Quite an audience

There is a powerful line in Robert Bolt's Play about Thomas More, A Man for All Seasons.

Richard Rich (an opportunist and not very highly principled) asks Sir Thomas for a place at court and Thomas refuses. “Be a teacher," he suggests. “You could be a good teacher."

But Rich would prefer political fame, so he asks “But if I were a good teacher, who would know it?"

Thomas More's reply: “Your friends would know it, your pupils would know it, you would know it and God would know it – and that's quite an audience!"

We have been interested to see who is CYC-Net's audience – who visits this web site. In January 2000 the “hit parade" of the 25 top level domains (sorted from most to least numerous) has looked like this:

ca – Canada
net – Network
com – US Commercial
za – South Africa
?? – Unresolved domains
edu – US Educational
nz – New Zealand
uk – United Kingdom
il – Israel
no – Norway
ie – Ireland
us – United States
au – Australia
zm – Zambia
org – Non-Profit Organizations
se – Sweden
gov – US Government
fr – France
pl – Poland
es – Spain
sg – Singapore
de – Germany
mil – US Military
sk – Slovakia (Slovak Republic)
nl – Netherlands

Quite an audience. And the six most-visited pages of the web site say much about Child and Youth Care workers around the world:

1. BACK TO CYC-Net
2. CYC-Online
3. The Journals
4. Newsdesk
5. Theme 2000: Relationships
... and number 6 – Schulz's cartoons in the January issue!

* * *

With this issue of CYC-Online we also celebrate our first birthday. The first issue was published in February 1999. In our introductory editorial we noted:

"We (both involved in the editing of journals in the field) strongly promote formal reading in the field, and we felt that CYC-Online would provide the ideal opportunity for less formal writing and ideas and news and exchange than we would expect in the scholarly journals."

So that's CYC-Online – the beginning of what may become a useful “alternative press" for those around the world who work with troubled kids and youth at risk, offering opinion, ideas, writing and news – and perhaps some of the inspiration to complement the perspiration – of this truly remarkable profession of ours which, throughout the world, is like no other profession.

"Feel free to participate – read, copy, share what's here – and do let us have your own contributions."

We would like to renew that invitation for you to participate. (What me? Yes, you!) The less formal nature of CYC-Online means that colleagues at all levels of the Child and Youth Care profession can feel comfortable about contributing. Teachers and students, on-line workers and supervisors, administrators and the young people themselves, whoever, we share a noble and exciting profession and all of us constantly learn from each other.

You (as an individual, a staff team, a concerned group) could –

review a book or journal article
recount a learning experience
illustrate a concept
tell us of a film we should see
complain about some irritation
share a funny story
suggest a helpful way of doing something
start an argument
tell us about some aspect of your program
compose a poem
send a recipe (says Thom)
explain your view on some issue
tell a story
write about someone who inspired you
other!

In return we can promise you (because it is in the nature of our profession) to give you a hearing and to take you seriously – unless you're being purposely ridiculous.

And we can promise you something else: quite an audience!

Happy birthday.

Brian and Thom