The International STa"M Forum

Over the past several years I keep getting added onto Sta"m and Safrus whatsapp groups, mostly Israeli in origin. I am currently part of about 25 such groups and while I hardly have time to follow them and rarely post on them, I have found them useful on occasion.  The best example of how they are useful to me would be in an emergency situation such as when I have a sofer in Israel that I usually buy from and I want his work computer checked before he sends it to me -  but the regular computer guy is not available -  I will post on the groups looking for someone else in his area who does computer checking.  Or sometimes my metayeg is busy so I will post that I am looking for a metayeg in a certain area in Israel. For such situations, the Israeli whatsapp groups are extremely helpful. Occasionally too, If I urgently need something, and I cannot get it from my regular trusted sofrim or suppliers, I may advertise that I am looking for a particular item and will usually get a response

 Received the following question: Someone is giving me an old Torah that needs me to review and fix many mistakes and faded letters. How do I charge? I'm assuming by the hour. What's the going rate for this work in the USA?

 One of the WhatsApp's Safrut group I am on gave a file containing a transperency and fold tikkun for a Ktav Chabad mezuzah size 20.  The group mentioned that everyone is allowed to give the tikkun to others I had to upload it on a Google drive in order to share it. Here is a link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LmWtIfHp2U3pbOU0FLTPmqCqsSziR5WQ/view?usp=sharing

I recently found this youtube channel that posts shiurim on STaM by Rabbi Shlomo Mulaaum.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5vQkMHPPMfYqcYBkujk2gw Very good videos!