## 2011/2012 Donation Drive ##

With affiliate sales down sharply and expenses mounting, A&M Corner is once again firing up our annual donation drive.

At the end of each year, our annual hosting bill becomes due, and other expenses mount during the year as well such as domain fees, software license expenses and others. As always, we appreciate as much (or as little as you can give.

We use PayPal as our payment processor; you do not need to have a PayPal account to donate. Payments can go through our portal linked here; simply put "A&M" in the "invoice" area so we know where to direct the funds.

Thank you very much for you continued support over the years!

>> Donate Here! <<

We've had a couple of donations so far, and I would like to publicly thank you for helping us out! It is much appreciated.

We are still several hundred dollars short of our goal. To put it briefly, we've been "borrowing" some inexpensive server space for awhile by way of a long-time client, but with this particular client bowing out and closing up shop at the end of this year, we are forced to have to get on our own server account. Keep in mind that there are several sites across which the donation drive is running, but in essence, we need to shell out over $700 within the next few weeks...and it's not going to happen. I'm already chipping in what I can, but it's not much. If I go month to month, the cost is 50% higher and still leaves us hanging after a couple of months (based on donations received so far).

Anything, no matter how small, helps us out. If affiliate sales weren't so bad, we would not have this problem and we would not need the donations to keep going. We are making substantial changes to how we monetize the sites, so there will be some changes ahead to attempt to boost our income so we can stay online. I apologize that a lot of our forum text ends up being linked, but we need to do this in order to stay online.

Thanks again, everyone, and I'll report back with progress! We have a long way to go.

C'mon, everyone who hasn't contributed. Dig deep.

Do you want to wake up some day in the near future, go to your usual A&M Corner bookmark and see this instead?



Not a pretty sight - or site! Look for that loose change in the couch or comfy chair. Dig around your car's floors. Break open that jar you've been tossing your loose change into. Every little bit helps.

Thank you.

Now scroll up and donate before you forget!

Harry

Perks. We haz them!

Thanks to our new forum system, we can now offer a subscription to forum upgrades. What this will do is add new features to your account, as a way of saying "thank you" for a donation. Full details are listed in our Gold Club thread. Privileges are available for different lengths of time and, of course, the longer you subscribe, the more you'll save.

Note: if you have already donated, we will round up your donation amount to the next Gold Club level and apply it to your forum account, effective immediately. Simply contact us with your forum username and email address, and we'll apply the change for you. (We realize that the address registered at the forum may not be the PayPal address you've sent us a payment from.)

Thanks again!

At best, the little we've taken in thus far buys us a couple of months, and at that point we start scrambling (and hopefully don't end up like above). Once get over the "hump," however, we qualify for a hefty "prepay" discount for a year's service.

We'll have a new tally shortly, but it has not really changed much. Thanks to those who've helped us out!

As soion as I see what I have leftover form my online Christmas present purchases, I'll drop a few $ in the A&M Korner Kettle...

Thanks much. Any little bit helps.

Things are very grim at this point--basically only a week to go, as it is going to take me some time to move everything between servers. If I'm only going to have enough funds to cover a few months, it is not worth the bother--I'll probably get a cheap account and shut down most of this site (including the TJB site) except for the forum. Given how poor affiliate sales are (which used to fund most of the sites), there is no sense in continuing anything beyond the forum IMHO.

The bulk of donations have come from another forum, BTW, which has far fewer members and a lot less activity...

Patrick--got it on the 11th. Thanks much!

Thanks much, Chris!

Thanks much, Mr. V!

After Sunday I will be able to finally make my donation. Probably $50 but I may go for the remaining $95 balance if I'm feeling generous after mosque, er, I mean church.

--Mr Bill

Your call! I'd prefer staff not donate, and I've had a few more small ones trickle in. I'm not updating totals all that quickly right now, just to add a bit of urgency.

Or if you'd rather get your domain registered, that's cool also...

Heh, thanks much!

Are you on the north island, or south? One of my friends lives in Christchurch (and does research at Univ. of Otego), and he's fed up with all the quakes and tremors. He'd just gotten a settlement to get his house repaired, and this last quake from a week or so ago did even more damage. He was in one of those areas where they were undecided as to whether or not they were going to condemn the house and buy it back, or let the homeowners repair it. He's about ready to bail for Australia or the UK...or even move back home to Boston.

BTW, I'm behind on the totals for the donations--been laid up with a back spasm for a couple of days, and visiting here via mobile (and it's an "admin" function I can't get to via the mobile app). I'll update things later tonight or tomorrow morning. Thanks again!