You may have noticed, the Secret Community has gone turbocharged! ⚡️

It's great to have a big Facebook Community set up to help each other ❤️

We're all connected and behind every post is a life that needs looking after. The internet has become a big part of us getting through the COVID-19 outbreak.

We're going to need help to be in the best position to change and grow.

It's near-certain I'll be back in a uniform in my local hospital soon and I want to make sure the community is a responsive, helpful, heartfelt place even if I'm gone for a while.

I would never ask for this under normal circumstances, but these are not normal circumstances.

You might know we have one part time paid mod (nice work Kristie!) but we need an extra 12 hours of moderation time/week.

⭐️If you've ever benefited from the Sec Com, we're asking for something quite small: £1⭐️

An extra 12 hours a week of modding for 6 months = £2400

We have 25,000 members so if even 10% of us donated £1 we’d be fine.

If you can give a bit more we'd really appreciate it.

If we pay our lead mods, they can:

* Moderate the huge increase in posts

* Get our volunteers working on areas like financial suggestions for

students changing plans, and revision for those heading into practice,

so we can all be at our best for midwifery

* Keep the community open as many of our members prop the NHS up,

so staff have somewhere their voices are heard

* Support application and interview queries in this time, helping people stay on their game

* Answer PMs from student and qualified midwives that go on behind

the scenes, offering emotional support as we face COVID-19

Amongst many other tasks 🙃

Please know this money is for moderation only - I've run MidwifeDiaries / The SecCom for years on much less than minimum wage because I love it but I can't ask others with families and other opportunities to do the same in a consistent way.

If this all blows over and we don't need extra mod help, we will use the extra money to run training with experts through the community - any more than that will be donated to charity (I know of one amazing midwife clinic in Ethiopia, who will be hit hard by all this).

If this isn't for you, I so respect that. We're just trying to keep everything going in a sustainable way.

I appreciate any help you can offer, and all my best to you and yours during this time.

Ellie (and the Sec Com Mods) x