It’s been five years since I bought the domain for the forum and set it up. In that time, I cannot express what this ministry has meant for me and to me. About six months before, I had several conversations with various women about how that it seemed like it was twice as hard to be a ‘geek’ Christian woman. We not only suffer stigma from the geek community for being female (definitely not from all guys, but it’s not uncommon, either), but we also very often get attacked within the church for not being what the church thinks is a proper Christian woman.  So we formed the Sword Angels group on Myspace, which was mostly just a loose affiliation of Christian women who were interested in a variety of geek, goth, and fandom activities. Half a year later, I bought the domain and started TechnoChicks.

We have faced some hardships in that time, from gossip, to stalkers, to one very unfortunately pink forum (*cough*), but Mirawyn and I were determined to keep going through it all. Mostly, I finally found a place where I could be all of who I am, and not compartmentalize as I end up doing everywhere else. I hope that is true for everyone else as well, whether female or not. We’ve talked about everything from plushy microbes to having faith amidst hardship, and I know at least my faith is much better for it.

I do have several people to thank. First, Maid Mirawyn has been my best friend and partner in crime on the forums and in real life for 5 years, and I can’t express how much I appreciate everything she does. She is a neverending fountain of ideas, and approaches topics with both logic and compassion, and from a wholly solid Christian faith perspective. I also want to thank BatteredBarbie for her tenacious enthusiasm, unfailing humor, and for trying to help us to appreciate the spectrum of color that exists in the world.  

There are a few people who have been regularly active members since the first year, and I’d like to acknowledge them with a 5-year award on their profiles. These are Maid Mirawyn, BatteredBarbie, Kashin, Fireangel, Nigheve, and amusingly (but not really surprisingly), belkar. Also, anyone who visits in the next month will receive an anniversary award.

I’d also like to announce a few changes and contests in honor of our anniversary. First, we have a new set of smileys that work now! Click “More” under the black smileys when you post for additional smileys. I also did some background work updating the site and also added new BBCodes such as a wiki, countdown, and define. I’ve also added the Footnotes mod, where you use Use [nb ] [ /nb] tags (no spaces) to create a footnote with whatever is typed inside. Highlight the information you wish to footnote and click the Nb button, or simply use the tags. We also have a dice roller. To use the dice roller click on the Dice Roll button above the post, and inside the tags you put 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, or 1d20. So the code looks something like this (without the spaces) [ roll]1d8[/roll ]. Last, I’ve added a cloud tagging system. Up in the top menu is an item “Tag”, which is our site tagging system and cloud. The tagging system lets us tag topics for different things.

We also have some contests. Any member is encouraged to nominate a new forum that will be added to TechnoChicks. The forum will be named after them, and a theme will be in a color combination of their choice. The choices will be put into a poll, and using the results the poll the staff will make the final choice. We will be looking for something that will be fun, useful, and creative. See that thread for more details.

Our second contest is a new member referral contest that will last a month. Bring a new person into TechnoChicks, and you will be entered twice into a drawing for a special care package including Asian gifts/candy, geek gifts, and other special personalized things. It will be nice, I promise, and I will mail it to you wherever you are. The person you bring will also be entered once. You can enter as many times as you bring a new person, so start referring today!

So, thank you to you all, from me, and know that all of you all are very special to me. I pray God’s immense blessings on you all, and hope for many wonderful years to come!

ishy