Greetings and salutations, Carylers! I hope this post finds you all happy and well in your corners of the world. We have a lot of things to cover that the admin team is very excited about, so I’m going to get right to it!

First, I am back in full active admin status. Yes, I’m still in grad school. I just found a way to  make my schedule work better than last semester, but more importantly - I really missed all of you! Nine Lives has been my home for almost three years and let me tell you: the withdrawals are real. I have to give a serious shout of love and adoration for my girls Ikkleosu and subversivegrrl for running things in my absence. They took on the entirety of the site while I focused on readjusting the balance of my life to now include school, and I think they have done a terrific job. Despite my lack of daily activity, I was very much involved behind the scenes and kept in the loop this summer and trust me when I tell you that nobody cares about you, and this archive, like these ladies do. Please, if you find a moment, show these wonderful admins of ours some love.

Let’s talk about the archive for a bit. I’ve done this before and I tend to wax sentimental when I do, so I’ll try to keep it lowkey. You all know how the archive came to be. (If you don’t, go here). The archive has come to mean something different to each of us who calls this place our fandom home. For us behind the scenes, Nine Lives can be a job, but it’s one we take on gladly. It’s the shared belief in Caryl that drives us, and our commitment to keeping a corner of the fandom enjoyable and without interference from those who just want to cause friction. It’s never a perfect endeavor, running Nine Lives, and we’ve had some stumbles and mistakes along the way as well as moments of great triumph. What I feel we have most accomplished is a sense of home for us all and that’s what holds strong. We hope to increase the community aspects of Nine Lives in the coming months, and that’s where you come in.

Now and again, the topic of fundraising for Nine Lives comes up. Previously, the site was funded by Ravenesque and Elysian Fields. Since we broke off on our own, I’ve paid for the site fees - hosting, the domain, maintenance, upgrades, security, etc. While I am happy and more than willing to continue to fund the site, we’ve had so many offers from people willing to donate that we’ve decided to go for it. We’re hosting a fundraiser! The details of our fundraiser events will be forthcoming at a later time, but we do have a question we wanted to put to all of you. We’re asking because we’ve done a lot of challenges lately, and we have events scheduled through the end of the year to keep things interesting around here. However, our schedule is flexible, so what our question for all of you is: WHEN would you like to have our fundraiser party? These are the dates we had in mind:

• Early October (around the season 7 premiere)
• November (before folks gear up for the holidays)
• January (for Nine Lives’ 3rd anniversary)

Cast your vote in the comments below! You can pick from the options above or give us your own idea for a time frame. I’ll say one more thing before I change topics - please don’t think that we’re raising any money for personal gain. 100% of any money raised will go towards the maintenance and future expansion of Nine Lives. We’re going to go into more details about our plans and how this will work with our actual fundraiser announcement. For now, let’s pick a play date! ;)

Now, I’ve been an absentee admin this summer, and while Ikkles and Subs kept me up to date, I really would like to hear from all of you. I want to know how your summers have gone, how you’re enjoying the site and our summer challenge series, any ideas you might have for us in the future. We have a lot of things in the works but Nine Lives is for all of us, and I want to make sure that the voices of our members are heard. It’s your archive as much as it is ours, so take a chance and please drop me a PM with your feedback and your thoughts.

That’s all for now, kiddos. Stay tuned for more fun, get those submissions ready for our ‘Missing Moments’ challenge this weekend, and as always: Caryl on!