I do appreciate the kind words, thanks.
Regarding Matt M.'s comment:
I think MJB still takes contributions to his Beer Fund, his Spit Fund, and
the Server/Ops/Admin Fund at an address I'll find later here or at home
Yes, I'm always willing to accept donations on behalf of my efforts here.
I mean, I'm only in it for the money! Actually, given the cylinders per
lifetime thread, I wonder how the hours I've put in over the last dozen
years or so compares with the contributions sent in? I wonder if I've
broken into double digits, that is, more than 9 cents per hour?
Those of you who've been on the list for over a year may recall the "Brave
New World" message I sent out last October, where I solicited funding for
some new hardware and stuff to divorce the autox.team.net lists from the
U of Utah where I work. That was a successful fund drive, and now the mail
server is sitting in my basement office at home, rather than using the U's
resources. This move is costing me some additional out of pocket expenses.
So a couple of months ago I started sending out a pledge drive mailing to
the lists. There was a good immediate response ( the first FAX with a charge
card number showed up about 10 minutes after the first copy went out!) so I
stopped sending it out. You might have seen it if you are also on one of the
lists near the end of the alphabet, like vintage-race or wichita-scca.
Geez, I was going to wait until spring to redo it, starting with the beginning
of the alphabet, but since the topic came up, I'll include most of it below.
And given the time of year, feel free to replace the 'stack of school bills'
with 'stack of christmas bills' for those of you who celebrate the holiday
as a consumers ;-)
mjb, the grateful list admin.
=============================
Those of you who recently subscribed may have no idea who I am or what I do,
suffice it to say that mail to the various Autox.Team.Net lists doesn't just
appear out of thin air, there is a man behind the curtain.
But those of you who've been subscribed for at least a year may recall that
last fall we had a fund raising effort, the goal of which was to move the
server for the autox.team.net lists ( over 80 lists at last count ) away from
the University of Utah. That was a successful effort, and for some months now
the mail server has been running from my house.
One effect of the move was to increase my out of pocket costs by about $75
per month to cover the net connection. So here we go with another pledge
drive for the lists. This time, I'm not looking for thousands of dollars
to cover new hardware, but just six months worth of operating costs. Well,
actually, I'l round up the goal to an even $500. And roughly six months from
now I'll try to raise another $500, or whatever covers the monthly charges
plus a bit to stash away for the inevitable hardware replacement. Actually,
with over 12,000 distinct subscribers, if each and every one of them sent me
just one US Dollar for each list subscription, I'd put it all in the bank,
and the operating costs would be covered by the interest. But past fnding
drives would indicate more like a response rate of about 1% of the subscribers.
Which should prove adequate for the task at hand.
Why contribute? Good question. These days, there are several choices of
commercial services that will host mailing lists. They'd love to add you to the
list of customers they can offer their advertisers. And most of them have no
reservations about letting various attachments through to subscribers, good,
bad or indifferent. And with advertiser dollars, they can afford the five to
tenfold increase in bandwidth that HTML messages can generate. But I, for one,
feel that there is a need for a commercial free, independent source of email
lists, web service and FTP access for automotive enthusiasts of various types.
Just think of the difference between commercial television and PBS, as an
example. Or if you lived in Salt Lake City, you could compare my efforts to
those of the radio station KRCL. Their semi-annual pledge drive is coming up,
which, I will admit, is what prompted this team.net solicitation.
If you agree with what these lists are all about, I request that you take a
moment to send a check for five, ten, twenty dollars or whatever, payable to
Fat Chance Garage, to:
Fat Chance Garage
PO Box 58333
Salt Lake City, UT 84158
If you'd prefer, you can mail in Visa or Mastercard info, or fax it to me at
801-355-5438
I strongly suggest you not use email to send credit card information. One of
these days I'll get my parts business set up to take charge cards directly
over the net, maybe in time for the next pledge drive. And yes, I know about
Paypal.
If you are a starving student, or just spent your bucks on one more set of
race tires for the season, or you're sitting there staring at the stack of
bills that you generated getting your kids ready for school, don't worry.
I'm only asking for a couple of dozen subscribers to send in $20. You can
contribute at some future date. Stay tuned.
As for me, I'll keep the lists flowing as best I can. Also, you have likely
noticed in the past that being such a disorganised, procrastinating flake, I
don't always get thank you notes, paper or email, out to contributors. I'll
work on being better at that for this round.
Thanks,
mjb.
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