Forum Costs

[Rob Reznik]

As some of you may be aware I have been funding this site since I rescued it a few years ago - as you may have seen on the forum changes post I am now moving away from control and it is now run by members for the members - this means that I will not be funding it myself anymore and it will have to be self financed - a 'Donate' button has been added at the top of each page to show how you can help via Paypal - if you do not have a Paypal account but would like to help financially please pm Charles or any other member of the Admin team who will give you alternative ways.

The site has grown considerably during the last 5 years and is quite active considering how few Russian Vehicles there actually are in the UK - this continued success will mean more costs to the hosting site - and if it wasn’t for Karl providing his website design services FOC it wouldn’t look like it does now!!! - thanks

On a final note I would just like to say a very big thank you to all the members who have contributed in the past and made my pocket a bit easier and enabled me to find less excuses to the wife who is after all the bread winner in our house !!!

[Charlesm]

Just to add to Rob's post, I have volunteered my services to look after the website's finances and have therefore opened a bank account for the purpose. Any donations are gratefully received and will be accounted for accordingly.

Currently we need to save towards the annual cost of hosting the website which comes in August but there are other costs throughout the year which will need to be met.

[SCOUSER]

Why not just divide the cost amongst the active members? I'm happy to be considered active.

[Charlesm]

The mod team feels that the donate system (as used on so many other forums) means people can give as much as they wish, when they wish, if they wish. If people find the website is useful then hopefully they won't mind putting something in towards it. But it is always a voluntary process which is how we wish it to be.

I see your point about the active members, but people come and go and new people are joining all the time, some people do always sign in and some don't - deciding who is active or not would be a nightmare!

[SCOUSER]

OK - can the total cost of the site be posted? Then I can decide what would be a fair donation for the time I spend here?

I fully appreciate it takes more than £££'s to keep this site going.

[portamurda1]

didnt realise...donated now....oor kid set up a site with little cost for a firm, it folded as the firm didnt want to spend any money(the site that is...not the firm)...so appreciate the benefit

[Rob Reznik]

OK - can the total cost of the site be posted? Then I can decide what would be a fair donation for the time I spend here?

I fully appreciate it takes more than £££'s to keep this site going.

difficult to say as some of it is paid in dollars to the hosting site and then you have the exchange rate issue - there is the renewal for the domain names - payment to a n other when we have problems with phpBB updates and I got a nice bill of $200 soon after I took over as I did some backoffice stuff and couldnt get the site back up again :oops: - one reason I now leave well alone :roll: - at the moment with present traffic I would say under £300 per year - thats only because Karl has done the website upgrades FOC as it would be much higher - he should get something for his work - I'm thinking of sending him my wife :lol: .

[KarlJ]

That's very kind of you Rob, and having met her it's a very generous offer. Just don't think MY wife would be too happy!

[Iain]

Another month

I´ll do 6 if someone wants to give me a nice deposit on a completed MAN 8.136 FAE Expedition

[Ditch]

Thanks for all the contributions folks. It's good that we are not running from Rob's pocket any more.

It's probably worth mentioning that if you are a trader and are using the forum to buy and sell then it does seem reasonable to make a donation to keep the cheap advertising going. We have put links in the links section to quite a few traders and would appreciate links to this site in return. It all helps to keep the hits up and get more interest from the search engines.

[Iain]

Is there a case for introducing some transparency over which trader/business users have donated and which have not?

[Ditch]

Is there a case for introducing some transparency over which trader/business users have donated and which have not?

The admin. team would expect that someone who is making a money out of Russian trucks should support the forum that helps put them in touch with customers and suppliers. It seems only reasonable.

[paulob1]

hi I have only just read this post...in order for this donate system to work I would seriously suggest that accounts of some sort are shown...karl's work identified so we can all see the amount of work..then we should set ourselves a target for donations, not just a bring it if you can deal...if the cash is as little as 380 quid then we should be bale to make that out of the forum meet....if its going to start paying (and i think it should if it can) for peoples work then this needs to be shown and accounted for. I am not 100% sure where a forum sits in legal terms but handling money for a club has to be carefully managed...am a lot short on the knowledge these days but I am sure if Charles has offered he can find out the legal requirements...

I would like to know what we have in the bank, what we need for the forum to stay solvent and how much we make from the likes of the shop the forum meet the traders etc etc...

Personally I think traders should pay to be part of the forum...would make it more sensible.. especially if they use it for information gathering, marketing and help in running their business. We dont want to scare them off as they do offer some help at times, yes even Richard offers good advice......

As for the likes of me and everyone else I would be happy to donate a regular sum to help I just want to know what we really need...

[LOGGERS]

If we could have a rough idea on the costs that would be helpful to see how much I should be donating towards the blah blah I write :lol: (Hope some is useful. I have found a useful site. Thanks)

[Charlesm]

Basically we are looking at the website hosting bill of US$250 per year, the forum meet site-hire cost (hopefully met by the donations on the day), and then other bills for domain registration etc as they are required. All the site admins are giving their time for free including Karl who looks after the behind-the-scenes website stuff.

As the hosting bill is very high, we are looking into the possibility of switching to a cheaper host this year, although this will depend on how smoothly the site and its various databases (gallery etc) can be transferred over without messing up the data. Karl and to a lesser extent I am on the case and have not taken a decision yet as to whether this would bring about actual savings, when the cost of sorting out any resulting problems are taken into account.

I also expect that if the forum meet grows in popularity as it did last year we will have to consider other costs such as 3rd party liability insurance for next year and possibly portable loo/hire charges. This could run into many £100s and it is for this and other unforeseen costs that I would like to build up some savings so that the costs are more easily met if and when they arise.

As the job of administering the finances was only created a couple of months ago we are at a very early stage and don't have any clearer picture than this at the moment. However, we are hoping to be able to display some sort of fuel-tank graphic somewhere (probably on the donations page and/or in my forum signature) that will show where we are. A sort of Full=bank account is loaded; Empty=running on fumes; maybe a couple of stages in between.

As of tonight, we have around half the money needed to pay the hosting bill as it stands but nothing else, if we remain with this host and there is nothing left over from the forum meet. I don't like the idea of making member's donations public but if those who have donated wish to put something in their signature to that effect that is up to them. Alternatively from the forum control panel I could award them a "rank" of forum donor if they wished.

[ussrjeppi]

how much does it cost per month to keep the forum running.

[Charlesm]

how much does it cost per month to keep the forum running.

Hi ussrjeppi,

As I have been in the job less than a year I am not 100% sure, but if I said around £40/US$50 per month, paid in lump sums throughout the year, that might be close.

That is for this forum alone, there maybe other costs to be met that are not included in this figure. My post above gives some other information on these.

Sorry to be so vague, but until a whole year has passed I don't know the details of all the bills throughout the 12 months.

[ussrjeppi]

ok have you checked fore a cheaper hosting fore the site

[Charlesm]

The existing plan was setup by the guy who started this site, about 4 years ago (Jon). It includes the gallery as well as the board and it is therefore difficult to move everything to new hosts especially as none of us are confident with the inner workings of phpBB which runs this forum.

It is however our plan to try and move hosts in Spring 2011 to a UK based company that will give us a better price and possibly better features as well.

[tascabe]

Just sent in 30 GBP - hope that will help some. Would hate to see this forum go away!!

Now off to the merchandise shop to see what I should buy from there:)