Thursday, March 20, 2008

Soulful Encounters What Does This Mean?

Soulful Encounters means beautiful souls awaiting to be your friend! Soulful is for love..Come to www.SoulfulEncounters and you will see that you can fill your soul with lasting bliss!

And Now For The Rest Of The Story

they have a dolphin adventure where you can go in the water with them. Then we talked about the Stat~ Fair-Kenny Rogers and the Oakridge Boys were going to be there. So in August I jumped in my car and drove to Indianapolis. My friends were all worried about me driving down by myself, and for me it was a huge leap of faith. We had a fantastic time."
Londoner Carole McFadden has no disability, so she never dreamed that she would find romance on Soulful Encounters. But she has after connect¬ing with Kevin Saichuk, who lives in Burnaby B.C. As the parent and primary caregiver of a 25 year-old daughter with spina hydrocephalus, McFadden was simply looking for someone to talk to, someone she could relate to because their experience waS similar to her daughter's. She has made a number of new friends through the website, but says, "for some reason Kevin and I clicked." The two have chatted and talked using a web cam, but have yet to meet in person. Saichuk, who has brittle bone disease, isn't fussy about flying, says McFadden, but they are hoping to meet up in Winnipeg sometime in February.
As with any Internet dating site, people need to be cautious when they meet someone online because there are a lot of scammers in cyberspace, says Maxwell. As the site's administrator, she is very protective of Soulful Encounters' members, and has put a number of filters and safe¬guards in place to quickly identify and eliminate scammers and spammers.
Maxwell is far more than the site's administrator, though. For many members she has become a mentor, supporter and friend. "I welcome everyone personally, and I spend a lot of time with people on the phone," says Maxwell, who takes the time to understand each person's personal situation and draw out their strengths and talents.
Maxwell first worked with people with disabilities when she was in her early twenties and on staff in a medical office. From the outset she was determined to


treat them as people first. "I made a hab¬it of speaking directly with people with physical challenges, instead of have their parent or caregiver speak for them."
After being involved in a car accident when she was in her late thirties, Maxwell underwent eight different back surgeries. Being housebound for nearly 10 years, she experienced the isolation and frustration that many people with disabilities encounter on a daily basis.
The inspiration for Soulful Encounters came from a young woman Maxwell met who was born with no arms and had resigned herself to never having a romantic relationship. At around the same time, one of Maxwell's sons was exploring dating sites on the Internet. That planted the seed in Maxwell's mind: why not a dating site that catered specifically to people with physical disabilities? "It drives me nuts that some people think disabled people do not need physical and emotional intimacy," says Maxwell. "That's not true."
Launched in 2005, Soulful Encounters logged almost 2,400 members by 2006. That year Maxwell began to use a new website hosting company and during the transition to the new service provider she lost many of the member contacts. The website was restructured and relaunched in May, 2006, and since then has attracted over 600 members that range in age from 21 to 87, with the majority in their forties and fifties. Most are North American-more than half in the U.S.-but there are also members in Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, France, Denmark and Sweden.
Chad McLinchey was Soulful Encounter's first member, joining in April 2005 . He had been looking for web¬sites where he could connect with people with disabilities and had not found any Canadian sites until he happened upon Maxwell's. McLinchey isn't housebound or isolated-he gets out and about on a regular basiS-and plays drums in a
rock band-but he enjoys talking with other people with disabilities who share common experiences. And at 27, he still holds hope that he might find romance one day.
Because he has dystonia, a movement disorder that leaves him with minimal movement control, McLinchey has to rely on others to type for him and only visits Soulful Encounters about three times a week. For other members, the site is a daily lifeline that connects them to online friendships. Read the website's testimonial page and you quickly under¬stand the impact that Soulful Encounters and Maxwell have had on their day-to¬day lives. Says one member, "Louise made me feel worthy and confident ... not trapped and sad. I have never felt so good about myself in my entire life."
"Whether they date or not is secondary now," says Maxwell. "What is more important is the way they feel empowered, the way everyone is embracing each other, and the huge support system that people have developed."
www.soulfulencounters.com

Soulful Encounters Is Dancing!!!

Enterprise
Louise Maxwell started Soulful Encounters as an Internet dating service for the disabled. What she ended up with is so much more BY KYMWOLFE
City Life Magazine February/March Edition 2008
GOOD FOR THE SOUL



LOUISE MAXWELL INITIALLY LAUNCHED Soulful Encounters as a dating site for the medically disabled and differently abled, but it has quickly evolved into a unique online community that goes far beyond the role of matchmaker. It is a support system for people (and their parents) with disabilities; it's a forum where members can get expert advice from psychologists, pastors, lawyers and other professionals; and it is a virtual meeting place where people can find friendship-and, in some cases, romance.
That's what happened for Londoner Bonnie Maas, who met Ed Allen through Soulful Encounters and spent this past Christmas with him in Walton, Indiana. Maas, 49, who has multiple sclerosis, had previously been on regular dating sites and says, "I met some really nice guys, but there was no chemistry." She joined Soulful Encounters early in 2007 and 50-year-old Allen, who has a heart condition, joined in February. The two began to chat and email back and forth, but it wasn't until Allen went on vacation during the summer that Maas realized how much she looked forward to his messages.
"I missed him, so I sent him a message: 'Just wondering, did you fall off the face of the earth or what?'" she chuckles. "I found out later he was rock climbing and in fact there were a couple of times where he almost did fall am" Once Allen returned the two began to phone each other and that led to an invitation to visit in August.
"I've always wanted to swim with the dolphins, and Ed suggested I check out the Indianapolis Zoo because (to be continued)

WOW! You can read about Soulful Encounters!!

Soulful Encounters is full of surprises and seems to be in the news of late..The press release was carried..Louise Maxwell knows the problems the disabled have in starting new relationships. So she's helping them on her website.
ENTERPRISE: Giving disabled a chance to find someone
Christopher Clark
Sun Media
January 7, 2008
Though she is married, Louise Maxwell is quite upfront about the fact an Internet dating service changed her life.

CHRISTOPHER CLARK


A CLICK AWAY: Louise Maxwell's website, SoulfulEncounters.com, has evolved from a dating service to a community. (MIKE HENSEN photographer/Sun Media)
The service is SoulfulEncounters.com, and she is the founder. Although it began as a dating service, its users quickly transformed it into a community of individuals looking to form friendships in cyberspace.

Maxwell, 61, was never interested in creating a dating service for twentysomethings looking to hook up with each other. Her service is dedicated to people with physical or medical disabilities, people she knows from experience can have trouble making friendships and finding like-minded people with whom they can share time and attention.

"I worked in medical offices for 20 years and I saw a lot of people with physical disabilities," Maxwell says. "Attitudes have changed since then, but I saw a lot of people being ignored. If someone is in a wheelchair, it's common for them to be talked over and ignored."

Maxwell was already sympathetic to the situation of many disabled, and then she ran into a series of health challenges that left her unable to leave her home for years at a time.

An auto accident in Saudi Arabia in 1982 triggered a lifelong battle for mobility, an experience that has included five major back surgeries and episodes of chronic pain she has learned to manage, but not avoid.

Her husband, Brian, is visually impaired and cannot drive.

"Every day I get up and I don't know what I will be able to do that day. I make plans, but I never know what I can do until the moment arrives," she says.

In an effort to keep herself busy and learn something new, she started dabbling with the Internet two years ago. She wanted to do something focused on disabled people, and her initial foray was a dating service.

"That was how it started, but it expanded into something more very quickly," she says. "Many disabled are so lonely, so I found that a lot of people were spending time in the chat room on my site. They were talking to each other, regardless of their location or disability.

"It became a social setting, a community."

After launching the site in May 2006, Maxwell rejigged it and switched Internet providers last fall. Since then, it has been growing every week. Friends recommend the site to each other, and many people have turned to Maxwell for advice and help. She dives in and helps whenever she can.

Recently, she helped an epileptic in the U.S. find free medical care, then helped him apply for Medicaid.

In the same spirit, she has given some loyal website visitors tasks that help keep the site operating. It makes them feel good and helps Maxwell handle the daily load of keeping her site running smoothly.

She hopes to sell some advertising to defray her costs or turn a small profit this year. That's far down her list of hopes for the project, but it would ensure the site's continued viability -- and that's at the top of her wish list.

-- -- --

LOUISE MAXWELL

www.SoulfulEncounters.com (see link).

nline and then some. Yippee!!