It was six months ago that I posted a thread in the Xbox.com forums "Looking for Xbox GamerchiX".
 
Since then, Xbox GamerchiX has grown to a group of 750 female gamers in 18 countries. Our collective gamerscore is only a bit over 2,300,000, but what we lack in achievements we make up for in attitude, supportive advice, and a willingness to try new things even if we look goofy doing it. We've got lawyers, editors, web developers, program managers, students, nurses, teachers, soldiers, sailors, and full-time moms among us. Our youngest member is four years old—she and her mom signed up together—and our oldest member is a 75 year old grandmother.
 
I am SOOO proud to be a part of this amazing community of women. Here are my top five favorite things about the 'chiX:
 
1. Their enthusiasm for welcoming new members never fades. Six months and over 700 members later they still post "Welcome to the new girls! You'll love it here! Send me a FR!" Every time.

2. The diversity. They're all female and they're all interested in games. But we've got little girls and grandmas, Europeans and Americans, Democrats and Republicans, girls with piercings and girls with 5 kids, girls in grad school and girls in junior high. But none of them trash on each other or disrespect each other's beliefs or opinions. It's nothing short of amazing.

3. The advice. You ever read that book "The Wisdom of Crowds"? The deal is that a large diverse group of 'regular people' will way more often come up with the right answer to a question or the correct solution to a problem than the supersmarties in a think tank. GamerchiX are happy to advise each other about anything from boy trouble to sick kids to wedding planning, recipes, and technical challenges. And games of course! Advice is usually dispensed with a 'hug' emoticon and an offer to talk it out on the phone.

4. The way they've embraced the GamerchiX manifesto. These ladies take seriously the agreement to not ever talk trash about other women. And they are fully down with the 'we are not pin-ups' tenet as well.

5. They love the guy gamers. I think part of the fear generated by the whole GamerchiX thing is that the boys thought we'd hide away in some bastion of estrogen and make fun of their genitalia. We haven't. Sure we have a chuckle now and again at the dumb stuff lads do, but we laugh at ourselves far more often. We still have plenty of guys on our Friends Lists too.
 
Anyway, didn't mean to get all sappy, but these chix make me really happy. If this is who is raising the next generation, I think we're in great shape.

If you are or you know someone who'd like to join Xbox GamerchiX, send me an email at xlmail@microsoft.com. Subject should be XGX. Please include your gamertag.