Hi all,
Wanted to wish everyone Happy New Year, and provide some quick updates including our new 3 x $100 message board give-away.

First, we had a great holiday season with record sales - approx. 21% increase in total sales revenue vs. last year.

Second, we did our annual charitable donation and this year gave to two different worthy causes:

MIT's Open Courseware - MIT has been offering free MIT courses online and this is actually how I learned some of my solid state chemistry knowledge...for free. So, a great opportunity to give back and help ensure it continues to remain available for free to people around the world. We got this nifty badge to display as a result:



Oceana.org - Oceana is a charity focused on protecting and preserving the oceans and the wildlife within them. They currently have a number of programs helping to protect sea turtles, including two lawsuits against the US govt for failing to protect endangered turtles. Commercial fishing (where sea turtles get caught and maimed or killed in nets designed to catch fish or shrimp) is currently the largest killer of sea turtles...and Oceana has a number of efforts including two lawsuits to enforce/enhance protections to help ensure sea turtles safety and survival:
Oceana.org - Sea Turtle protection efforts
and
Gulf shrimpers create record high sea turtle deaths




Record web traffic: Our web traffic and the message boards themselves have continued to expand at a rapid pace. We recently set an all-time single day high of 6,714 unique visitors in one day in December.

So, to celebrate that, its time for another message board giveaway. Here's the scoop:

Prizes: 3 prizes, each of $100 (cash, paypal or store-credit, winners choice)

How to enter: Make a post on the boards between now and Jan 25th, 11:59 PM PST. Each post, (excepting posts in the "First word that comes to mind" threads) counts as 1 entry, so the more posts, the better your odds.

Winner's will be announced on Friday, Jan 27th, here on the message boards. Winners will be chosen by random number generation via random.org to select the 3 winning posts.

Hopefully the new contest will help add additional excitement to your time on the boards!

Best regards
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