Removed from Mentor group, has this happened to anyone else?

I got the following email today:

Dear Aenea Christensen,

Your submission in the Mentor Directory has been removed.
This may be because you have submitted a new listing, or because you have requested its
removal.
You've been removed from the Second Life Mentor group.


I've been a mentor for a long time and I love volunteering, I didn't request to be removed at all. Has this happened to anyone else? Any suggestions how I can get back? I can't reapply since no new applications are accepted at this time.

This might not have any bearing on the issue, but inactive members are being removed or have been removed from the mentors group. In order to remain a member one needed to renew their membership.

The cutoff date for renewal was September 30th.

The wiki page on this is at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Second_Life_Mentor_Membership_Renewal .

I'd try contacting one of the Linden staff that handles the mentor group.

I'm not saying this is the cause of your problem. The email doesn't sound like it is.

I wasn't aware of that. That might be the reason, Thanks.

Hi, same thing happened to me very frustrating. Did you find any solution?? lg Aischa

I got terminated too!! Sew nothing on any blogs that I read, and no Group Notices either !!!!

It was in the Mentor group chat, and in the email list, and in the VTeam blog.

I know that quite a few people missed it, even though it was well publicized. As far as I know, the only possible recourse would be to send a notecard to a VTeam member, or show up at office hours and petition to be reinstated.

screw u tards hehehe they woulndt let me be a mentor

I have only received group notices about the Week of Learning, Burning Life and greeting - absolutely nothing about renewing my membership. And I even attended a scheduled Mentor meeting last week - it was never mentioned in two hours.

I assume we can appeal to the proper Lindens (Amber maybe) and see what they will do for people that didn't get the memo. This is not the best way to retire hundreds of volunteers.
.

I received NO notification about this in the Group channel, I only found out about it too late, when I read the V-team blog.

It seems grossly unfair, to me, that they're weeding out people in this manner simply because they're not reading the right blog frequently enough, even though they're active in-world.

Having considered the situation I have decided that when applications are open again I will not be renewing. The Mentor tag now has such a bad reputation, and I do not need it to be able to help people.

It came up during both the 10am and the 5pm meeting.

They had a blog post, they spammed the group chat with reminders over a period of several days in early-mid September, they sent 2-3 in-world notices at least that I remember, it was mentioned during the last 2 (3?) mentor meetings, there was a notice up on the VTeam site, it's in red, bold letters on the volunteer portal portion of the wiki...

"Membership Renewals began late in August and ran through the month of September, kicking off with a blog post and Monthly Mentor Meeting, and a series of weekly in-world group notice reminders followed. As per the Renewal FAQ, residents who have not renewed their membership by September 30, 2008 and are interested in being in the Second Life Mentor group will be required to re-apply to the Second Life Mentor group when applications open at a later date."

(http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Second_Life_Mentor_Membership_Renewal)

We really have no reason to gang up together and lie about not receiving the notification Kitty. Obviously the process was very flawed when hundreds of people are removed because they were not informed. I have ALL of my e-mails received from the Mentor group since 2007. As I stated I have e-mails regarding various activities - and I have attended a meeting in September but I have nothing regarding this policy change.

All Mentors who have not renewed need to be contacted and asked would they like to renew. This is the only civilized solution since this recently made-up policy is causingg some unpleasantness.

It was widely advertised...but arguing about it doesn't matter, because, as you say, some folks just didn't get the word, for whatever reason.

I suggest that everyone who got dropped, who doesn't want to STAY dropped, should show up at the next VTeam office hours and ask that LL re-open the re-registration process.

I didn't say anyone was lieing. I just pointed out there was ample announcement in a variety of different ways.

I didn't find out till some time after the initial blog post, but I'm not going to blame the VTeam for my lapse in keeping informed.

Kitty the VTeam is in charge of informing volunteers. I take responsibility when I do not achieve the goal of my job - as they should. But upon realizing that there was a big communication gap and several hundred volunteers were not informed about such a radical change of policy - some effort should be made to rectify the oversignht.

I truly believe that if this policy was added to the SL forums as a sticky or mentioned in the SL blog at all it would have been seen by many more people (as the adfarmer policy was).

.

They must have missed the forums?
And why is there a renewal...whose bright idea is it to kick people simply because LL can't communicate?

I also have been removed from the SL Mentor group.

My infreuequent logging on and short time inworld has been due to recurring hospitalisation over the past few months, not for the want of not wanting to be inworld and continue mentoring.

There must be a list of mentors who did not respond that can be contacted to offer a solution on a case- by-case merit?

I found it in Mental Mentors if it wasn't for that I would have missed it as well thanks for the notification on it Rails

Also had the lovely 'surprise' email - they managed to get the you've been kicked email out easy enough, why not send a 'you need to renew' email.

I don't go on the wiki and rarely come into the forums but am inworld reasonably regularly.

I'm tempted not to bother re-applying for mentorship if that's their attitude.

I'm not a mentor, but if I had members in a mentor group that had that attitude I'd also think it was time for them to go.

Unlike Brock, I would re-apply, but he does make a valid point that a 'remove' e-mail was sent, so why couldnt a 'you need to renew' e-mail be sent. I could have at least responded to that whilst in hospital and also any other Mentors that didnt get notecards, message, go on the wiki, blog or whatever would have almost certainly been informed and responded accordingly in a timely manner.

This may be my backwards thinking in action, but, I have to say my reason for being a Mentor is because I like to be as informed as possible when it comes to helping people. That means keeping Mentor group chat open, having group notices sent to my Email, attending meetings whenever possible, and visiting the VTeam Blog and Wiki web sites at least weekly. (^_^)

Multiple announcements were made about the survey in group chat, group announcements, the blog, and in meetings. Anyone who truly uses the Mentor group as an informative resource would have had no problem finding out about the survey on time (with exception of being hospitalized or such). And, at least have group announcements from the Mentor group go to your Email... I do and I think I have at least 2 announcements in my Email from Sept, 15th and earlier mentioning the survey. (^_^)

Frankly... I practically NEVER wear the Mentor tag. It serves no purpose to put such a detail on display. New residents usually don't know what "Mentor" means yet and in a field of of name/group tags, it doesn't stand out in a way that says "I can help you". Instead, I simply spend my time in noob-friendly areas, greeting as many people as possible, and responding to whatever random questions come from the crowd. Responding to an inquisitive first-time can very quickly turn into a 1... 2... 3... hour event of guiding, instructing, freebie shopping, and, sometimes even a new friend. All without being a "Mentor". (^_^)

To me, the point of being a Second Life Mentor is a matter of being welcoming, helpful, and INFORMED. Anyone can do at least two of these three items without the silly tag. (^_^)y

Not sure I follow your logic. Feeling let-down on being kicked out of a group by receiving an email out of the blue, which mentions nothing of the *actual* reason for being removed, has no bearing on my ability to offer friendly useful advice to newbies on SL. The latter I'm still willing to do, though no longer having access to the Orientation and Help Islands where I normally do this will make it a lot harder.

Regardless... Being in the Mentor group also has no bearing on your ability to offer friendly useful advice to newbies on SL. But it does have an effect on the resources made available to you if you choose to use them. (=_=)

On that note, reflecting my point about using the Mentor group as a means of being informed... It was also announced in the past that the Orientation Islands are no longer in use. The current start location for all new residents is Help Island. (^_^)

Beyond that, there's nothing wrong with hovering around a welcome area or HIP and pulling the noobies away from the crowd and offering your own assistance. (^_^)y

I have a little more info, from the Mentor email list.

Apparently, the reason that LL didn't send individual emails to people saying, "please renew your membership" was that part of the exercise was to identify active vs. inactive Mentors. Inactive Mentors would not (it was assumed) attend Mentor meetings or read the VTeam blog, whereas active Mentors would.

Unfortunately, this scheme failed to consider that some Mentors would be out of town at the critical time(s), or might be active, but not in the habit of using the same channels of communication that the VTeam picked to disseminate the renewal notices.

So...some good people got thrown out along with the deadwood.

Equally unfortunately, the only recourse identified (so far anyway) by LL is to re-apply to the volunteer program, and go through Apprenticeship again. Of course, the application process is currently closed, so even if someone wanted to do that, they couldn't. And there is no information on when applications will again be accepted.

Lesson for survivors: Read the darn VTeam blog regularly! There are a lot of other changes in the works that you need to be aware of...new requirements for Mentor Coaches, the re-opening of the Greeter sub-class, and others.

To any Mentors who got caught up in this, or who are angry because of it and plan to resign: 1) I'm sorry. 2) To continue your helping activities, consider joining Brett Dumont's Help People! Institute.

I can see the sense in this, and have sufficiently calmed down since originally posting in this thread!

Not sure that Summer time, when many of us are either on holiday/vacation (due to weddings, music festivals ,etc I went 6 weeks without a weekend at home), or spending less time at home on our computers would be the best time to test our devotion though. Still a little frustrated at being 'caught out'.