Now What?

I had an email last week, telling me my blog had been recognised by a team from Blogger, as deserving of recognition. There was an embed code for the above badge, but, me being a dimbo, I have no idea how to insert it anywhere on my side bar. I've resorted to putting it into an ordinary post. Now I'm sitting back and waiting for some kind person to explain how to put it anywhere else - only polite answers, please!

N.B. On 29/12/2012 and I've had a spam email from  one purporting to be jon.weber@mastersdegreeonline.net, asking that links from this be removed. As far as I can tell, there are now no links from this post, but I leave the logo as a warning to others. I would say meanwhile... Caveat Emptor...

This was their explanation of what the whole thing is about:-

Love to write poetry? Love the sound of visual and kinesthetic imagery? The way a poem can say what you feel in fewer words than even a short story can? Do you breathe in simile, exhale metaphor and enjoy the presence of assonance and alliteration? Then writing poetry is for you. Already know these basic terms? Want to go beyond them? Good news. These award winning blogs are for you. Learn from the masters how to best apply the terms you know. Improve the poems you have written; seek for a pattern scheme that better reflects your work and intent. Share what you have learned with others. These blogs will get you started.

As far as I can see, only good things can come from being part of such a community...I did ask for more information, and this was the next reply I got:-

The objective of the award is not just to recognize the great blogs that are out there, but also to create a community in which a blog can be used as a resource for others. We want anyone that has the yearning to educate themselves  in a specific area, to be able to know they can come to one place, and connect. The resources we've acknowledged and recognized, are blogs we think can educate and help someone learn more about that topic.
Aside from the educational aspect, we want those who blog about topics to connect, whether they already know each other or not. There may be just that one that we find to have a great blog, who doesn't know anyone else that blogs about their topic. This is where we come in and hope that you could display the badge in order to show yourself as a proud part of our community.  We want to connect the blogging community, not only to share ideas, but also to find motivation, strength and encouragement in each other.

The Blogger team actually found your site. They found that it fitted the criteria needed to be part of our community.

Some of the attributes of the criteria were: content, affiliations (relevancy to the actual blog itself), and posts (also pertaining to the relevancy of the subject of the blog), to name just a a few.

A list of other blogs that have been chosen can be seen  HERE  but don't expect to be able to link directly to any of the blogs you find on it! The cynicism is beginning to creep in...


Late Edition Extra

Thanks to the help and advice of tried and trusted Blogpals, the gratuitous link to ten different universities which was incorporated in the so called 'Badge', has now been removed, and I shall go to bed tonight a sadder and a wiser person. As my philosophy has always been to be a 'Mrs do as you would be done by, not a Mrs done by as you did' (see The Water Babies by Charles Kingsly for the origin of this reference) I will no doubt continue to be too trusting for my own good, but I shall now revert to my original declaration, that this is an award free blog!