John, the MilBlogs man of many arms has details of this year’s most anticipated competition to put laptops into the lives of those who have served us by their sacrifices.Read this post.There is prep work to be done and all hands (that’s a naval term meaning everyone) can join in. The USMC and Air Force seems “headless” this year to date, but I’m sure they have dark horses in the wings to come out and work towards the $240K (Yes, Twenty Four Thousand dollars – because we all had too much success last year) we’re looking to raise for my favorite project (as well as for many others): ValOUR-IT.Roll up your sleeves and come along for the ride from 10/28 thru 11/13/2007. It will be two weeks of thrills, spills, chills and possible carpel tunnel syndrome. All sorts of snarks flying while teams race to get their hands on The Most Exhaulted GoldEn Notebook (MEGEN) at the 2008 MilBlogs Conference, while filling the account to purchase laptops for those who need them.

I have cobbled together a phpBB set up as a bulletin board for general and team specific use. Register there and send me an email (see “contact us”) to let me know your team affiliation and I’ll set your permissions to the area you’ll need to chatter in.

The ValOUR-IT Bulletin Board is here.

Team leaders will have an area to cross talk. If leaders want a few moderators set to help manage traffic flow, pass that along so I can set those users in play. I have that set for anyone designated as a monitor to have full access there.

Each team will have Coordination, Marketing, Auctions, and Ideas forums to bat things around in.

A general forum is in place to list items actually put up for auction, which will be viewable by your family and friends and associates (hint: when things show up there, pass it along!).

A top level “H&I Fires” forum will be open game for issuing and responding to challenges or questions of family lineage of other teams.

I made a command decision to join the United States Coast Guard effort with that of the Navy’s. Watch for emails.

Suggestions welcome.

Oh, and for you non-USN/USCG types, this one’s for you (Click for a 8.5″ x 11″ sized printout image!):