PNC-Minnesota up for Most Fascinating Blog award

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PNC-Minnesota has been nominated for the 2012 Fascination Awards.  Nominees are selected by the editorial team from Accelerated Degree and are then voted on by readers.  Voting opened today and will continue until March 06, 2012 when a winner in each category is selected.

Accelerated Degree Programs

The Fascination Awards seek to recognize blogs that “excite, motivate, and inspire their audience.”   Additionally, nominated blogs are those that inspire its audience, create conversation around the topic, create a strong emotional reaction, and are shared both online and off.  PNC-Minnesota is on the ballot along with 92 other nominees, selected from a pool of over 2,300 submissions.

PNC-Minnesota is nominated in the Most Fascinating Librarian Blog of 2012 category and was highlighted for the article “Rape Survivor Devastated by TSA Enhanced Pat Down” which carried an interview with a local Pagan and her reaction to the newer ‘enhanced’ pat downs instituted by the Transportation Security Administration.  As a follow up note to the story, Celeste has relocated to the Twin Cities area and is working for a different company.  She no longer has to fly, but covers a five state sales territory by car.

Although it was a surprise to be nominated for an awards program specific to librarian and student bloggers, Matthew Pelletier, Director of Public Relations for Accelerated Degree Programs said PNC-Minnesota qualifies for the award as one of staff, Heather Biedermann, is a librarian.

As this is the first time an explicitly Pagan blog has been nominated for the Fascination Awards, we hope a repeat of the bigotry Pagan blogs have experienced during other blog contests with online voting does not happen.  Last May, Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom, and several other Pagan blogs, were nominated by the Circle of Moms in the Top 25 Faith Blogs by Moms category.  Other contestants up for the same award started a campaign against the Pagan blogs, “would you guys please help by voting daily til the contest is over?  It literally brings tears to my eyes to think a pagan blogger could win 1st place in a “Faith Blog” contest.”  Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom eventually won the contest and ten other Pagan blogs made it into the top 25.

To vote for PNC-Minnesota, click the badge at the top of the article and you’ll be taken to the ballot for Most Fascinating Librarian Blog of 2012.  The list of blogs are randomized every time this poll and it can be a bit tricky to find PNC-Minnesota as they use the blog URL, rather than the blog name, in the poll.   Instead of seeing PNC-Minnesota, you’ll see us listed as https://pncminnesota.wordpress.com  Only one vote is allowed per IP Address.

Call to Participate in Prayerful Silence – Sunday Feb 26th

A Global Call to Participate in Prayerful Silence on the Eve of United Nations- Commission on the Status of Women on Sunday, February 26, 2012 was announced by the www.womenofspiritandfaith.org
On the eve of the opening of the 56th Session of the UN-Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), women of all spiritual traditions are invited to join in prayer and silence for the good of the world’s women and girls -wherever they are and at any time that day.
Women of all spiritual traditions are invited to join in prayer and silence, to hold in their hearts the hopes of those who come to the CSW: for homes and a world without violence and fear, where there will be good food, air and water,
education and medical care, for women’s empowerment and gender equality, for consciousness, voice and choice,
for circles with a sacred center to support the wisdom and courage of women in them, and for there to be a UN 5th World Conference on Women.
Other sponsoring organizations include:
U.N. WOMEN’S CIRCLES
Anglican Women’s Empowerment www.anglicanwomensempowerment.org
Circle Connections www.circleconnections.com
Earth Child Institute www.earthchildinstitute.org
Gather The Women Global Matrixwww.gatherthewomen.org
Global Room for Women www.globalroomforwomen.org
Imagine The Good Foundationwww.imaginethegood.org
International Public Policy Institutewww.ippiun.org
Millionth Circle www.millionthcircle.org
One Voice Alliance of Women (OVA)    www.onevoicealliance.org
Pathways to Peace  www.pathwaystopeace.org
Peace X Peace www.peacexpeace.org
Ways Women Lead  www.wayswomenlead.org
Women’s Intercultural Network  www.win.org
Women of Spirit and Faithwww.womenofspiritandfaith.org
Women’s Perspective www.womensperspective.org
Women’s World Summit Foundation www.woman.ch

Pagan CD wins award

Jennifer Cutting’s OCEAN Orchestra’s CD Song of Solstice has won “Best Traditional Folk Album” from the Washington Area Music Association.  Cutting says she made the album, created over seven years, as a labor of love for the Pagan community.

Song of Solstice beat out six other albums to take the award including The Great American Folk Song by the Children’s Chorus of    Washington and Them Bones by David LaFleur.  Singer Lisa Moscatiello  won “Best Traditional Folk Vocalist” for her work on Song of Solstice.

Jennifer Cutting holds both awards. photo credit facebook

PNC-Minnesota reviewed Song of Solstice last December:

Song of Solstice includes original songs, old world classics in French, orchestra accompaniment, hints of steampunk, Renaissance recorders, electric guitars, female singers and male singers.   All the songs celebrate the winter solstice in some way, and while most have a distinct Pagan vibe to them, your Lutheran mother would enjoy it, too.

Jennifer Cutting’s OCEAN Orchestra
Song of Solstice
12 tracks – Original music, Rare Celtic, and Medieval Songs
CD – $17.97 + shipping on CD Baby
Download Album (MP3) – $9.99
Or talk to your local metaphysical store – shop local!

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Community Notes; February 20-26

This Thursday is the deadline to get the $65 rate for Paganicon. After that it goes up to $80. Also, they’ll be sending in the badge requests, so registering before Thursday gets you a nicely printed badge which will look fabulous, but after Thursday you will get a badge created with a sharpie which will announce to the world that you were late in registering. You can register at http://paganicon.eventbrite.com/

If you want to know what you’re registering for, the Paganicon schedule was just posted at http://paganicon2012.sched.org/ or http://paganicon2012.sched.org/mobile/

February 26, 2009, Paganistani Promotions expanded to Facebook. At the time, it was done as a way to encourage people to join the Twin Cities Pagans Yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TwinCitiesPagans with the most complete Pagan community calendar in the nation. The Yahoo group has continued to grow, now having 633 members, making it the 9th largest community based Pagan Yahoo group in the world. All of the other 8 experienced their growth before Facebook became popular, and (like most Yahoo groups) have leveled off since then. While other Yahoo groups have been declining or maintaining, ours has continued to grow.