RE: This Week's Whaleshares Writing Contest and Winners from Last Week! Compete for your share of 1000s of Steem in prizes!

Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to participate in this @jphenderson!

I would really like to enter a few ideas I've already had/posted above: the first being my initiative of the group "Sphere of Influence/Incubator Tank" For Minnows and Baby Dolphins alike.

I started this project about a week ago with the intention of helping other fellow Minnows GROW, since I was so frustrated with seeing such poor payouts on my own posts - despite some of them being so good and so personal (at least, that's what several people had told me).

So, I wrote a SteemIt article entitled "Minnows/Dolphins - Let's Band Together & Grow/Earn $ Faster - Curious? Join Our Sphere of Influence!"

https://steemit.com/steemit/@fatpandadesign/creating-a-sphere-of-influence-for-minnows-dolphins-curious-let-s-grow-together

It received 194 comments, 117 upvotes, and was the foundation of our Facebook group, "Steemit - Minnow/Baby-Dolphin Incubator Tank - Grow Up to be a Whale!" which now has 73 members already. It can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/SteemitSphereOfInfluence/

With the help of some amazing people and especially my right hand man @skinnythames, we pulled it off!

We also have a Slack channel that we were starting to use a bit.

My focus, even though I'm a minnow myself, has been to help every single freakin' member I come across on SteemIt that needs some help. So many get discouraged so quickly because of low exposure/payouts - and that, in turn, makes them want to quit almost as fast as they started.

Well with the beginning of my minnow/baby dolphin growth initiative, I've gotten so many minnows pumped up and EXCITED about being on Steemit.

I've made TONS of friends on here because of starting this group.

We also merged with the newly formed Minnow Support Project run by @Aggroed - and I'm one of the higher up ranking members in there (that STILL dedicates himself to helping others and ensuring that new minnows can grow faster than if they were alone!)

I also learned last night that my real life best friend, another friend I met while traveling in Thailand, and another pal ALL finally got verified and are now official members of the SteemIt community!

I also am going to run a contest this week to give away a complete website package to 1 lucky SteemIt member that may need a website badly - an entrepreneur, a brand new business owner, an artist who needs a portfolio, etc - I run/own Fat Panda Design (https://www.FatPandaDesign.com) and would love to help out a SteemIt member with something that would normally cost over $1500+ ($1250 for the website, $300 for a year of hosting through me, etc).

I've ALSO proposed last night that we band together to find the best talent on the site to create a new and improved mobile app - and to crowdsource ideas for what the app should included (integrated crypto wallets, 2FA, etc). I posted this last night at this link:

https://steemit.com/steemit/@fatpandadesign/a-cleaner-friendlier-mobile-app-for-steemit-a-community-project-proposal

Basically, I'm just a new Steemer (12 days on here) that's absolutely in love with the platform. I love this place so damn much, and I love EVERYONE on here even more. You guys are like a 2nd family to me, and you've all inspired me to continue to be who I am and to just write, write, write - something that is quickly becoming a passion of mine.

With this, and by sharing my writing, I've been able to bring numerous people to join SteemIt through my social media channels (I have a decent following on FB and Twitter) and have raised a LOT of awareness in regards to what SteemIt is, and what we represent.

I would LOVE to win this prize. I'm trying to finance a skydiving trip to celebrate my 6 months clean from heroin, and if I won this, I could finally go. I could also afford to purchase a cheap action cam on the streets of Bangkok (i'm currently in Thailand) and could then share this epic adventure with all of SteemIt, upclose and personal!

Thank you all for reading - I hope I've earned your vote <3

RE: This Week's Whaleshares Writing Contest and Winners from Last Week! Compete for your share of 1000s of Steem in prizes!

My focus, even though I'm a minnow myself, has been to help every single freakin' member I come across on SteemIt that needs some help. So many get discouraged so quickly because of low exposure/payouts - and that, in turn, makes them want to quit almost as fast as they started.

I've ALSO proposed last night that we band together to find the best talent on the site to create a new and improved mobile app - and to crowdsource ideas for what the app should included (integrated crypto wallets, 2FA, etc). I posted this last night at this link:

-Panda, aka Fat Panda Design