Autoshite forum funding

[Talbot]

This month there has been a change of forum treasurer.  Yours truly will now be managing the forum funding as @stanky, having done superb work for the past few years has stood down.  I'd like to take the opportunity to thank Stanky for everything he's done, and how easy he has made the transition.

A couple of changes I have made, partly due to the demise of PayPal moneygroups, and due to my own thoughts on forum funding:

1. I will now be using a group funding service called Ko-Fi.  The main benefit of doing so is that they are zero-fees, which means (by my rough estimates) that we won't loose something like £40 each year to fees.  This in turn will then be used to pay for both the forum funding and the license for the forum software.
2. Rather than close off the fund raiser every month once it has met it's target, I will leave the fundrasing open for 24hrs or so, to give everyone a chance to make a contribution should they wish to.  This, due to the generosity of members here, will likely mean that I don't need to run a fundraiser every month, only when funds get low.  This has the benefit of allowing people who are not welded to the forum 24/7 to be able to make a contribution, and likely will reduce the amount of work that I need to do by not running a fundraiser every month.  I am lazy.

I will, of course, have accounts visible here and to anyone who wants to see them in greater detail.  The name of the game here is open-ness and transparency:  A modus operandi put into place by Stanky, and which I plan to use as the gold standard.

So.  This month's fundraiser.  Hosting costs were £65.08.  Slightly higher than the usual £50-ish, but this may be due to heavy use of the forum, and a slightly poor EUR to GBP exchange rate.

The donation pot is at:

https://ko-fi.com/autoshite

I would welcome any feedback from this site... how easy it is to make donations etc.  If it works well, I'll keep using it, if not, there are plenty of other services.

Once the fundraiser has been open for a day or so, I'll update here with how it's gone. 

 

[Macscrooge]

That was painless. 

[PrinceRupert]

It was very easy to make a donation.

[Ghosty]

couldn't be easier. 

[Cookiesouwest]

Painless

[andyberg]

Easy peasy.

[Talbot]

Very pleased to hear it's an easy process to donate!  Being the account holder, I can't really see the process of donating properly.

The fundraiser for November's hosting costs has been met, but as promised I'll leave it open for 24hrs or so.

Many thanks to everyone who has donated!

[95 quid Peugeot]

Pleasure to donate so painlessly 

[busmansholiday]

That was easy. Nice work @Talbot for sorting this.

[808 Estate]

Sorted.

[808 Estate]

I do like the idea of keeping it open for a few extra days, as I always seem to miss it otherwise.

[kirton]

At last managed to put some money in

[Dabooka]

Dun. Piece of piss too

[privatewire]

That is really easy, quick too.

[montytom]

Done as others have Said easy and painless

[richardmorris]

Very easy, have used it before and it works well.

[Talbot]

As we have now raised enough funding to cover November, December, January and possibly a bit into February too, I shall close the fundraiser request for now.  The level of generosity has been superb, and at this rate I'll only have to do this 3 or 4 times a year.

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed.  After Paypal fees (which appear to be unavoidable.. I'll look into that further for the future) the amount raised is £201.70  Of that, £65.08 will be used to pay for November's hosting, leaving £136.62 remaining in the kitty.

Thanks again to all.

[Talbot]

Well, this post is exceptionally late as it refers to December's hosting costs, paid at the beginning of January.  Still, as mentioned above there was plenty in the kitty, so it really wasn't an issue.  I just should have reported back a bit sooner!

£136.62 was held in account during December.  November's hosting costs came to £65.97.  This left £75.20 in the pot for next month.  No need for a fundraiser for this, or indeed next month.

Thanks to all for the previous generosity.  I think this method is working fairly well.  January's costs, payable at the beginning of February will likely be covered, so the next fundraiser will probably not be until towards the end of Feb / beginning of March.

[Talbot]

£75.20 was held in account at the end of January.  January's hosting costs have come to £68.60, meaning there is £6.60 remaining in the kitty.  Towards the end of February I will open up the fundraiser again.  If the response is as positive as the last one held, it will likely take us all the way to May.  But we'll see.

In the meantime, many thanks again to everyone who has contributed.  I will again leave the fundraiser open for a day or so to allow people who aren't glued to the forum a chance to contribute if they wish.

Thanks all!

[Talbot]

Februarys costs are £64.21.  There was £6.60 in the kitty, however a few people have discovered that the fundraiser on KoFi wasn't actually closed, and have contributed in the meantime (cheeky wotsits that they are) so the forum fund actually stands at £41.32 at the moment.

So, I will re-open the fundraiser, which can be found here:

https://ko-fi.com/autoshite

Unfortunately, despite KoFi being superbly easy to use, when it transfers balance to Paypal, it's considered a business transaction, so some fees are lost.  On the back of that, if anyone wishes to make a "friends and family" paypal payment directly into the Autoshite Paypal account, that would be most welcomed.  The email address to make a payment to is

autoshitehosting@fastandfurryous.co.uk

However, for anyone making a payment by any other method, or indeed would prefer not to use F&F to make the payment, that is no issue at all, and payments through KoFi are very welcome indeed.  Sending direct by Paypal Friends&Family is absolutely optional.  But is also welcomed to avoid fees.

I will, as before, leave this open for 24h or so, to allow everyone who uses the forum to see this and contribute if they wish.  With luck, this will again cover the next 3 or 4 months.

Many thanks.

[Cookiesouwest]

Done by PayPal F&F

[grogee]

Dun by Pet Pal Fur & Furballs

[Talbot]

Just in case anyone is concerned about the slightly odd email address... the @fastandfurryous.co.uk domain is one that I own.  It's a slightly oblique reference to Wile-E-Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons, which I absolutely love.  The first one (in 1949 no less!) was called "Fast and Furry-ous", referring to the roadrunner.  Can be seen here:

and with a catch-all on the email, it means I can use absolutely anything as the username, and it still gets to me.  A very powerful way of identifying where spam has come from, if every single company or person I give my email address to gets a unique address, then not only can there be no doubt where issues come from, but it means I can see when one company has used an email address I gave to another one.

Also means I can have multiple accounts on the same platforms (paypal for instance) with numerous email addresses, but the actual emails all get collected together into one inbox.

So that's why.

[Macscrooge]

Enormous* sum contributed via PayPal. 

[AnnoyingPentium]

Put in my donation. Hope it helps.

[Alan_Green]

That's a great idea, the email thing.  Gonna copy that.  On the subject of cartoons, why did Scooby Doo never do anything "impossible"?  Like paint a tunnel and run through it?  Or have a dinosaur dishwasher?  Everything in Scooby Doo could've been done with actors.  What's the point?

[Daviemck2006]

Left a donation this time

Sent from my SM-T585 using Tapatalk

[Wibble]

Donation made👍

[busmansholiday]

Some more corn for the Roadrunner.

[gelertd]

Chipped in