Part Three: A Brave New World

[ken barber]

 

A Brave New World

The end of 2018 is approaching and The Castle is still going strong with some bold and innovative ideas coming soon. Our numbers look outstanding for 2018 with an expected  130,000 individual visitors and over 3 million total views. The website currently averages close to 2000 visitors per day.

The Admin team has decided to make some changes in our structure and organization, The long serving forums Chief Moderator Zach Caldwell stepped down to help facilitate that change. The PR team is being relabeled the Community Outreach team and while it will continue its role handling announcements and special events it will now take on reaching out to new authors and inviting them to join the family. It will also oversee collaboration between other sites. The first of which is the Critic’s Corner reviews are now available on the site iomfats.org We hope to open dialogue between many sites in conjunction with our mission to expose the stories to as many readers as possible. The Community Outreach team is seeking volunteers to assist in all capacities including looking for “Critics” to help write reviews in the Critic’s Corner program. If you are interested please email castlerolandpr@gmail.com. There has also been some discussion on fundraisers and the Community Outreach team will continue to explore those ideas.

Financially the Castle has its ups and downs but we manage month to month.  The Website campaign helped fund the new site with enough funding remaining to maintain the site for almost a year. Donations since the campaign have been unexpectedly slower and we currently have enough funds to cover expenses for about four more months. That is the lowest we have been in a long time. The Admin team has began setting aside personal funds to help bolster the treasury if it comes to that but in the meantime we will continue to ask all of you to consider helping out.

Some of the programs we have been discussing about launching or relaunching include live audio author workshops. One with a professional published LGBTQ Romance Novelist. The Novelist is a personal friend of Community Outreach Director Ken Barber and is excited to give you, her tips and tricks and answer questions. We have discussed the possibility of live author chats again where the readers can interact with authors and ask questions.  We will continue our ever popular Annual Halloween Contest now in its 5th year but with some major changes.

Over all, the Castle foundations are strong and steady and we will continue to stick to our mission. The Castle Admin team is always open to suggestions and ideas and we will continue to seek them out through direct communication, polls and surveys. Today the Castle looks towards the future in hopes of reaching out to more and more people across the world and sharing with them creativity, imagination, hope, and a sense of community.

“What a Journey we have been through, but thankfully we have all been faithfully keeping our goals. The lights of the Castle will always burn bright because of all the dedication and passion.” - David Roland

 

The Castle Senior Volunteers:

David Roland, President and CEO

Al Norris, Webmaster and COO

Ken Barber, Senior Vice President, Director of Community Outreach

Kyle Aarons,Vice President,  Author Relations Manager

D’Artagnon,Vice President,  The Castle Forums Manager

Dennis Payne, E-Newsletter Coordinator

William King, Critics Corner Coordinator

Ranger, Castle Historian

Jon Dom, Castle Historian

Mary McNeil, Universe Administrator, Archivist (Retired)

Rilbur, Webmaster (Retired)

Zach Caldwell, Forums Chief Modorator (Retired)

[Chowhnd]

Ken,

Great overview of Castle Roland.  I travel so much that I just found the Three Part Series.  Thank for taking all the time you do to make Castle Roland a great story site.

ChowHound