When the SWG started in 2005, there were many, many more independent Tolkien groups, many of them hosted on platforms like Yahoo! Groups and LiveJournal, but others on websites like the SWG is today. There were positives and negatives to this, with a downside that the fandom felt much more fragmented and siloed. And as happens any time you have multiple groups of humans trying to accomplish the same goal, a competitive feeling developed between some of these groups.

We were lucky that, as a Silmarillion group, we were well-positioned to try a different approach. Part of this was the advantage of having no other Silmarillion-only groups to "compete" with, so we could promote and celebrate what other Tolkien groups were doing. In 2008, we adopted the "Connectivity" plank in our mission: "To recognize that we are only a single small group in a vast online Tolkien fan community and to work toward connecting and sharing with the Tolkien fandom at large, as well as aiding members in finding groups and resources that meet their needs where the SWG cannot." Part of this was our Yellow Pages, a guide to other Tolkien groups. (The last updated version from 2013 is still on the site, albeit in very rudimentary form.) Part of this too was Around the World and Web, which we announced as part of opening our archive in the June 2007 newsletter.

Around the World and Web has been rudderless, without an editor, for several years now, minimally maintained by me in between more pressing site maintenance tasks. I am thrilled to announce that Elrond's Library has generously offered to take on this role and want to express my gratitude to her and others who offered assistance when I posted about it on Discord last week. It is wonderful that such a long-running part of our site will be better cared for into the future!

This is also a good time to highlight that section of our site. We try to post about as many events and projects of interest to Tolkien fans as we can, again due to that Connectivity component in our mission. We can't do it all, and don't want to, and want people to know when something awesome Tolkien-related is happening elsewhere that our members might enjoy. After all, our ultimate mission in the SWG is to build fandom friendships and grow the number of Tolkien-related fanworks being created. Whether that is for our challenges or another event, the result is still a benefit to the broader Tolkien community.

If you run an event, you can become a scout on the SWG, which gives you access to post about your event in Around the World and Web. If you'd like to know more, reply to this email! Around the World and Web lives on our website but also goes out in our monthly newsletters. It is a section of our site that I hope to continue improving into the future, but for now, if you're reading this, scroll down to see upcoming events from beyond the SWG that might interest you!