by Bob Odette/Tilbury Times-Wed. July 21/04 Edition (reproduced with permission)
Marie Duquette, of Pere St. on Tilbury's east end regularly gets online and chats and exchanges news and recipes with people from all over the world. The site she logs onto is called the World Wide Web Circle of Friends and it features a variety of "rooms" devoted to things like crafts, recipes, pets, health, senior's topics and more. But the best part of logging on there is the online relationship members have formed with one another.
Last week about 18 of them gathered for a first time face-to-face meeting at Duquette's home last week. They arrived in town, one by one, from all over North and South America, to spend the week here, with some scheduled to move onto locations south of the border to meet up with members who were unable to make it to Tilbury. Duquette helped them reserve rooms at area hotels and motels. They had lunch together at the Tilbury Legion on Friday.
The woman who started it all is Sharon Greene, of Nanaimo, BC. Greene said she decided to start the site after getting to know about five others on the web by way of ICQ, an instant messaging service most web surfers are very familiar with. But with ICQ, you can correspond with only one person at a time and Greene found herself sending the same messages to people many many times. She figured a better way would be a newsletter and that evolved into a common website where everybody could post what they wanted for everybody else to read was a better way. After an initial membership of his five close internet friends, the site has grown to include more than 300 members.
Duquette suggested last year that they should get together in person and offered her home in Tilbury as a location for that, but her husband was scheduled for surgery last summer and the idea was put off until this year.
Liz Jones is from Cambridge. She said she was at the same wedding as Duquette in Chatham a few weeks ago, but neither knew that until the next day when they were chatting on the internet. "I didn't know what she looked like," said Jones, "so I didn't recognize her at the wedding, but the next day we realized we were both in the same room when we told each other about our weekend".
Daphne is from Argentina. She found out about the website when she wrot to another internet group for advice on what to do for her sister's 49th birthday. When she first logged onto Greene's site, she felt the place was "just something I belonged to". Eventually, she took onthe task of translating Greene's newsletter into Spanish and distributing it to the various members in the Latin American countries. Argentine members made abanner thatshe brought with her to show the others. "I never thought I'd be visiting Canada", she admitted, adding that she feels as if she'sknown everybody for years now that she has met them in person.
Greene says the appeal of the site comes from the fact that it is wholesome, fun and nobody fights or argues. She points out that it is, in many ways, a support site, with members helping other members get through rough stages in their lives or personal tragedies. "I've always been interested in history and geography," she said, "and this is a very good way to learn about other people who actually live there". She said they are planning to open a room on the site for teens.
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