Thumper Club Forum
Club House => Chatter => Topic started by: Steve H on September 28, 2023, 11:30:53 AM
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As some of you will know I have been running the club site for some years now, originally it was funded by membership fees and latterly the costs have been covered by Google Advertising revenue. The revenue from Google has declined over the years and going forward I doubt it will cover the costs.
There have been some recent GDPR changes which require updates to how the site displays adverts and obtains consent for data usage (by Google not the club), these changes need to be completed by January, although it would seem the adverts have already stopped being displayed. I started work on doing the updates but have hit a bit of a hurdle, the changes require me to provide a link to the sites privacy policy. Having done a quick search it seems the privacy policy is legally binding and as such you have to pay someone to create one. Bearing in mind the limited income it generates it seems pointless to go down that route.
Which leaves the issue of how to fund the site. The hosting will need to be renewed at the beginning of May next year (2024) and the domain renewed in June. Currently the most cost effective way of buying the hosting is to pay for 4 years up front, the domain is renewed yearly at the moment.
4 years of hosting is currently £141.60 and the domain £13 for a year. So all in that would be £200 (ish) which would secure the site for 4 years.
So the first question is
- Would the current membership (as a group) be prepared to donate to keep the site running ?
- Would someone be prepared to volunteer to collect the money ?
Thought please
P.S please do not turn this into a debate about GDPR
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Steve, you have done a magnanimous job in keeping the site going as long as you have with very little support. I for one would gladly pay a "subscription" to keep it going. £200 seems very little for a 4 year term.
As you are probably aware there is a "hard core" of people who use this site but I feel it is invaluable to a lot of people. I would like to see how many are genuinely interested in keeping this going and as the Stafford Show is only a couple of weeks away, it would be a good opportunity to discuss and guage feelings for it.
I will do whatever I can to keep it going.
Ian 👍
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Hi Steve. Yes can I please echo Ian’s words and thank you for running the site as you do 👍
I too would gladly pay a subscription fee to keep it going.
Thanks, Michael
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So it isn't magic pixies who run the site?
Great job Steve, sorry I've not met you. I would also pay a subscription or make a one-off payment, whichever is best, to keep using the best forum around.
Ian
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Aye Steve,
Thank you for your hard work and notification of the impending loss of advertising revenue.
I would agree that spending your time and effort on updating the site, so as to conform with the revised GDPR (The General Data Protection Regulation is a European Union regulation on Information privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area. The GDPR is an important component of EU privacy law and human rights law, in particular Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.) for rapidly diminishing advertising revenues makes no sense.
Yes, I would be prepared to make a donation to keep the site running.
Collection of monies? Is this where we avoid the GDPR, but fall foul of some other legality/liability for funds? I am not sure and would prefer to work on trust. Needs some thought, before jumping up and down shouting "Me Sir, oh please Sir!", if you understand?
Would a donation bucket at the Staffs Show be possible?
Is it possible to use a "Pay per View" system, like TV? So that the latest months (30 days) or other time period, is only viewable by subscribers.
The latter is very much an off the wall suggestion and if its baldocks, I understand.
Thank you again for your contiued time and effort to keep the comfy chairs and the shed roof from falling in. ;)
Good health, Bill
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Collection of monies? Is this where we avoid the GDPR, but fall foul of some other legality/liability for funds? I am not sure and would prefer to work on trust. Needs some thought, before jumping up and down shouting "Me Sir, oh please Sir!", if you understand?
Bill,
Cheers for that. Its not a legality issue, its more that my interests have moved and my time is spent on other things so feel it would be better if someone else took ownership of collecting the money.
Steve
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I too would be happy to contribute. This is a great forum.
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And me. On the Ducati Monster Owners' Forum they have been selling off regalia and / or raising funds by auctioning stuff to club members-just a thought something similar might work here?
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yes i would be happy to donate :) tommy
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Steve
Thanks for your efforts.
Yes happy to donate.
Would a just giving link or something similar work?
Or a PayPal address we could all put a few shekels into, and when it reaches the required amount then use that. If it doesnt then I guess too bad, and we lose it??
A
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Just had a (very) quick look at members list. Nearly 6 pages of 30 members. Shall we say 40 use this reasonably regularly 🤔. A fiver each.....that's bu99er all for one of the best forums on tinernet.
What do you think? I like Andy230s idea regarding a PayPal account but I think, sorry I know I'm not clever enough to set it up.
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just a idea but could the site sell club stickers , stick a few extra qiud on the sticker price for a donation to the site , eee i love a good sticker me .. ;D tommy
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ok, im in for 50 quid, tell me how you want it paying.
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well. looking at the previous missives there is obviously more than enough positive interest to keep the show on the road.
so, i think Andy's paypal idea has legs ... but as i see it setting up a paypal account requires A) a valid email address & B ) an active uk bank account in the background. i'm more than happy to investigate further and, if members think it's a goer i'd be happy to set it up and administer it. then it would be a simple case of publishing the accounts on here as and when required.
we could then maybe run various fund raising events (merchandise, auctions of motorcycle bits you don't want any more etc) which can be used to keep the account topped up.
in any event i'm happy to stump up for whatever scheme we settle on, the TC is a great forum and has been extremely useful to me in the past.
and thanks Steve for your past (and hopefully, future) hard work in keeping the TC boat afloat.
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Thanks Steve for that generous offer of managing. See you end of next week and hopefully we can have something concrete sorted by then. 👍🏍?👍
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Yet another reason why I’m now even MORE gutted I can’t make it to Stafford. Would have been good to have a chin wag about this ere subject. Anyway, please let me know the final outcome of any such discussion and I’ll gladly stump up a couple o quid 😁😉....
Ok ok.... I’ll stretch it to 50quid if needed 😉
Cheers, Michael
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Hi All,
I don't comment much on here but I always read what's going on with interest.
I will be at Stafford and will pop over to the stand and drop some money over to whoever is collecting there.
Cheers
Foxy
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Any news on this? (well) used fivers burning a hole in my pocket....
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I don't want to pre empt the situation but I believe SteveL was looking into the possibility of opening/using an account for this purpose. I'm sure he will be along to confirm when he has sorted something.
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I've only just seen this, but more than happy to bung a couple of quid into the pot.
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ok, well, here we are post stafford where we had good intentions of discussing this at length, but ... ahem ... we all managed to duck the issue in favour of salivating over erotica oops sorry exotica in Bonhams auction room and various stands. not to mention the obligatory pub crawl/wetherspoons nosh!.
so i will now attempt to put something together to present to members for their approval (or otherwise).
i have already booked a url, and will set it up with an email address should we go ahead, it would be in the form of subs@thumper-club.com, and then attached to a paypal account which in turn would have a standard bank account behind it. well, thats the plan, if you have any other ideas i'm open to suggestions ..
bring it on!
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Thank you Steve.
We are being drowned again!
Good health bor, Bill
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Hi Steve, and thanks for setting that up. As soon as you have confirmed everything, I'm sure we will have enough moolah to keep the site going. 👍💰💷🤞
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Hi,
Will you be changing the url ? to add the hyphen? instead of current without?
Do SMF forums not offer a subscription add-on for the forum software? where members pay into said account like the PayPal one your looking to setup?
https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.1:Paid_subscriptions
Im a web developer so if I can help in anyway?
Thanks
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that sounds promising Dave, would be ideal if we could have an add on to the existing site. ideally a discussion between you and SteveH to look at feasability.
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Hi,
Will you be changing the url ? to add the hyphen? instead of current without?
Do SMF forums not offer a subscription add-on for the forum software? where members pay into said account like the PayPal one your looking to setup?
https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.1:Paid_subscriptions
Im a web developer so if I can help in anyway?
Thanks
Hi, thanks for that a useful thought and looks likes its available on 2.0.x as well. It would probably work but for me there are a few issues
- It uses the subscription model, whereas what we are looking for a is one off donation to fund the site. Subscription implies you are paying for access and can expect something in return, a donation is different.
- I dont need the aggro of managing the subscriptions, we had a similar system sometime ago and it was a pain in the backside.
I think the domain with the hyphen was to allow Steve to setup an email address. It would be straightforward to configure one for the Thumperclub.com domain
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thats what i Steve. an email address linked to TC domain ... the address could then be pinned to the chatter headline, or a new 'donations' page. the address would link to a paypal account etc. i'm happy to administer the account & publish accounts as and when required.
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Is there a reason you’re not wanting to use donations@thumperclub.com for PayPal ?
Looks like there is a PayPal donate mod
https://custom.simplemachines.org/index.php?mod=2464
If not you could just use the standard PayPal.me link in the header or footer / donations page ?
Looks like there was a treasury addon but that has since expired but had a good idea of setting yearly targets so users knew how much more was needed etc (so away from subscriptions) but target based.
Similar to JustGiving?
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that could work
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Wow this is way above my thought process.
Steve, how long before we have to sort out this issue?
I will help but I'm afraid I don't understand URL s etc 😳
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Is there a reason you’re not wanting to use donations@thumperclub.com for PayPal ?
Looks like there is a PayPal donate mod
https://custom.simplemachines.org/index.php?mod=2464
If not you could just use the standard PayPal.me link in the header or footer / donations page ?
Looks like there was a treasury addon but that has since expired but had a good idea of setting yearly targets so users knew how much more was needed etc (so away from subscriptions) but target based.
Similar to JustGiving?
Cheers, will take a look this evening.
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Hi,
How did you get on?
Happy to help
Thanks
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I suspect this is all too esoteric for most of us, well certainly for me, can't we just put a tin on the bar?!
Ian
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Hi,
How did you get on?
Happy to help
Thanks
Hi I found four different Donation plugins, all of which failed to install. From memory three of them only supported really early builds of 2.0.x the fourth failed on a parse error. To be honst I would rather keep this simple for for Steve (or who ever) to collect donations seperately.
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ok, i will resume my studies
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ok, i will resume my studies
I can set up a separate email if required. This can be set up to forward to you main email.
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i have reserved an address thumper-club.co.uk, but it only cost a quid, and it would be better if you set an email up against this url, then, when i have other stuff sorted i can give you the details for rerouting etc Steve.
cheers
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Hi Steve I can set up an email for ThumperClub.com so for example donations@thumperclub.com then any emails sent to that can be forwarded to yourself. This address could then be used with PayPal
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ok Steve, i'll see about setting up a paypal account using that email address. i don't think we'll need a separate bank account as well, that would just complicate things. unless paypal insist on it, which they may, i'll have to check.
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Steve I have set the donations@thumperclub.com email up to forward to the email address you have on your club account. You should have received an email which you will need to confirm to allow the setup to complete.
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ok, well, i clicked on verify, but not much happened
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ok, well, i clicked on verify, but not much happened
I have sent an email to donations@ let me know if you get it ok
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I suspect this is all too esoteric for most of us, well certainly for me, can't we just put a tin on the bar?!
Ian
It really is a shame we can’t just pop a tin on the bar. However, can I just say a big thanks to both Steve’s as it’s obviously taking up a fair bit of your time which is certainly appreciated 👍
Cheers, Michael
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Hi,
There is something digitally - although not so pub orientated but buy a coffee style.
Accept donations or Start a membership.
https://www.buymeacoffee.com
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Not been here for a while…..and am generally a bit of a lurker.
Can I add my name to the list of people who will pay money to see this continue?
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Sounds like things haven't changed overly in the Thumper club. Hope the Rally's are still a Gas.
Best wishes John srx 600...
love to all
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Just wondering if the donations thing has taken off or nosedived 🤔
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Just wondering if the donations thing has taken off or nosedived 🤔
Didnt happen. As it was minimal cost I renewed for three years, I also moved some personal stuff to the same account to justify it.
At least this way, since its my money, I have no obligation to keep the site running.
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Thank you very much for your time and trouble Steve, it is appreciated.
Good health, Bill
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Many thanks Steve. Although this is a small group it's immensely helpful and supportive. If at any time you feel the cost is too much just let us know - and I hope you feel able to keep it running. So much better than the dross on facebook.
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Thanks Steve. You are a gentleman. It may be quiet at times, but this site remains interesting, useful and probably the best informed I’ve used.
Kev
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Hi Steve. Can I please echo Ian and Kevin’s words. Yes you’re a gent for sure, I’m sure as well as the money side of things it must also take up a chunk of your time, which is most definitely appreciated. If the need does arise where money is needed up front then I for one will gladly contribute.
Cheers, Michael 👍
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I most definitely echo what the others have said Steve :P
Thank you so much for all your efforts on our behalf to keep this forum alive and well.
If any other viable ideas are thought of which may help to fund / keep us going then I too would be more than happy to consider them.
This seems to be a problem with one or two other forums I go on, one of which managed to get some sponsorship from an insurance broker and previously a company in the motor cycle trade and with merchandise sales.
We are very reliant on volunteers who give up their time ( and money) on our behalf.
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May I echo the previous sentiments to an nth degree. If it wasn't for this site, then I wouldn't really have an interest in single cylinder powered bikes. Thanks mainly to Steve but to everyone else who helps even in a minor way.