‘Star Trek: Picard’ Star Patrick Stewart Announces Free Month of CBS All Access

from Variety.com

Engage(d audience)!

Actor Patrick Stewart announced on Tuesday that, starting immediately, CBS All Access is offering a month free subscription to anyone in the U.S. through April 23.

The announcement comes just as tens of millions of Americans are finding themselves sequestered at home during the COVID-19 pandemic — and just as Stewart’s CBS All Access series “Star Trek: Picard” reaches its season finale, which drops this Thursday.

Stewart posted a link to redeem the free month to Twitter and Instagram — all users have to do is use the code “GIFT” when signing up.

 

Read the rest of the article at Variety.com

LLS Month of Giving

Every year, Jersey Mike's Subs helps raise money for a special local charity. Jersey Mike's locations in the Twin Cities are raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Minnesota with 100% of of sales being donated on March 25th. The money goes to help with patient transportation, personal costs to patients and families undergoing treatment, research, and to help fund LLS' largest celebration of their survivors of blood cancer each year.

With recent events, we are expecting a loss of the amount of money we raise for LLS. We have been raising money at each of our meetings and many of you have come to my stores on the Day of Giving helping raise hundreds and hundreds of dollars over the years. If you were planning on donating at the March meeting or going to the store for the Day of Giving but can't make it, please consider donating at this link. If you are still up to participate, know that the stores will still be open and delivery on our app is available to make the day a special one!

Thank you to everyone for all of your continued support!

USS Nokomis in the era of isolation

The world around has changed, and we change to respond. For decades we've met at set times, together to share plans, accomplishments, stories, and challenges. But now, we must change...

The novel coronavirus and its associated disease, COVID-19 can't be beat yet, we can only slow it down by taking precautions not to get infected, and even more importantly to prevent transmitting to others who might not be able to fight it off. To that end, we will meet using technology rather than location; we will plan on a far shorter timeline than monthly meetings might allow, and we will avoid events that unnecessarily expose anyone to the virus. We will react quickly with a primary focus on the health of our members and families.

Starting immediately, we change how we communicate

  • The calendar will be near real-time, and show change as well as current plans.  If an event was planned for a date and time and must be cancelled or postponed, the original date will remain in place with that label.  You can read the calendar through the Events menu
  • Rather than large, curated articles for a monthly newsletter, we'll post short articles as we learn. If you have information to share with the group, post it to the site using the Post an Article link under the MY USSNOKOMIS menu.  It will get a review before it's posted to be sure we get all the information to the right places.
  • Because things will change quickly, we won't wait for the monthly newsletter. Every Wednesday at noon, the website will automatically create a journal of newly published posts and sent it out to you.  Please take the time to read it.

If this were simply a few weeks of inconvenience we would not need these changes, time would be our friend.  It is not. Though we hope for a quick reduction in illness and rapid deployment of viable protections, our experience says the first will take months, the later will take far longer barring some luck and hard work.

Some of what we invent today may live on - please let us know what is working for you, and what needs some polish.

NLC Gala is going online

The National Lutheran Choir just sent out a notice that the Gala will be held online this year, in line with all of the other affected events this spring.  Look for details how or if we can help, but it's safe to assume we won't be going to the hotel on the 19th of April.

Stay home, stay safe, stay healthy.

Chuckwagon Dinner Postponed – Here’s the details.

The March 29th Chuckwagon Fundraiser Dinner has been postponed, not cancelled.  It was announced at the meeting before we knew how serious the lockdowns were going to be, and it turned out to be the right move.  We'll be rescheduling it in the fall, presumably after we've gotten through the worst.

Dinner Tickets: Let our ticket-buying guests know that we won't be holding the event, and that we've rescheduled to October 25th. The tickets they've purchased for dinner will still be good on then.

50/50 Raffle: Since you don't need to be present to win, we don't need to be present to hold the raffle.  We will still be drawing the winner on March 29th.  If you sold raffle tickets, please do two things for us

  1. Get the money to Pam, via check, PayPal (instructions later), or you can email Pam at for further instructions
  2. Get the tickets with the purchaser's name on it to Pam for the drawing, still being held on March 29th.

Silent Auction Items: We really don't have a way to complete the auction remotely. We're still going to need them, just 7 months later.  Please hang on to 'em, create new ones with all the new time we have.

Thank you to  everyone who's sold tickets, made auction items, and planned another great event.

PayPal instructions

You'll need your own PayPal account to make this work. Log in to PayPal and select the Send/Receive menu item at the top of the page.  When asked who to sent the money to, enter ''. Since this counts as Sending to a Friend, there's no fee involved.  In the message, please list your name and what the money covers, let's make Pam's job easier.  Walk through the rest of the menu, and you'll complete in no time.

March 14th Online Meeting Worked!!

Well, here's some good news - we had a good meeting on Saturday.  The remarkable thing is that we didn't meet at the library, we did it online.  Eighteen folks connected to the meeting using a mix of computers, cell phones, smartphone apps, and land line phones.   If you weren't looking at the status panel you'd have had a hard telling which was which.

Thanks to everyone who participated in good meeting etiquette. Thanks for dressing for the meeting, at least as far as the rest of us could tell.

The meeting went better than some in the professional world.  If you'd like a quick view of how it often goes, enjoy this video from Tripp and Tyler.

 

Dates and Events Changed as of March 17th

If not mentioned here, the original dates and locations hold.   All dates are on the Events Calendar

These events have been postponed, to be rescheduled at a later date

  • St. Patrick's Beer Tasting (was March 14)
  • Chuckwagon Fundraiser (was March 29)
  • Journey to Babble Beer Tour (was May 16)

Events that will be cancelled until the quarantines are no longer needed

  • Escape Room (was in July)
  • CONVergence CONstruction (was May 17)
  • Top Golf (didn't have a date)
  • MLS game at Alliance Field (didn't have a date)

Events that moved online

  • NLC (National Lutheran Choir) Gala
  • April General Membership Meeting

Events with Big Questions

  • CONvergence
  • CONvergence Blood Drive

April Meeting will now be Online

Hennepin County Libraries announced more COVID-19 actions just after we completed our first online meeting on March 14.  The specific actions that affect us are

  • Library events will be canceled
  • Meeting and conference room reservations will be canceled
  • Fewer library computers available to increase distance between computer user

This means the April Meeting will be a ZOOM meeting, and very likely the May meeting.  We'll post the meeting code in the Event for each month, and send it in an article closer to the meeting.

Quick start to Nokomis ZOOM meetings

Meeting etiquette: During the meeting people can talk over each other and nobody gets through.  If you want to speak up, call out Mary’s name, she’ll pause the meeting and ask for comment. If you’re not talking in the meeting and have a way to do it, please mute your microphone.

If you have a headset with microphone it will be far easier to hear and be heard, but it’s not necessary.

And if you have to go to the, well, the personal needs room (wink wink), please don’t take the phone with you.

How to connect to any meeting we have.

Note: You don’t need to create a ZOOM account to join the meeting. For more information, go to Zoom.us and click Support.

Each meeting will have a unique meeting number.  You'll be able to see it in the Events page by clicking on the event to open the details.

More inside...

March 14 General Membership Virtual Meeting Instructions

The COVID-19 advice from all quarters is to stay home, avoid crowd and exposure (see below), and above all don't spread the virus.  We've made the tough decision to reschedule a lot of our events, starting with the General Membership meeting March 14th.

We are trying out, for the first time ever, a Nokomis Virtual Meeting using the Zoom meeting service.  This article gives information on how to join in any of our Virtual Meetings, it's as simple as dialing a phone.  We're doing just voice, so far.

 

For Saturday's General Membership Virtual Meeting,

USS Nokomis March 2020 General Membership Meeting - March 14 at Noon
(The line will be open at 11:30 AM Central Time. The meeting begins at Noon.)

Join Zoom Meeting on your Computer
https://zoom.us/j/351730897

Dial in by Phone:  646 -876-9923
Meeting ID: 351 730 897