possible Fundraiser to keep forum up and running.

[jakesrocks]

Just want to run an idea past our members. Your comments will be appreciated.

As you probably already know, responsibility for this forum has been dumped in Pinks lap. This includes any fees associated with the running and upkeep of this forum. This forum belongs to all of us. It's for our use and enjoyment. It's unfair to have Pink footing all of the bills out of her own pocket.

We had the same problem on another forum that I belong to, and came up with a solution which seems to be working very nicely. Auctions with the winning bid being sent to the person administering the forum to offset the monetary fees involved.

Here's how the other forum is running it.

#1 – A member offers something related to our lapidary hobby / business for auction. This member puts a time and date for the auction to end.

# 2 - To make the auction more attractive to bidders, the person offering an item or items for auction covers the cost of sending the item to the winner.

# 3 – At the end of bidding the winning bidder sends the winning bid to the administrator via paypal or another suitable means, and sends their mailing address to the person who offered the item/s for auction. The administrators account is listed as a fund raiser, thereby avoiding paypal fees. ( The other forum used paypal because it's quick, and almost all of the members have an account ).

# 4 - The administrator sends a PM to the person who offered the item/s for auction. Notifying them that payment has been received and that the item is cleared to send to the winning bidder.

# 5 - The person who offered the item/s for auction sends the item/s to the winning bidder.

All pretty simple and straightforward. Any money earned in excess of what's needed for the fees involved in the upkeep of this forum can be saved towards the following years fees, or else put back into the forum for upgrades or some such.

I partook of one of the auctions on the other forum that I speak of, and just today received my winnings. A box of beautiful, high quality slabs of various materials for cabbing. I'm a happy bidder. With the postage being paid by the person offering the slabs, I bid higher than I normally would have.

If there's enough interest in doing something like this to help pay to keep this forum going, I already have 2 things that I'll be offering for auction. Probably more after spring thaw, when I can pull my big saw out of the garage to start cutting slabs.

If anyone can think of anything to add to this, please do so. Your comments are welcome.

Don - Jakesrocks

[Lydia]

I agree. Pink should not have to bear the cost. (I guess Chris was? - also wrong). I'll definitely bid. I have mostly gemstone beads, but also jewelry and gems and would be willing to offer some to this forum's health.

[jakesrocks]

Thank you Lydia. Let's let this run for a week or so to see what sort of response we get.

[SwordfishMining]

The biggest problem I have is covering the postage beside the item. The whole international vs domestic thing. I'd prefer to start the auction at S & I and have a minimum of 4 times domestic postage or some such equalizer for the contents. Or like most stores buyers cover shipping from 0 to start. I'm rocker rich than money for mailing, especially when insuring internationally.

[PinkDiamond]

Allow me to jump in and try to clarify things, if I can.

I only know that the server cost me $70 last month, and that keeps us going until January 2018. That's a mere pittance, but the domain also has my credit card info, and I don't know how much that will be. That one doesn't come due until June, but it can't be that much.

I'm hoping we come in at under $200 per year, since we're flying by the seat of our pants with no tech help. But if we got someone to help with the tech side, I'm sure we would have to reimburse them for their time, and I can tell you that the program has said it needs updating for over a year now, but Chris never did do it, probably because apparently it's not as simple as updating Firefox or something on a computer, and I don't want to chance losing threads or screwing up the Board, so the idea of it terrifies me, being computer illiterate to begin with.

The server that can't get our notifications going again is probably in Canada, although it could even be in India based on the names of the reps I've done live chats with. I'm talking to Steve's computer wizard about moving us to a server here in the US, but he's not well, and I don't want this screwed up so I'm waiting patiently until he's better, and then I'll talk to him again. He seems to think he can do it, but I have no idea how much he'd charge; and again, I'm as nervous as a long tail cat in a room full of rockers when it comes to letting someone do it.

I was planning on sneaking the amounts we will need out of the household money, but jake said the auction on the other site did well, and we should try one to see if anyone is interested, so that's why this thread was started so we can get ideas, and find out if enough people might be interested in it at all.

The key here is I don't want anyone to fork over anything big. We wouldn't need to raise very much, and if by chance we didn't make it to whatever amount it costs, I'll figure out how to rob Peter to pay Paul, and it will be fine.

My motto is, The Lord doth provide, so I'm not worried because I know this whole forum came about because of His inspiration, so I know one way or the other we will have all we need to keep us going, and this may or may not be one avenue to do that. I'm open to anything.

[crazy8s]

The idea of an auction sounds fun, I would be just as happy donating funds for the cause. I have some lovely garnets I could through in the hat.

[jakesrocks]

The idea of an auction sounds fun, I would be just as happy donating funds for the cause. I have some lovely garnets I could through in the hat.

Cut garnets or specimens ? I'd certainly bid on specimens to add to my collection.

[Brightlights]

Allow me to jump in and try to clarify things, if I can.

I only know that the server cost me $70 last month, and that keeps us going until January 2018. That's a mere pittance, but the domain also has my credit card info, and I don't know how much that will be. That one doesn't come due until June, but it can't be that much.

I'm hoping we come in at under $200 per year, since we're flying by the seat of our pants with no tech help. But if we got someone to help with the tech side, I'm sure we would have to .....

I'm talking to Steve's computer wizard about moving us.......


I'm open to anything.

Pink, domain registration should only run about14-20$ per year, the hosting is what costs more. As for moving, you pick a new hosting company, register for the hosting and the domain move. They send a (email) letter to the previous company to confirm. The previous company sends you am email to confirm the first request. Once everyone proves who they are and that you did authorize the change then it happens. Hopefully in that time, you've installed the phbbs or whatever software the forum it's running on and configured it to be the same as the previous, but on the New server. Now is the tricky part, on that day the cutover happens, you back all the database for the forum on the old server and send that file to the New server. On the New server you restore the databases and if all went well there are no threads lost, just a day or two down. Point the domain DNS entry to the New server and leave the old forum shutoff. Now when a request comes in it Will go to the New server with the restored and running forum. After waiting a few days to see if all is working you breath a sigh of relief.

Only draw back is with your hosting paid till January 2018 your might not watt to start this till November 2017 because I doubt you'll get a refund if you are picking a New hosting company, etc... But it can take a while for the hosting verifications so you don't want too wait till December also! Just like insurance changes, a little overlap is better than none!

As for auction donation if you need to raise funds, I'm in but I'm also sensitive to the shipping needs. Maybe a set $ amount towards shipping with international bidders making up the difference? The same in reverse for international shippers,.

Also, assumption of currency being limited to US Dollars since that is what the hosting costs are in...

[Charles]

Hi Pink,

Do you know what program is being used? Is it phpBB?

Charles

[PinkDiamond]

Yes, that's exactly what it is Charles, and BL, finding out the domain should be so little delights me, but just reading about all that would need to be done and synchronized makes me jittery.