This past week was the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, which is a good reminder to me to pause and reflect with gratitude on the many people who make the SWG possible. A group of this scope would be impossible for one person to run; the SWG would have folded years ago, by necessity, if not for the ongoing support of our moderators and volunteers.

First, I want to recognize Saelind, who after six years as a moderator on Discord, is stepping back to pursue other exciting opportunities outside of fandom. Serving as a Discord mod is a role with unique challenges. Our moderator channel looks rather like the stereotypical firehouse, where the firefighter-mods are mostly playing cards, cooking chili, and throwing a ball for the firehouse Dalmatian, until ... fear, fire, foes! Discord allows us to interact in real time, but this also means that conflicts kick off in real time too, and our server mods often must drop what they're doing to handle situations that, in the moment, can feel a lot like a house on fire. Saelind has spent six years helping us through these moments and has always given wise counsel. We wish her the best in her new endeavours!

Also on our mod team, Grundy is a server and challenge mod. She is the person who gives out the challenge stamps! Anyone who remembers the stamp collections on the old site knows I was not so timely as she is! Shadow, also a Discord mod, has stepped up as a third challenge mod in Lyra's old role, as Lyra is on hiatus, and I am grateful for their willingness to take on this new role. Challenges are one of the aspects of our site that keeps it vibrant and lively, but twenty years in, coming up with fresh and new approaches to making fanworks is, pardon the pun, a challenge. Thank you, Janeways, our final Discord mod and the creator of many of the beautiful banners that are featured for our newsletter articles. I am grateful for your willingness to share your artistic talents and to jump in wherever you're needed!

Russandol is my co-admin in running the site from a tech standpoint. She manages much of the backend of the site. She and I have spent many white-knuckle hours in DMs, trying to figure out why the site is broken or running updates that we hope won't break the site. "Why, Drupal, why??" is our motto. I always appreciate her willingness to share her tech skills with us to keep our site secure and running!

On our newsletter staff, our art editor is Anérea, whose vast knowledge of the art side of Tolkien fandom means we have diverse and lovely artwork to accompany newsletter articles. Varda delle Stelle is the assistant art editor and also helps source art and with gaining permissions. Elrond's Library is our Around the World & Web editor, who keeps the announcements in our newsletter updated so that, we hope, SWG members can connect with events and challenges that enchant their muses.

Also assisting on Discord are our Istari, Ettelenë and Nienna, who help to welcome newcomers and answer questions. Anna (IdleLeaves) has been running monthly instadrabbling sessions on Discord as well for the better part of a year, and these are always a highlight of the month! (One is coming up next week.)

I want to note as well something that I've observed about volunteers in my two decades of running this group. Everyone here does much more than what I recognized them for. Despite what is already on their plate as volunteers, theirs are the hands that raise first when something needs to be done, and many of them run events outside of the SWG as well. Much of this work goes unseen and unsung.

Tolkien fandom has existed for many decades now. Thank you to ALL of the fandom volunteers, past and present, who have given their time, energy, and talents to keeping the gates of Middle-earth open so that we can return again and again.