By Steve Mallory

We have had a fairly active January. The message board skin has not yet been converted to our organization colors but I did have time to add a few important features. The spellchecker is back. You can post to the board or blog with confidence. Instead of the familiar button at the bottom of the post it is now the familiar spell check icon that you see on every word processing and other software.

There are actually several new features with the upgrade. The upgrade featured mostly bug fixes and security additions but something new is the Display Name feature. For example, my username remains as smallory. I must login with this name but my Display Name is Steve Mallory. You see that name on my posts. You no longer will see my username. This is actually added security. Nobody automatically knows the first part of your login and just has to guess your password. The Display Name will make it virtually impossible to know what your username is, thus making your login information safe and sound. You will have to go to the Contact web page and ask Cheryl, our Members Administrator to update your record, though. Unfortunately, you cannot change these yourselves.

Another change that you might be happy about is that I have added a link to the Members Area. I do not plan to litter the top of the Message Board with links to the Chat Schedule or Stroke E-mail, etc, like our older Message Boards. Everything is linked to the Members Area web page. It is all there so please get used to using this area for the things that you need access to.

One subject that I know many of you will be excited to hear about is the progress we made with the Bracelet Program. The Bracelets have been ordered! The bracelets are officially ordered and will be available to order on-line near the end of February. I expect that lots of members will want one and some of you might want more. The most we can give out, free, is 20. Additional ones could cost a small fee but the main news that I want to tell you about is that the bracelets are ordered and will be available within weeks! A link to the on-line store will be added to the Members Area page and I will send out a mass e-mail to all members.

Sadly, the printable version of our newsletter is being discontinued. We are not aware of anyone not reading anything but either the e-mailed or on-line version of the newsletter. Please let Lin know if you have a need for the printable version and possibly she continue making it for you.

Last month, our organization had entered a partnership with another organization that basically promotes Health oriented conferences. I was asked to let our members know about the conference that is coming up. The details are provided below.

The partnership that is being proposed will offer promotion of our organization in exchange for exposure of the conference to our members. This is an excellent opportunity to promote a cause, push an agenda or increase membership to an audience comprised of senior-level hospital and medical professionals. My objective by joining this partnership is to expose our members to the events so you are aware of some of the interests with the disability of stroke.

Getting prepared in achieving JCAHO Stroke certification through live case studies and networking with executives who are looking to achieve clinical excellence. In this intimate environment we will be focusing on how to integrate the latest in revolutionary care, technology, and treatment options for stroke.

When:                   March 23-24, 2006

Where:                  Washington D.C.

The distinguished speaking faculty includes Dr. Mark Alberts from Northwestern Memorial Hospital; Dr Howard Kirshner from the Vanderbilt Stroke Center, DR. Rafael H. Llinas of Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, plus many others. The conference schedule is online at www.acius.net.

The Caregiver Survey that I told you about in January is now available on the Internet. If you are a stroke caregiver your participation would be greatly appreciated. The survey is part of the course work needed by a graduate student.

http://www.sxu.edu/cgi-bin/rws3.pl?FORM=cargiver_survey

I told you about a web site, last month, for Stem Cell Therapy International, Inc. at www.scticorp.com. Lots of stroke survivors are searching for that magic bullet that will make them fully recovered. From what I have read, Stem Cell Therapy is probably closest to that solution and might well be your time looking further into it.

 They were kind enough to send me more information this month that I would like to pass on to you. Below you will find an excerpt of the newsletter from the UK called "Different Strokes" in which their patient Ian McBride was featured. I hop you find Ian's case interesting.