@fulltimegeek, great what you are doing for the community here :)
Have you ever though about delegating some power to @welcoming?
It's an account made for newbie curation nothing else. It will never selfvote. It will never vote the same user twice. It will never post. It will only curate and resteem promising newcomers.

You can find more details and the report for the first week here: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@theaustrianguy/almost-200-manually-curated-introduction-posts-a-view-back-at-the-first-week-of-welcoming

Greets and thank you once again :)