Support Maple Leaf Up 2.0

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

After an initial burst of donations they went down to a trickle. One recent example is MLU member and fellow countryman Henk Minne who recently reached a certain age and made a donation of the number of years he has attained in Euro's . . . no, one does not ask a gentleman about his age. But well received it was!

As many members do not frequent this website on a daily basis, I am posting here again to bring this subject back to your attention. If you enjoy this forum, please donate what you can! As long as we can keep this forum running from donations, we do not have to switch to subscriptions or even worse, advertising. . .

Thanks in advance!

Hanno..
I think the administration is doing an excellent job on the enhanced MLU forum..THe bugs seem to be getting worked out and for you and the others is a labour of love..(I assume)..
But not knowing anything aboout present days web page costs,may I be crass enough to ask just approximatelywhat it costs to run MLU forum for a year..???

I'm sure I will be shocked at the costs but as the first member after Sean and Jif,I have been a monitary supporter from day one and will continue to be..But curiosity has me ,as I am sure others are interested to know also..
Anyway I will continue on with my contributions yearly..or more often if required..

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Alex Blair

I think the administration is doing an excellent job on the enhanced MLU forum..THe bugs seem to be getting worked out and for you and the others is a labour of love..(I assume)..
But not knowing anything aboout present days web page costs,may I be crass enough to ask just approximatelywhat it costs to run MLU forum for a year..???

Alex,

I do not think it is appropriate to post the numbers here, but if the other donors indicate a need for it I will make up an annual settlement and send it out to those who have donated time and/or money.

Regards,
Hanno

PS:

Originally Posted by Alex Blair

Clive..
It is so obvious that you have never attended my classes on creative accounting....
No wonder you are still a poor working slob...
You put beer receipts,listed as "Medical alcohol" under "Medical expenses"...



(Actually you put it under "Entertainment" as a legit office expense,same as if you bought a client lunch)

I propose to plan a "shareholders" meeting in Canada and sqaunder the remaining proceeds in you know where (your favourite bar). That way we are assured you will continue to donate and maybe even rustle up an old manual you have hidden in the closet

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by servicepub

True, but wasn't sure that this may not have changed when the site went under new 'management' following Niner's passing.

All,

Both links at the top of this thread direct you to a PayPal webpage pre-formatted to donate an amount in EUR or CAD into the account I set up specifically for Maple Leaf Up. Donations are used solely for the upkeep of this forum.

As stated before, we have chosen to use PayPal as the medium to accept donations. Although there are costs involved, this is the best medium available to accept donations from our global community. If you cannot donate through PayPal, please contact me to discuss other possibilities.

Thanks & regards,
Hanno

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

I propose to plan a "shareholders" meeting in Canada and sqaunder the remaining proceeds in you know where (your favourite bar). That way we are assured you will continue to donate and maybe even rustle up an old manual you have hidden in the closet

Hanno/
Agreed,,..By the time we fly you..Keith and the rest of the admin moderators into Ottawa for our meeting ,we will all have to throw in an extra grand or two but rest assure it will be money well spent..

[Marc van Aalderen]

Hanno and team,

I really should pay more attention to the other subjects than just the Carrier forum.....

Anyway, donation on it's way.

Keep up the good work and thank you for all your efforts in bringing and keeping so many people from all over the world together.

Cheers,

[Stewart Loy]

.. does not seem like a lot, but if everybody did it, there would be lots for the site we all claim to value to much.

And just 15 cents a day ... like Nigel W. says 'easy peasy'.


Stewart

PS - how is the final volume of the Carrier series going Nigel??

.

[Bob Carriere]

.... we need money to run the site but no one will inform the membership of the true cost of running MLU.

Why are we so afraid of hurting people's feelings or being up front with the reality of life.... nothing is free anymore......

A lot of members may not even have a remote clue of the realistic cost of running MLU.

Other forums have a "Wall of Fame" where donors are listed and kept updated.... members can see by date the last time they contributed...some have a ranking system for big time givers...smaller contributors are also ALL recognized.

Most Hospitals in Ontario have a wall that lists all the donors, benefactors and small supporters.... some have sold bricks with family names on them.....

What they heck are we afraid......???

We have tremendous team of volunteers working unseen and I fear not fully appreciated.... they should be listed on the first line.

There was a lot of chit chat and wispering when Geoff was running the forum and God bless his soul, he left us quite an heritage..... we should have learned from that experience that there is a need to be transparent with the membership.

I support being up front...posting operating expenses..... with no veto from the membership for financial decisions taken by the volunteers.....suggesting a contribution amount so the volunteers can budget for future operational needs.....even building a reserve for unforeseen events....... recognising donrs large and small and if some are offended that they are not listed for not supporting this fine forum as donors.... though titty !!!!

The forum has never run as good as it is now...... and as reliable....

If we are timely and responsible, we will not be subject to mandatory registration fees..... or advertising and/or painful popups.... or risk frustrating our volunteers with shoe string finance.

My Canadian 5 cents worth.

I have made donations in the past and will continue to do so..... that is why I fell entitled to posting my opinion.

Bob Carriere

[aj.lec]

I agree with Bob and Stewart
How much are the running expenses ?
Set a price per member and run with it
It is a great site and would be a great loss to lose it because of some tightwads . If they dont want to pay their share limit access and it is their loss
I have just kicked in a $50 .Cheap for the info and stories
Many thanks to all the volunteers and management for the great work they do

[Stewart Loy]

Originally Posted by Bob Carriere

.... we need money to run the site but no one will inform the membership of the true cost of running MLU.

Why are we so afraid of hurting people's feelings or being up front with the reality of life.... nothing is free anymore......

A lot of members may not even have a remote clue of the realistic cost of running MLU.

Other forums have a "Wall of Fame" where donors are listed and kept updated.... members can see by date the last time they contributed...some have a ranking system for big time givers...smaller contributors are also ALL recognized.

Most Hospitals in Ontario have a wall that lists all the donors, benefactors and small supporters.... some have sold bricks with family names on them.....

What they heck are we afraid......???

We have tremendous team of volunteers working unseen and I fear not fully appreciated.... they should be listed on the first line.

There was a lot of chit chat and wispering when Geoff was running the forum and God bless his soul, he left us quite an heritage..... we should have learned from that experience that there is a need to be transparent with the membership.

I support being up front...posting operating expenses..... with no veto from the membership for financial decisions taken by the volunteers.....suggesting a contribution amount so the volunteers can budget for future operational needs.....even building a reserve for unforeseen events....... recognising donrs large and small and if some are offended that they are not listed for not supporting this fine forum as donors.... though titty !!!!

The forum has never run as good as it is now...... and as reliable....

If we are timely and responsible, we will not be subject to mandatory registration fees..... or advertising and/or painful popups.... or risk frustrating our volunteers with shoe string finance.

My Canadian 5 cents worth.

I have made donations in the past and will continue to do so..... that is why I fell entitled to posting my opinion.

Bob Carriere

... very well said.


Stewart

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Bob Carriere

.... we need money to run the site but no one will inform the membership of the true cost of running MLU.

Bob et al,

There is nothing secret about it, but the fact is that the true cost of running MLU is not known - yet. Up to now we have been depending on free help from a lot of people, some not even MLU members. Plus we have not factored in all the cost to be able to calculate the true cost of running MLU.

When Geoff passed away, Brian Gough and I secured a couple of mapleleafup.xyz domain names to make sure we had a URL to move to. Cost? I could look it up for you, but it is small change to me.

Later I worked with Shawn to move the MLU database and forum software to a virtual private server. Shawn has the experience and talents to carry out this work, and this being his Dad's legacy he set up a server for which he only charges MLU $30 a month. He is one of our volunteers as he did not charge for his time spent on migrating MLU from .org to .net. Plus he continues spending time every now and then on backups and maintenance.

I am not sure if this cost will increase because we use more server space or bandwidth in the (near) future or if we need to hire specialists to solve problems Shawn might not be able to solve. Indeed the forum runs trouble free and stable right now, but who knows what the future might bring. Remember one of those hack attacks we had in the past?

We will have to add to this any costs we will have to make for new vBulletin software licences (we are still using Geoff's licence) and software upgrades.

Also, I would like to establish an association as Geoff and I had discussed many times. This will enable us to put the MLU assets into the association's name. If we do this we will not lose a URL or other assets currently in someone's personal name after he decides to quit or passes away.

And there will be other cost drivers I have not thought of right now. But currently I spend most of the time I have available for MLU on vetting the new members. I wish I could make more time to indulge in the discussions on this forum like a used to do. Plus figure out and set in motion the things mentioned above.

After only five months of operating mapleleafup.net I can conclude it is currently run using a minimal cash flow - no-one runs a cheaper forum right now. Based on this current cash flow, I can assure you MLU is funded until at least the end of this year thanks to the generous donations of quite a few members. I will do everything that is needed to secure the future of MLU in the long run, but count on it to cost us more, both in time and money.

Hope this helps to answer some of your questions - I’m off to bed now if you don’t mind

Best regards,
Hanno
MLU Administrator

[Little Jo]

Hi Hanno

I noted that my diary showed it was time for my donation. Sent today via PayPal. Keep up the good work.

Cheers

Tony

[r.morrison]

Hi Hanno : Have forwarded on a donation via Paypal, tonight. I also noticed there were only 36 members who coughed up some dough, as per your entry. I thought the forum had a lot more contributing members than that, which does not include monies sent to Shawn.
If you need more money, I have some ideas to raise money for support IE: Chris Vickery and the T Shirts.
Thanks to you and your team for the support and the effort you people put forth to keep the dream alive. I can see by the comments earlier, that you really can't put a price on this!!!
Carry on carrying on! Robert...... aka Van Pro Decorating Ltd Vancouver B.C. Canada.

PS: Bruce Harris will be forwarding on his sizeable donation this week, even though he doesn't know it.....yet!

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by r.morrison

Have forwarded on a donation via Paypal, tonight. I also noticed there were only 36 members who coughed up some dough, as per your entry. I thought the forum had a lot more contributing members than that, which does not include monies sent to Shawn.

Robert, thanks for your donation! Have added your name to the register of supporters. Here's hoping some more members will do their bit to support the forum.

Regards,
Hanno

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by r.morrison

If you need more money, I have some ideas to raise money for support IE: Chris Vickery and the T Shirts.

I would support this sort of activities, but other than Geoff, I do not plan to run a type of merchandising program myself.

Long time MLU members can contact me to make arrangements to use the MLU logo and forum to sell merchandise, with part of the profits going towards the upkeep of MLU.

Thanks,
Hanno

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Little Jo

I noted that my diary showed it was time for my donation. Sent today via PayPal. Keep up the good work.

Thank you, Tony!

[Mike Cecil]

Hanno,

Contribution sent.

When's the 'shareholders meeting' in Canada ??? .... I wouldn't mind a quick trip over the 'north fence' to visit my Canadian cousins!

Mike C

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

Hanno,

Contribution sent.

When's the 'shareholders meeting' in Canada ??? .... I wouldn't mind a quick trip over the 'north fence' to visit my Canadian cousins!

Mike C

Mike ..
The Ottawa area shareholders have all kinds of MLU meetings...usually involving beer drinkin',lie tellin',rust...old paint...gas fumes..and skinned knuckles..and long discussions on everything under the sun.

These meetings happen usually when kindred spirits visit the Ottawa area..
Just let us know when you are coming and we will give you instructions to the meeting place or make arrangements to meet you to get you to the meetings..\
We are due or over due now...
Gracies bar and Grill misses us..

[Mike Cecil]

Alex

Read and Understood!

Will be in touch.....

Mike C

[hrpearce]

Annual donation on the way

[gordon]

Sent some today to ease the burden

Gordon

[Bob Moseley (RIP)]

Hi all - sold another of the elusive Carrier parts book page 13 and money sent. Also checked and saw that I last paid subscription in July 2011 so sent $50 as well to cover next year.

Bob

[Haridimos]

My donation was sent before a while!

Kostas..

[Bob Carriere]

...... my yearly contribution was overdue ....... now paid up

Dollar a week ain't much for the fun you get.

Bob

[gordon]

Once more, for Geoff

[Svenn Ryen]

Hi. Just made a donation in euros equal to $215. The amount is 115 from Phil Waterman and 100 from me.

Heres the story behind me donating for us both, first the 100:

I am doing a C15A restoration. Bought the truck last year. It was missing a few parts and some parts needs to be replaced. For me beeing a new CMP owner (been doing only jeeps and military motorcycles last 25 years)I have limited knowledge about CMPs. I have tried to read up on this, and this forum has been a very important source for info and I have had great help here on the forum. Many members are commenting my threads, searches have given me needed info and so on. I hope I am not spamming you guys wih posts and questions??? I always try to add som pictures showing my issue, hoping that my questions, pictures and your answers may be of help to others as well. So thanks to you all, and I hope my donation can help the forum going strong.

As for me donating for Phil Waterman:

For me being in Norway, shipping of overseas sources for parts to me has always been important doing MVs. Regarding jeeps, there is always parts available from many vendours including in Norway and Europe, and there are always overseas firms that does international shipping. As for CMPs, as you guys now parts can sometimes be hard to find, and alternative parts and sources need to be traced down. On my truck the oil filter was missing. I got hold of a filter from a helping forum member, but I needed the correct fittings and oil lines. Phil Waterman posted answers to my needs, giving me the correct NAPA parts number for the stuff I needed. So far so good First problem...NAPA auto parts does noe ship overseas... ok... I have had this problem before and have a account at www.jetcarrier.com. This is a firm specialising in shipping from USA to nordic contries. In short, you get your own USA adress to ship the parts to, and Jetcarrier forward the parts on to Norway. Prices are acceptable for the times you have this issue. So I tried to order fittings and oil lines from NAPA to my USA adress. Next problem was that it was not possible to order the fittings online Ok...If I only got hold of the coorrect oil lines I could bring them to a firm here in Norway that probably could help me with these fittings...stiff prices though... (special brass fittings in small amounts are very expensive in norway, up to 20 usd pr part) So I ordered the oil lines....but they did not show up. In my Napa account the order showed up as cancelled and Napa told me that these were not available.

Phil had at some point told me when I posted some info on the overseas shipping issuies that he would try to help me getting these parts if I ran into any problems. So I contacted Phil, and yes, he didn't just order the parts. but he took of the parts on his CMP just to be 100 % he got the righ parts, went down to his NAPA store and ordrered these parts for me. He also saw I needed some other parts he could get hold of, so he went down several times to get hold of everything. When all parts had arrived, he wrapped and packed them up send them to me, and a couple of days later I had all I needed in my mail box.

So first of all...a great thank you to Phil!!!! !

So for the payment...Phil should of course have his expences covered, but early in the process, he told me he rather would like me to donate the amount in both our names to the MLU forum!!!! He is hoping our "story" could be a inspiration for others as well to keep helping eachother in the MLU and CMP community!! Phil also wants this to be av way of showing gratitude and honour the guys who over the years who have so freely shared their knowledge of CMPs who are no longer with us.

It would of course not be fair that I should have my name on Phils money, so I added an extra 100 usd the show my thanks to the MLU forum and members as Phil helping me out!!!

Long story, but the help I got from Phil and his will to help me and wanting to to donate in both our names really shows what forums and the members like these really could mean ofor other members!!

finally... a great thanks to you all!!!

Svenn
Norway

[Keith Webb]

Well done Svenn! And thanks for the interesting story too.
Congratulations to Phil too for his generosity.

One last point: Don't worry about spamming when it's CMP-related questions, we all love to help!

[Doug Withey]

Great forum.. Small donation on its way.. Keep up the good work

[Bob Carriere]

Bonjour Hanno

Time for a donation. Thanks for all the support from Fellow MLU members and to you Hanno and your team of silent moderators for all the hard work on MLU.

Hoping the New Year gets here fast as I am done with 2020.

Cheers Bob C

[Bob Carriere]

Still cheaper than most UK magazine, USA magazines, etc....... and usually more relevant info to learn from.....

Now to find how to send my empty beer bottles to Hanno!!!!

Cheers