You can find Story of Mum's terms and conditions (including our privacy policy) for using the website and receiving Mama-Loving Mail over here.
You can find Story of Mum's terms and conditions for Mamas' Retreat ticket sales and gift vouchers over here.
Here are answers to some of the questions we've had about using the Story of Mum website.
1) How do I submit something I have created for story of mum?
To take part in story of mum, you need to sign up and login. Sign up here. Click on 'login' in the top menu and add your details. You can choose to give your real name as a 'user name' or remain anonymous. We'll check you've provided a valid email address and you're in...
To join in with any of the tasks or activities on story of mum, simply visit the page relating to the activity you'd like to take part in and click on the 'join in' button on the top right. A form will pop up to show you how to upload a photo or video or text or whatever that story needs - just fill in the blanks.
As it mentions in the website's terms of use (also shared at the bottom of this page), you need to ensure that you have the rights (copyright) to whatever you're sending to us - this just means it is your own work. And of course, that you are happy for us to show the work publicly here.
2) What will happen to my submission?
We will generally show everything that is submitted to story of mum on the website. We're not judging whether your work is good or bad, we're just delighted that you're making time for yourself and joining in. We may have to remove inappropriate submissions.
Whenever someone completes an activity and submits their work, it appears under the 'most recent' activity on the website, helping others to find it. Often, a message is sent to our twitter and facebook pages to tell other mums.
If all goes well, we may show material featured on the website as part of a 'real-life' story of mum exhibition or event, include it in a story of mum book, or share it as part of a visual description of story of mum's work. If so, we will endeavour to contact you by the email address you have provided to let you know, and we will not use submitted material for any purpose other than to further our aims at story of mum - supporting mothers by encouraging mums to connect, create, and celebrate the good and bad of motherhood together.
3) How long do I have to join in with an activity?
As long as you like. You can join in an activity at any time. But our advice to you is to do it as soon as you can. Do it right now in fact. Because as we all know, if you put something off, you may never get around to doing it. Set yourself a goal like "I will complete that activity in the next 24 hours and create the best photo/picture/collage/poem/whatever I've ever done too..."
4) If I have any questions, who do I contact?
Just email us if you have any questions and Pippa or Penny will do our best to get back to you as soon as possible.
5) Can I join in the same activity more than once?
Yes you can join in as many times as you like.
6) Can I join in more than one activity?
Yes you can join in one activity or all of the activities, as many as you like.
7) Do I have to follow the instructions exactly as they are written?
Every submission that follows the instructions will be posted on this site. Work that does not follow the specifications will not be posted. And of course we reserve the right to remove any material that is obscene or inappropriate.
8) What type of images/sound/video files do you accept?
For display on this website:
We accept images formatted as jpegs (.jpeg/.jpg), gifs (.gif), tiffs (.tiff/.tif) and bitmaps (.bmp).
Acceptable sound formats are Mp3s (.mp3), aiffs (.aiff) and wave (.wav) files.
For video, we will use You Tube.
9) What happened to the activity I joined in with?
Sometimes, but very rarely, we may take down entire activities and all the accompanying submissions. This is not your fault. It is just part of our trial and error process.
10) How do I share what I've created with my friends?
On the left hand side of each page, you'll see a SHARE! section with icons to share that page through your own facebook, twitter and other pages. So - just visit the submission you've just made, click on one of those icons and share the link.
If you sign up to follow us on twitter and 'like' us on facebook, you can easily keep up to date with who's doing what and share links from there too.
11) How do I comment on someone else's submission?
If you like what you see, click on the name of the mum that made it - this will take you to her profile page. You can leave a comment here. She'll receive a message letting her know that you have commented - and can comment back if she wants. You can comment on blog posts, including blog posts.
If you see any comments that are inappropriate, do let us know, and we'll remove them straight away.
Story of mum is a supportive community and we encourage thought-provoking discussion and a variety of mothering perspectives. No personal attacks are permitted in this blog’s comments. You may question or argue the content, but not attack the blogger, nor any other commenters. Failure to respect fellow participants on this blog could result in removal and blocked access.
12) Something technical has gone wrong, what do I do?
Try logging out and into story of mum again, restarting your internet browser, and if that fails, restarting your computer. Failing that, drop us an email to say what went wrong, what browser you're using (i.e Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer etc.) and we'll investigate the problem and try to sort it out as soon as we can. Thankyou!
13) My question isn't answered here
Then please email us and we'll try to answer your question, and add it here too.
