Does the association want to keep this forum alive?

[Admin]

I sent this message to Dale and Sandy 2 weeks ago, no reply. Maybe it got caught in a spam filter. Anyway, time is up but I thought I'd give it one more shot before I terminated it:

Dale and Sandy,

The license has expired again for the forum I’ve been running. The cost has been $80/yr for a leased license which I’ve been paying but they’ve changed the model to an outright purchase for $175. I’ve also been paying $15/mo for a business-class hosting account. Times being what they are, I’m no longer in a position to cover those costs.

I’m inquiring if the association is interested in keeping the forum running. There are probably numerous ways to deal with it: start paying for what’s there; move it to a different, free forum package; move it to the ITCA site; change to a completely different communication tool; etc. I’m open to ideas if you have any.

It appears the forum software is still functioning as of tonight. The terms of the license are: ‘Once it runs out, you must purchase a new license or remove all instances of the vBulletin software.’ I do not know how long it will stay functional but the terms say it needs to go or be purchased.

The main site (tbirdforums.com) is broken, it was an old FrontPage template which is no longer supported and I haven’t found time to rework it. If the association is interested in maintaining the forum, I’d probably reduce the site to just a home page and the forum. I’m guessing the picture galleries that were there are probably not interesting to the fleet any more, at least not enough to bother with.

Being short on both finances and ‘spare time’ these days, I have to cut back on the pro bono work. While I don’t mind not making money on the forum site, I can’t justify spending money on it. With the wealth of options available out there, if it’s not worth the cost to the ITCA, I’m sure there’s someone/someplace else that will work out. I’ve enjoyed hosting the forum these past years but it’s time for the association to take it over or pay for it.

Please let me know a.s.a.p. what you’d like to do. I will be taking it off-line within 2 weeks unless the vBulletin company requests I do it sooner.

Regards,

Matthew

[JohnGil]

I would hate to see it go away. But like you I can't do much to support it. A yahoo groups site might work for a while if nothing else

[Sandy Pratt]

In my opinion we should keep the Forum alive. I think there is enough in the International Treasury to do this. I will send an email to our president Dale Dunning and Treasurer Craig Burnell about this.

Sandy Pratt

[Matthew]

That's great to hear Sandy. I'll look forward to confirmation and moving forward on this.