A Special Thank You

From Terry Nelson

Many of you have met me at meetings in your area or during trips to Springfield and you can agree that I am not someone who is often at a loss for words. Now, words can not express my appreciation and gratitude to the members and homeowners who have worked with me over the last four months to get MHOAI back online following a devastating computer crash.

Homeowners at Sunset, Glenview, heard of the computer crash and surprised us with a donation of $700 toward the replacement of the old computer. Residents of Willow Lakes in Elgin followed with a donation of $500 from their local homeowners association. A collection from members in attendance at a meeting was overwhelming-another $320 was raised that morning.

I was speechless. This generosity was just overwhelming. MHOAI receives donations from homeowners statewide, but the fast response on the donations for the new computer was just beyond words. I can not express my appreciation to all of you.

Until the computer was replaced and programs installed and set-up, I was unable to retrieve e-mail and/or respond to e-mail requests for help. We are doing our best to catch up on e-mail and trying to re-build our e-mail address book. If you e-mailed MHOAI this fall and did not receive a response, it was most likely due to the computer crash. We appreciate your patience and are happy to report that all is running again. If you are not sure if we have your e-mail address, please send an e-mail to MHOAI1@aol.com and we will make sure we have your address on file.

During the crash and subsequent re-build, several individuals were also extremely helpful. I want to thank Mary Lou Baldwin of Willow Lakes for her help in choosing a new computer and trying to convert data from the old machine. She is a computer tech and was tremendously helpful in setting up and installing programs on the new computer. With her expertise, a large amount of data base conversion is underway. I am still spending many hours rebuilding the data, but this task is much easier due to Mary Lou's help.