Massive Update + Volunteers

It's been a few days since we had a massive change of management.  I'm getting into the swing of things and I'm really happy with the level of excitement from our members.  Thanks so much to all of you, you're all awesome.  Excuse the massively long journal, there is a lot going on and I want to keep everyone informed.

Submissions

One big change that's already been made is the switch from gallery uploads to collections for member submissions.  This is a huge time saver that will be a massive help in staying on top of club submissions.  We'll be stepping up journal and NEWS features of truly awesome Ultra Fractal art to make up for any loss of visibility.  I would like to encourage all of you to check our collections and favourites regularly to see artwork that has been submitted by your fellow members.  There is already some fantastic  work in there.  I haven't updated the submission guidelines yet so for now if you have work to submit, send a note to the club and we'll add it.  To make my job easier, especially while it's just me doing it , please include a thumbnail of the deviation you would like me to add.  You can find the thumb number beside the artist comments on your deviations, it looks like this (without spaces): : thumb12345678 :  Just copy the code and paste it in your note.  Keep those submissions coming!

Resources

I've also started a collection of Ultra Fractal Resources, because the lack of visibility of good UF resources on dA has been bothering me for a long time.  They are hard to find, buried in the resources gallery under thousands of Apophysis resources.  UF is a difficult program to master and a lot of new users rely on resources to help them get started.  The collection is there to help you find what you need.  We'll be pimping resources all over the place so please send me a note if you have anything to add.  We are also going to continue to submit resources to the club gallery.

Member List

A few people have asked me about this.  Our member list is out of date and needs to be updated.  This is on my To-Do list, along with updated guidelines for people who want to join the club.  Don't panic if you're not on the list right now, it will be corrected asap.  

Volunteers

I know a lot of you have been waiting for this.  I am of course looking for a few volunteers to help me get the club going.

Chat Moderation:
I am looking for a few people to kelp things running smoothly in :#UltraFractal:.  Basically I just need a couple of mods to keep an eye on things and make sure there's not too much drama.  Chat guidelines will be posted later today.  Please consider carefully before you apply for this.  I want to keep the chat atmosphere very laid back, but I know someone has to step in and prevent chaos occasionally.  I'm looking for cool-headed people who will only use their mod powers as a last resort.  I take moderative action very seriously and won't tolerate any abuse of it.  

Forum Helpers:
I need a few people to keep an eye on the club forum ultra-fractal.deviantart.com/j… , and also to poke me and remind me that it's there every once in a while.   I want to make the forum more visible as a place for members to go and find help and information, or just get connected with other members.  I'll be putting a link to the forum in every journal and I think having a few assigned helpers is a good idea to make sure that posts are answered quickly.  I would also like forum mods to start topics they think would interest other members.  If you have a bit of spare time and don't mind taking a look at the forum and posting on a regular basis, please let me know.   

Member Submissions and Club Features:
I am also looking for one or two people to help me keep on top of member submissions, and to help select art that will be featured in the club journal and news articles.  Depending on the number of submissions we get, this could be take a considerable investment of time.  As I said above, we have switched to collections based club submissions.  This makes submissions much faster and easier to deal with, but also means that art features are much more important pimp our members' art.  I will be choosing very carefully for these positions because they will have access to the club account.

Contests and Special Events
I'm looking for help with contests and special events.  I don't have a lot of detail for this, so please just let me know if you're interested in this.

Other contributions:
There are a lot of ways you can help the club without being a member of staff.  

Resources:  I absolutely love resources and will be pimping them all over the place!  If you have parameters, tutorials or anything else you think could help our members, please note Ultra-Fractal.  I am going to continue submitting resources to our club gallery because I think they can get more visibility there.  

Live Tutorial/ParamPong Sessions and Chat Events:  If you have an idea for a tutorial session or would like to host a chat event, please let me know!  I want to have a lot of regular chat events for members of all skill levels.

News Articles/Interviews/etc.: If you have an idea for an article that you think would interest the UF and fractal community in general, let me know!  

Member submissions: Keep them coming!  They're good for you (we pimp your art) and they're good for the club because the more awesome UF art we can get out there, the better.  

Please send me a note if you would like to volunteer for anything I've listed here, or if you have any ideas for other ways to help the club out!  

That's all for now.  Long journal is already way too long.   If you haven't already, hover your mouse over the super sexy thumbs at the top of the journal to see even more sexy thumbs from our members.  Many thanks to Mythos721 for this super sexy CSS trick.  I am overwhelmed by sexiness.

trystianity
You can find me in :#UltraFractal: - stop by and say hello.  Everyone is welcome.