We're broke!

[Carl Anderton]

Hey people, it appears our paypal account is drained.  Anyone has any ideas about what to to, feel free to speak up.  My focus right now is almost exclusively in the stroke banjo style, so if someone wants to take charge here I'd be glad to make them an administrator.

 

(I'd pay out myself but I'm just not that well heeled!)

[Sylvia]

Hi Carl, We paid a years subs to Ning in July of last year ? so we should be ok until July this year. Maybe they won't ask for money this time.. Ha...    Perhaps the Donate Button would be a good idea again.   I hasten to add that I'm not offering to take the site on, my life is just too "busybusy"  as it is.

[Alan Ramsay]

Why not move the site over onto a facebook group?  I suspect most of us are on it anyway.

 

Or there are various free alternatives:

http://www.forumone.com/blogs/post/free-alternatives-ning

 

[Mike Moss]

I'd rather not use Facebook (I'm concerned about privacy on that site) but I do think we're better off looking for a free alternative. From what I've seen, a Ning group costs $350 per annum, which is an abusive price no matter how you look at it, considering the amount of affordable or free alternatives on the market right now.

[Russ Chandler]

I think Mike has a good point.

 

What are the features people use most on this site? I'd say the forum, blogs and shared photos. There are lots of things I certainly don't use much. All the cod social networking "Russ is now friends with Fred" stuff doesn't really bother me - I use Facebook for that.

 

If we could get a consensus about what we like and dislike about the site we can evaluate the alternatives.

 

Thoughts?

 

[Sylvia]

Must admit I wasn't sure about Facebook but they do have three categories for groups..... open , closed and secret.

We may find something in Alans link .     And by the way Ning seem to have increased their prices.   Classic went for the most expensive choice last time,  Minstrel took the intermediate price and seem to do just as much on there as we do on here.

[Russ Chandler]

I don't have a problem with Facebook on privacy grounds but I've never seen a FB group that really thrives. They're OK for promoting a gig or talking about a TV show but I don't think they're good for building communities like ours.

 

Just my opinion.

[Mike Moss]

Or perhaps we could just downgrade the options on this Ning group and get the intermediate-priced option? We're a pretty small community, and the full-price plan is overkill, as things stand. We could always upgrade if the community grew and became more demanding. (Also, perhaps some PR work might be in order? I don't know why classic fingerstyle is comparatively unpopular... perhaps they have an image of it as something daunting and technically demanding?)

[Sylvia]

  

  www.ning.com/compareplans     gives the three plans , cost of each plan and what we would get for our money.

[Adam]

Just want to say that, as with last year, I'm willing to contribute $20-$30 to the pot to keep this site going.  Moving to a new site would mean all the history on this site would be gone and would be need to be rebuilt.  Not worth it in my opinion.

 

I'm also OK with the intermediate ($200/year) Ning plan.  Last year we advocated for the full plan in order to keep things like the mp3 players on memeber's home pages.  But no one uses those enough to warrant the extra $300/year, in my opinion.

 

The contribute link is still available, on the bottom of the home page, left-hand side.

 

If 10 of us agree to give $20 each that buys us another year.  I know that means some members "get in for free" but personally I have no problem with that.  If 9 others agree, I think we're set. 

 

Anyway, that's my 2-cents ... or 20-dollars.

 

[Mike Moss]

Count me in. I'll contribute another 20 (for the intermediate plan, that is).

[Sylvia]

 

    £17  from me for the intermediate plan for the year. That I think works out at less than £1. 50p per month,where can you buy a daily magazine for that ?  I won't be donating until nearer the time though, I believe we are paid up until July.

[Trapdoor2]

I'll add my $20, no worries, happy with the intermediate option too. As Sylvia said, cheaper than any magazine subcription.