GW Hoops Community, we're now more than three years into using this site and I strongly believe we have hit a wall in attracting new users.  I have long felt that without promoting the site via advertising or other related means, the casual fan just doesn't know to even look for us.

Case in point:
At GW's game yesterday, I was sitting in front of a group of five fans (clearly all friends and likely GW grads), along with a gaggle of children they brought to the game.  Overhearing their conversations and them getting their crew of youngsters to pound their feet and yell DE-FENSE, I asked if they were on the GW Hoops message board.  They had no idea it even existed, but there was a definite interest in learning more.  I showed one of them the site and he was absolutely planning to start visiting the site.

If you google "GW Hoops Message Board," you get the following listings:
- A blog entry from ColonialHoops.Blogspot.com from 2019 that mentions the demise of the previous board
- A similar blog post from DCAbloob
- Four more listings that don't mention us
- The Georgetown women's message board
- Two listings for the Gardner-Webb message board
- GW Sports official website
- George Mason's message board
...and so on.

I've decided to do something about this and I'd like your help. 
I've created a GW Hoops group on Facebook.  While I plan to continuously improve the look of the group page, my goal is to generate interest in our message board.  The group page is going to be populated with classic GW hoops videos (I've put three on there already), links to game conversations, game previews (thanks, DMV!), and other threads from this GW Hoops message board, and other posts that are positive. 

It is not intended for, nor will I allow posts that are negative or create disagreements (even respectful ones), because that's what this message board already provides.  The Facebook page is for promotion...giving people a "why" to come to our site.

I'm also setting up group "chats" to use during road games (when most of us are watching on tv or streaming).  This chat functionality has been requested many times by message board community members, so we'll give it a try.  My concern is that it won't be popular because of the lack of anonymity, but I would like to give it a try.

For now, I'll be monitoring and approving of Facebook group page posts, but eventually I'll remove this restriction.

Again, here's the Facebook group page link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3572142359724046/

Recognizing that many of you value your anonymity, I'll encourage you to choose whether you want to be a group member.  Either way, I think this is the natural evolution of this community.  At some point I will ask for donations so I can advertise us to move us up on Google, as well as on Facebook to attract followers. 

I'm also going to introduce myself to the George's Army crew and give them cards with a QR code to the Facebook group page to see if we can spike interest in our board from the most committed of student GW fans. 

Thank for helping give this a try and a very Happy New Year to all!