The past year has been one of exceptional progress and growth for Civic Ventures and Encore and we want to express our appreciation for your participation and support.

Encore.org is the place to plug into the movement for work that matters in the second half of life. The growing community that you’re part of will help define a new stage of life and of work, challenging an entire generation to put their time, talent and experience to work for the common good.

Civic Ventures and Encore.org have a full set of activities planned for 2008. But the real key to realizing the enormous potential of our aging society is you. We’ll try to help supply some tools and resources to enable you to work together to realize your ambitions and tackle the big issues facing our communities, our country and the world.

As an initial step, please do continue to build your profile, uploading (if you haven’t already done so) your photo and adding to your encore story. Tell us, for instance, about your “encore moment,” the experience or insight that caused you to change course (or recommit yourself to the course you were already on).

And start connecting with each other. Post news about your projects or ideas, start new discussion topics or comment on items on the site. And let us know what kinds of new things you want to see on the site.

We’re looking forward to working with you to make 2008 a breakthrough year. In the meantime, we wish you a joyous holiday season, and a happy, healthy New Year.

All the best,

Marc Freedman and the entire Civic Ventures team