Well since you asked...
In 2000 I first asked for contributions when I had just moved to Alaska, had
the server co-located in Georgia, and was having serious problems with it.
I finally had it boxed up and shipped to Alaska only to find that it had
been damaged in shipping to Georgia, and that was the cause of the problems.
I needed about $300 to repair the system, and received almost $700 in
contributions when I asked the list for help.
2004 was the first year somebody suggested making annual contributions to
help cover costs. I received 28 donations that year totaling $571.05, for
an average of $20.39. In 2005 I received 18 donations totaling $425.00 for
an average of $23.61. And so far in 2006 I have received 10 donations
totaling $246.00 averaging $24.60.
Individual donations have ranged from $5 - $50, with one donation back in
2000 for $300 when I needed to make the repairs! In 2005 when I had a
catastrophic failure of the hard disk array, Daryl O'Shea spent days and
days writing custom software to extract 5 years worth of messages from
Wayne's computer and upload it into a special database I setup, that I was
then able to move back onto the archive site. End result after adding
Daryl's work to what I was able to recover was 9 years and 24,000 messages
recovered!
I have estimated the costs of running the builders list based on fees that
are associated with services I wouldn't otherwise have, and a percentage of
services I use for other purposes at $645.35 a year, or $53.78 a month. I
probably have averaged around $500 in hardware upgrades over the last 5
years as well... but again, the builders list is only part of what I use
these systems for, so only a portion of the upgrades were accomplished
specifically to support the builders list.
Here are some current statistics...
142 user accounts on the archive web site (which now has 64,367 hits)
242 members of the rebel-builder & rebel-builder-d lists
67 members of the rebel-ramble list
approximately 2 dozen users that regularly use the NNTP server
30,484 messages in the archives
824 files
The public account, rebel/builder has the following stats since the rebuild
in May of 2005
12,869 logins
126,366 minutes logged
64,313 pictures downloaded (roughly 8 GB of data)
As I have already mentioned, my credit union charges $15 to exchange foreign
currency, so if you send a check, please send US dollars. The mailing
address and a link to Paypal are on the archive web site. Some folks have
trouble with the Paypal link, in that case you can just go to Paypal and
send money to
mike.davis@dcsol.com. The mailing address is:
Mike Davis
341 Winter Street
Fairbanks, AK 99712
Hope that answers all your questions.
Thanks, Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Hickey" <
tjhickey@iowatelecom.net>
To: <
rebel-builders@dcsol.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 5:31 PM
Subject: Re: [rebel-builders] builders site
I have been meaning to write a note to the group for several weeks, now,
wanting to introduce myself as a new to the Murphy Club builder. Actually,
it is myself and my brother, Mike, who are taking on this project jointly.
One of the first things I wanted to do is to address the subject in the
note
to which I have responded.
This builders list is a tremendous asset. I have been reading for several
months, and I can tell those of you who do not know, (which would have to
be
someone brand new to the group,) that the information exchanged here is
just
short of invaluable.
I built a Zenith CH-300 from plans in the 80's. (Still have it, close to
1700 hrs to date.) At that time there was no internet, and talking to
other
builders was done on the phone, one at a time. This list lets everyone see
what is being said.
So the first thing I want to do is to ask the same question as Brian. What
do I owe to be a supporting member of this activity? If there is a proper
amount, please let me know.
This might be a good time (Christmas) for us all to address this issue and
support Mike and the list. I know I would really miss it if for some
reason
it stopped.
So that is my first question.
Mike, or anyone else, just drop me an email directly, or perhaps on the
list, so those of us who want to help share the load can do so. And, as
Brian noted, we need an address to ship to.
Once we get this out of the way for this year, I will post some more about
who we are, where we are, what we intend to do, Yada,Yada,Yada.
tjhickey@iowatelecom.net
Thanks
Tim Hickey
2658 300th St
Montrose, Iowa 52639
Home 319 463-7047
Cell 319 795-2684
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