Goodbye to 2009

2009 was an exciting year at Ohio Paranormal Investigation Network. While things were hit and miss throughout the year, the year as a whole was very exciting.

As the Director of O.P.I.N. since 1996, I have done what I could to keep the group grounded and away from the spotlight as necessary. Our culture as a paranormal investigation field has changed dramatically over the last few years and it has become necessary for groups like ours to come out of their shell and become visible to the general public. Years ago this was trouble in the making, now it is the standard way of doing business.

Our main goal has always been to educate as many people as possible through our knowledge and experience, whether they are a client or someone listening to us in a library. We are taking this goal to the next level by letting everyone know what we are up to. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but in years past many groups kept their public affairs private. We are making many efforts to mingle with others from our field and the general public in public events to help keep the reality of what we do intact and keep the misinformation from the internet and television from influencing our field too much.

This year members from O.P.I.N. have participated in two paranormal conferences as speakers; the Ohio Paranormal Convetion in Dayton, Ohio and the Northeast Ohio Paranormal Conference in Rootstown, Ohio, both events were top notch. We will be attending these events next year and may put more of these events on our calendar in 2010.

Due to cut backs in spending we were only able to do two library presentations this year. My goal was at least four, but many libraries were either not doing these types of presentations or finding local talent to fit their needs. Both of our appearances (Grafton and Westerville) were done without asking for any compensation and both were very well received by those who attended. We have spent some time creating educational and mind-opening PowerPoint Presentations to share with the public with these events and we hope to have more events in 2010.

O.P.I.N. was also happy to participate at the Lake County History Center's public ghost hunt event which took place in November (see the following blog posts). This gave us a chance to work with other groups, help the public while educating them, and giving back to historical places in our home state.

A majority of the rest of the year was spent helping clients with private investigations, which have become fewer and fewer each month due to the influx of groups. I'm not complaining about this as this does lighten the workload for everyone and does free us up to get involved with other projects we have not had time to do in the past. The ghost field has been growing since I became involved back in 1996 and the growth seen since the "Ghost Hunters" television show era is actually only a small bump in the influx compared to the decade prior.

On a personal note I was able to get a paper published in the Journal of Anomalous Sciences, a quality Journal aimed to bring the amateur movement of paranormal investigaiton into the eyes of the professional scientists. I joined ParaNexus, a professional organization of individuals with long term goals very similar to my own, and have become a Director for the state of Ohio. I have had many personal projects I have been working on since completing my first two books in 2008. I hope to debut some of these new ideas in 2010, including some more reading material. O.P.I.N. is also poised to have a busy and successful year with many new adventures in planning. Stay tuned as we will be discussing some of our upcoming projects in the works for our team.