touch with him. He has also (remarkably!) agreed to do this on a voluntary basis. To learn a little more about him, you can read his bio.
What does this mean to your experience of Mere-O? Well, it’s an experiment for us, so we’re not sure how it’s going to go. If it goes as planned, it will free us–Tex, Keith and myself–to write more consistent and relevant content while maintaining a semblance of normal lives (which our wives ands friends would appreciate). It will also (hopefully!) add a fourth occasional voice to our crew here. Otherwise, you probably won’t notice anything different.
You do have, however, the opportunity to help out an starving college student.
As I mentioned, Nick has agreed to do this on a volunteer basis. In order to compensate him for his work, you can contribute to him by clicking on the “Donate” button at the top of the sidebar. All funds donated will be given to Nick Dalbey and put toward his college expenses. They aren’t tax deductible (yet), but you will win crowns in heaven. Also, we have monetized most of our Amazon links–if you click on them, a percentage of anything you buy–not just the linked product–will go to Nick’s fund (the entire percentage–we’re not splitting it up). If you have ever wanted to support the cause of Christian education in a personal and direct way, but haven’t known how, this is a good opportunity.
We have never monetized Mere O, and though we might someday, we won’t yet. We’re slowly gaining readers, which is exciting. My hope for the site is that in 5 years, our readers would donate enough to support three or four bright-eyed college students like Nick so that they can do interesting, relevant work rather than working in the cafeteria (though, I confess, that’s not so bad of a job–after all, I was a telemarketer during college!). As we slowly figure out how to do this well, I hope we can take steps toward making that vision a reality.
Until then, thanks as always for reading and commenting. you haven’t yet come out of the shadows and commented, we hope that you will make yourself known soon so that we can thank you personally and properly.
