Sincere condolences from Bloghounds to the family and others close to Rob Chambers [Mutley] who passed away in the early hours of Friday morning, May 21st. His partner in life, Kate, of Merry Daze blog, informed many in the sphere of the tragedy and understandably, the blogosphere is both stunned and chagrined by the news.

Mutley [Rob] was that type of very human, down to earth character who had not an enemy in the world, so it seemed. His sense of humour was/is legendary and his blogging style unique.

The official site, put up by Caroline Chambers is available if you would like to leave your thoughts etc. for Mutley and the second is Kate's:

http://robert.chambers.gonetoosoon.org/
http://merrydaze.blogspot.com/

The latest is that we are at sleep just now, not taking members currently nor dropping them off. Other projects are consuming the two active committee members but we recommend we all stay as is for now. We'll be back.

The Bloghounds badge is a symbol of blogs of a better quality and it continues to fulfil that function. However, as a group, we've been a bit less than active, so much so that the working committee feel that we need to redefine our aims and objectives with a view to starting anew in the New Year, stating what we're about, asking members to reaffirm their membership and inviting new members.

Until this happens, we can't really accept any new applications at this time, sorry. Please stay tuned for developments a short way into the New Year.

Members, at many of your sites, you're running the old logo and we do not have permission for this. Attached here are three versions of the Bloghounds logo - please choose or resize to your taste.

Bloghounds is even sleepier than usual but there are stirrings around the kennel. There are a series of proposals up in the forum which the committee have discussed and the results of those might be posted here [in case of N4] or might not. Watch this space.

Here is the original diagram. If you'd like to play around with it and make it better, please feel free.

This was mocked up from a photo from Wiki commons of a bassett hound but the graphics programme is poor - the text 'bleeds'. We'd need to do it on a good programme to use it. Do you like it?

We're coming up to our first birthday and essentially, it's time for a make-over, at least in the eyes of the committee. We're currently putting a number of proposals together and will submit them at our forum. Some are quite fundamental changes, some involve tightening up and some involve loosening up a bit where once we were tight.

We definitely have something going here with Bloghounds, now it's time to define ourselves a bit more. Keep your eyes peeled.

Well, members, I've just woken from a long snooze and Bighound tells me we were meant to get ourselves a new logo. The pawmark looks good to me but you might have some thoughts which you can express in our forum. The one on my site I don't think we can use - we'll probably need some original artwork. I see we have quite a few new members too so I must get round to them and say hello. Hope you fellow hounds are in good shape.

As usual, this is a personal review and you’re welcome to post your own.
The Bloghounds welcome your perspective.

We find ourselves with eight months under our belt and where are we?

The attrition of blogs

Some say that the nature of blogging has changed; certainly there is a move by certain sections of society to restrict and register blogs but there also seems to be less blogging going on in general.

Bloghounds needs to recognize realities and the immense pressures [in blogging terms] of real life in 2009. In short, people have their own worries and less time to devote so this, in turn, makes rules about visiting other members and linking quotas unworkable.

There is also the firm principle that a blog is a voluntary, largely unpaid medium which someone maintains because he or she wants to. Therefore, he will want to visit the Dales, Wat Tylers and Dmajor bloggers, he has his own daily round and his own inner circle.

Where does that leave Bloghounds?

From a personal point of view, it seems, as I wrote once before, that BH is a brand name and as such, the principles upon which it was founded need to remain immutable, as the best trading houses in the world, the ones remaining viable and not bailed out, also do.

The line, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ applies to us. As a badge of a certain, if minor distinction, it stands for ethical principles and that has implications for new inductees. We don’t have many rules but those we do have, we stick to almost vehemently. Not to put too fine a point on it – there is a certain type of blogger we like to see wearing the Bloghounds badge and there are, sadly, some which we don’t.

This is not high-nosed but a simple statement that we are protecting the brand name.

The committee

We do seem to have settled on a skeleton committee which takes care of the nuts and bolts but I’d like to mention some in particular.

There is our technical whiz, Wolfie, who made it possible in the first place and keeps these matters going, there are the original committee members such as Andrew Allison, Welshcakes, Jams O’Donnell [current committee member], Sackerson and then there is one other to mention at this time.

This lady is the goods, a great administrator because she does it with so little fuss. To have an admin who is also so in Real Life is a coup and I’m referring here to Cherry Pie who has carved out her own little niche in the blogosphere and who crosses so many blogging boundaries.

Issues

There are two issues we’ve so far had to face.

One was the image copyright matter which we jumped on in uncharacteristic haste, followed now by our own langorous search for a new logo.

The other is the constant problem of applicants who are refused. A look at the correspondence which goes back and forth over any controversial applicant has shown a distinct pattern – unanimity amongst those who spoke and silence from the others.

We know what we want and we know what we don’t. We reserve the right to rely on our members’ voices and we go with the majority opinion. There is no undue administrative directing of opinion for the simple reason that this membership has shown itself to be impervious to undue influence. They’re big boys and girls in their own right.

Bighound

There is one mystery member who can usually be found contentedly curled up on the hearthrug. We assure members he’s been fed and watered and if you see him roaming round the premises late at night, do not be alarmed – he’s simply shifting position to get closer to the warmth.

The human members

We are the members. Having said that, recent votes and comments have shown a distinct tendency to leave it to the few and so be it. BH does not push the unattainable; it recognizes reality. If things are going in a certain direction, then that’s the direction they’re going.

If this report resembles a boring quarterly company review sent to your mailbox, then that’s a big plus in our eyes. ‘Steady as she goes and into 2009’ is where Bloghounds is currently sailing.