Hi Backyard Dog Trainers! Today is the last day of the May BINGO Challenge. Thank you to all who participated! Congratulations to Emily and Dunkin, Lori and Drover, and Lori and Doby for completing Bingo! And EXTRA congratulations to Charlotte and Bluebell, Jen and Sommer, Emily and Tali, and Emily and Brady for earning Bingo Blackout! Now, for something more serious. I've invested a fair bit of time and effort in this Skool group, but probably not enough to grow it to the point of being worth the money I'm paying every month to keep it open. This is my fault, but between looking at my dwindling bank account and my limited time available, I think that I need to make a change. I imagined this would be a group where people would interact with each other and drive the group a bit, but it seems to have dwindled to only a few people who interact with me based on my prompts. Skool is designed to be a site for people who want to make money and sell classes in their communities. I've not monetized the community in that way. However, to keep it going, I need to figure out something so that I'm not spending hours of time each week AND paying Skool to keep it afloat. My credit card bills say I need to take a different route, ha! I'm also very scattered across platforms, and that's making it difficult for me to have a successful work/life balance. As I see it, the options are for me to 1. create short courses or offer lessons through this Skool (but there would have to be people who want to purchase these regularly), or 2. move the group to a free platform and change up how it works. I'm leaning toward #2 but could be convinced of #1 if there is interest. In regards to moving the group, I feel like my options, based on what I know right now, are to create a Facebook group, which most of you are familiar with, or to create a Substack. I already run Facebook groups, and I already have a non-dog-related Substack, so I'm comfortable using both platforms. A Facebook group would allow people to post easily and would allow and encourage a lot of general chatting, which is what I thought would happen in this Skool group, but it's not. The notifications on Facebook are better than those on Skool. No matter what I do here, I don't get notified that people have posted until much later (if at all). I feel like it's easier to spot a spammer/scammer on Facebook and keep them out. I don't like trying to decide who is a scammer here and who is not.

This bounced back to me on email.... so putting it here I'm one of those that likes the FB model....i do limit what I see on FB and do like that comments are easier to post (it seems, but that just could that is due to my history there) I had another group go to Substack and kinda lost track of them..... seems like I am always using phone and THAT likes FB.... but again, maybe that's just due to my experience/ history. I could try something else..

Brenna this idea might be something you can incorporate into June Backyard. I have Bluebell bobbing for cucumbers.

Post your Bingo submissions here! Include dog's name and behavior completed with each post. Please no questions on this thread. Ask them in the Rules thread. Thanks! Good luck!