I have to agree with Jim.  Participation is what keeps the SI alive.
I plan on participating and hope others will too.
Sorry to hear you're under stress, Jim.  I hope you're able to sort
things out.  I sent you a suggestion for an upcoming Mandate and hope
it's useable.
Helen

Thanks Jim,
I have just sent a submission. I decided several months ago
I was going to participate in every SI - unfortunately I
haven't been out as much as I'd like taking photos, and
until this one haven't had anything to submit. The last week
has seen me on annual leave though, so voila, an SI
submission - unfortunately when SI is in its death throes :-(

I didn't even see the sky mandate posted but I've been neglectful
anyways. Maybe it is time to renew the concept. One idea is to have a
theme rather than mandate and to default to archive submissions within
the last 2 weeks plus a week from the announcement to the posting.

Say the theme is 'Sky' announced this past Tuesday; everyone has till
next Tuesday to submit something relating to sky. The point isn't to
push people to take pictures on a theme (we should already be taking
plenty of pics every 2 weeks) but to share how we've already been
shooting that theme. There is still the possibility of doing a custom
shot (with kudos) and a shot older than 2 weeks could be allowed as a an
archive shot.

Frankly I don't really like being told what to shoot and I tend to
resist that approach, as many creative individuals will. Maybe that's
simply my justification but anyways there's my two cents.

Or even just forget the timing aspect and don't 'penalize' archives.
There are some great photogs here who have decades of marvelous photos
which I would enjoy seeing and discussing. A little motivation for them
to scan them up & present them and just as valid for folks to shoot for
the theme if they like that approach. Those of us who are shooting
bunches every week anyways will most likely submit recent work because
that's what's most relevant & there's no cash prize to 'cheat' for :-)

For about a year I tried to participate in the SI.   At one point, I even
offered to try to run the SI when it looked like it was going to go belly-
up for lack of an Administrator.  Frankly, I'm glad that Jim took the job
and I didn't wind up with it.  The level of discussion in this group kept
getting worse and worse; to the point where I finally just gave up on
r.p.e.35mm.  My SI participation stopped then too.  I switched to Fred
Miranda and that has worked out well.  I've been using Usenet since 1995
and this is the first Usenet group that I've ever left because I got weary
of what was going on.   Most group disturbances die down after awhile but a
few posters in this group would put the energizer Bunny to shame.  I
occasionally come back here to lurk (obviously so, or I wouldn't have seen
Jim's post) and this time I couldn't resist expressing sympathy for Jim's
"frustration level".  What I find really strange about the situation here
is that much of the 'noise' comes from people who seem to be quite skilled
photographers.  I can't get my head around that aspect of the situation.  
Oh well, back to FM.  :)