Keystrokes for Social Sites send handwritten season greetings to military service members

The Veteran’s Day Parade in New York City that took place this a.m. was especially moving this year. Korean War Veterans were featured. My father (to the left) served in the Korean War. Though he passed 12 October 2003, my daddy was a stalwart man who served the USAF (United States Air Force) for twenty years.

During a mission in Wonju South Korea, he worked on a hidden airstrip. While a celebration was taking place, my father went to check on the aircraft and noted invaders then alerted his commanders, which abetted a surprise attack. Because of the nature of the base he wasn’t awarded a commendation, but he was provided with a duty station of choice for his remaining USAF career. Our family enjoyed consecutive years at Andrews Air Force Base as he so wisely decided to land us near the Nation’s Capital.

Our family maintains great pride in “Pop,” our nation and tradition of the U.S. Military. My youngest daughter served a USAF tour of duty and continues her pursuit of USAF goals through career employment. We are well aware that “Pop” is in heaven smiling for her lofty aspirations in following in his footsteps. We work to aid the Wounded Warrior and respect the American Veteran.

In this vein – you will see the “Seasonal Keystrokes for Social Sites.” To reeve up the holiday season and send handwritten greeting cards to service members overseas, we are seeking participation in celebration of the seasonal awareness through “Season’s Greetings” shared from our social network friends. We will write greeting cards to military members overseas.

Some of you may have already received our messages on your GovLoop pages since Halloween. We are happy to share the blessings this season brings to us all. Please feel free to send as many tweets as you’d like to get more handwritten greetings in the mail – the following story conveys our message:

From the National Writing Examiner, by Donna L. Quesinberry

Seasonal Keystrokes for Social Sites:
The NWE (National Writing Examiner) encourages subscribers, casual readers and others to embrace the act of writing by committing to send “handwritten greeting cards” during the holiday season. For those readers who are too busy to hand write greetings, NWE has identified “Seasonal Keystrokes on Social Sites.”

This is a pretty simple premise designed by DonnaInk Publications (dp) (dp Book Nook and dp Federal Contracts):

• For every twenty-five social site greetings dp (dpbn | dpfc) receives – one handwritten greeting – will be forwarded to a service member currently serving overseas
• For every ten social site greetings dp (dpbn | dpfc) receives from overseas (outside continental United States) – one handwritten greeting will be forwarded to a service member serving in the countries represented
• Greeting cards will provide traditional sentiment
• Voting is available for “favorite sentiments to share”
• Stamps are theme based mating to the greeting card series
• If you have a “special” service member include their information in your comment or through direct messaging and they will be added to the greeting card mail roster with an asterisk denoting participant referral

Handwritten Seasonal Greeting Traditions:
The first commercial Christmas cards were commissioned by Sir Henry Cole in London in 1843 and featured an illustration by John Callcott Horsley. The picture, of a family with a small child drinking wine together, proved controversial, but the idea was shrewd: Cole had helped introduce the Penny Post three years earlier. Two batches totaling 2,050 cards were printed and sold that year for a shilling each. The world’s first commercially produced Christmas card, designed by John Callcott Horsley for Henry Cole:

Early English cards rarely showed winter or religious themes, instead favoring flowers, fairies and other fanciful designs that reminded the recipient of the approach of spring. Humorous and sentimental images of children and animals were popular, as were increasingly elaborate shapes, decorations and materials. In 1875 Louis Prang became the first printer to offer cards in America, though the popularity of his cards led to cheap imitations that eventually drove him from the market.

The advent of the postcard spelled the end for elaborate Victorian-style cards, but by the 1920s, cards with envelopes had returned. Some people take the annual mass mailing of cards as an opportunity to update everybody with the year’s events, and include the so-called “Christmas letter” was created to report on the family’s doings, sometimes running to multiple printed pages. (Excerpt from Wikipedia)

Changes in classic traditions:
Handwritten greetings remain classic European and American traditions, but their popularity is waning due to the rise in SNS participation. NWE during a recent United States Postal Service (USPS) representative interview, learned handwritten correspondence (especially greeting cards) have fallen dramatically every year during the past decade. The worker stated magazine and other mail pieces subscriptions are on the rise to the point routes are being tweaked because suburbanites living in lofts or town homes often share routes with home owners. Those dwelling in high volume complexes preclude privately owned property routes because the mail volume for multi-dwelling residences and specialized deliveries are focused on their locations. This is true not only in the United States, but in international venues as well. He furthered, the USPS feels eventually handwritten mail will become a thing of the past and the occasional handwritten card or letter will increasingly morph into an art form.

Social Networking and Greetings:
There are vast arrays of social network service (SNS) sites. Friendshipping and networking is at an all time high. Through SNS we engage in conversation with our acquaintances, neighbors, relatives and co-workers in real-time. And, we are learning issues sometimes arise from the ease of messaging online. Our etiquette monitoring conventionally employed in handwritten greetings and messages is dropped due to transmission speed and comment space – proper English is difficult to remit in 179 characters or less. There is just “no time to think,” but progress is progress and SNS is a step in the future.

Still, a glimmer of fascination remains for handwritten and mailed greetings that feature specialty stamps and heartfelt (thought out) messages reminiscent of holiday seasons from yesteryear.

NWE is happy to share the Seasonal Keystrokes for Social Sites message. If “we” cannot write – we can count on these folks writing for us. All it takes to get the ball rolling is to send them a greeting on FaceBook (Seasonal Keystrokes for Social Sites) or Twitter (@KeystrokeSeason). Send a greeting often as you would like from now until December 22nd. The last date to remit a holiday greeting without a delay for the recipient is 22nd December 2010.

If you have a specialty list of handwritten greetings you would like generated – it appears the dp (dpbn | dpfc) team will also provide greeting card handwriting hosting assistance for a nominal fee – check with them for their prices; however, their handwritten service member greetings do not cost anything other than a SNS message saying say Happy Holidays to their team.

Handwriting is Special!
NWE hopes all readers take time to send a handwritten note this season sharing the tradition of handwritten prose with family or friends.

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The National Writing Examiner accepts subscribers and sponsors.
About the Author: Ms. Quesinberry is President of dp (DonnaInk Publications), a small, woman-owned business. dp extends two divisions a) dpbn (dp Book Nook), and 2) dpfc (dp Federal Contracts). With over 18 years of professional expertise, dp features high 90th percentile performance measures and 80% plus client win ratio. Donna serves as VP (Vice President) of Business Development on retainer for select clientele. She delivers procurement and acquisition SME (subject matter expert) trusted source skill sets with excellent references. As an EAC (Executive Advisory Council) participant, Ms. Quesinberry delivers managed content and industry expertise. She also interviews both live | telecast and performs SAG voice-overs for some merchandising.