Hi All,

I love this site and everything it gives; no point in listing all the great points, you know them, so instead I am putting my money where my mouth is.

Every individual donating will be entered into a draw for £200 of Tod Cutler vouchers to be spent at www.todcutler.com where you will find all manner daggers, fittings, maces and so forth.

First place will win £150
Second place will win £50

The draw will be made at the end of the drive.

I will pay for the postage to wherever you are in the world.

Note: A few items are out of stock at the moment as they proved more popular than we expected, but we will be largely restocked by the time the draw is made

[ Linked Image ]

Please donate to help keep this fantastic resource running.

The winners have been announced: Click Here to View

Tod

Great initiative, and sure to get more people donating.

Going to drop a donation myself.

Thanks Tod; I'm sure this will help Nathan out by getting people to donate who might not have done so otherwise.

Thank you for your generosity. I hope that we get to see whatever people choose with their vouchers (because you make great stuff and it'd be good to see what people select)

What a great idea! I love your work and this site, so it is the best of everything! :cool:

Already did a little extra "early" donation for Nathan's birthday and plan on another "traditional" donation ASAP (likely turn of the month . . . such is life). That said, this should be a really nice incentive to get some more reluctant donors to open their wallets. Even without this competition the donations are worth it, but thank you, sincerely, Mr. Todeschini, for putting this together.

Best of luck to anyone that donates.

Thanks Tod, I'm sure this will help the fund drive: A contest/prize is not only a motivation because of a chance of winning the prize but it also make the donation drive a little " competitive " and gets more attention as people want to see who will be the lucky winners, and also as suggested seeing what they decide to buy would be interesting. ( Assuming that they give their consent to having their choice of purchase made public ..... I don't see why one would say " NO ", but getting consent is the right thing to do in general principle ).

Tod very generous of you and really " doing and not just talking " about supporting this site ..... :cool:

Just " BUMPING " this to bring it back onto the home page.

Oh, in addition to a donation people can also support the site by upgrading their membership to a paying one, maybe Nathan can make sure that any people who upgrade their membership are added to the names eligible for the prize. :?:

Just sent off a donation to keep this great forum up and running :)

This needs to be brought back up to the top of the Home Page so that people don't miss knowing about the contest.

Also see the other donation thread where I do most of the " NAGGING " ..... ;) :p :lol:

This Topic fell way off the Home page so another " BUMP ".

Tod makes a great product and a £150 first prize, and a £50 second prize, £150 covering most of the the costs of one of his daggers. ( Note at the current exchange rate £150 is $198 US dollars and £50 is $66 US dollars at the date of this posting ).

As he is also paying for shipping one can consider that the prizes are a bit higher value.

Take advantage of Leo's generosity and reasonably good odds of winning one of the prizes. since the yearly donation drive usually attracts between 75 to 100 people making a donation.


Now, I do wish that more people would donate, even if only a small amount ...... ;)


I also think that some/most of the other customs makers and/or the many quality production makers should consider making a small annual contribution keeping this place going, a lot of these get regular " FREE ADVERTISING " by people posting reviews or discussing their products ..... over the years exposure to being mentioned or posting on "myArmoury " has certainly increased their sales in a significant way !

For a professional makers a modest donation should be in their own interest and just a small drop in the bucket in any costs they used to promote their products in advertising. ( Donate the equivalent cost of one grinding belt, or one piece of stock steel, or one midday lunch etc .... )

Exposure on this site is very targeted advertising with a very high percentage of people likely to be interested in buying: Regulars longtime members who already know about your products but also many people new to collecting who discover this site after a GOOGLE search, and by chance find out that you or your company even exists. ;)

Note things have started to pick up a bit with a couple of recent donations, and at least one donation from someone who can barely afford to do so ( See the other donation thread: Thank Ben, I greatly appreciate the donations, your sense of personal honour, and your very on point words ).

We are approximately $500 away from the donation objective, although the " minimum " is really the minimum and I think that any added funds would be well deserved by Nathan as at least a contingency fund covering unexpected expenses and/or give him some wiggle room when and if he wants to add value to the site with new feature articles, or like when he has in the past given back by offering contest prizes: Nathan can hardly offer prizes if he can't even cover the basic costs of the site. ;) :!:

It should be very obvious that " myArmoury " was created and has continued in existence as a project motivated by passion for the study or historical arms and armour, and also building a meeting place and a community of people interested in the same ! It hasn't ever been structured with a commercial business model looking to make a profit, or even pay a living wage for Nathan. ( By the way a lot of on-line web activity is legitimately some people's principle job, like a lot of " youtubers " whose main income comes from youtube ..... which I think is legitimate ).

Thanks for organizing this Leo.

Everyone who enjoys this site, or finds it a helpful resource, should be happy to contribute and keep it alive. Remember, it is in your own (and everyone's!) interest to do so.

So slow but steady donations, averaging one or two a day, but stalled a bit again ...... :(

Now we are not too far from the donation minimal goal to pay in full the hosting costs this year.

Now lets say we want at least another $500 dollars: This could be one " over generous person giving $500, or it could be 10 people each donating $50 which is still a lot of money for one person.

If 100 people each gave just $5 this would raise the same amount but I would like this more because it meant that 100 people cared enough for the site that they are willing to make a modest donation that only someone in dire financial shape couldn't afford to give.

I also really like having a lot of small donations as this means a lot more people showing their appreciation, although I wouldn't say no to someone who wants and can afford to give $500 ..... ;) :lol:

This year we are still well below the number of people making a yearly donation that has averaged 100 in past years .... still a small number of people considering the numbers of people who visit the site at least a few time a month or more.

Not that many people have viewed this Topic so far and probably many of the same people have viewed the Topic multiple time: People can only be aware of the contest if they come across the Topic and read it, so this is another " BUMP ".

Oh, here is another " BUMP ", Tod makes some very nice reproductions of many things including some really period authentic daggers, so winning one of the prizes is a good way to get one of his daggers/knives at a much lower price, and you are also supporting the site.

We are not too far from the donation objective but donations are coming in slowly.

Also Nathan gives as an objective what he needs to pay the yearly hosting fees on the server so as to break even ! He is not asking for remuneration for the countless hours of work he has put into creating and keeping the site running for nearly 15 years, so any extra money over the objective would be well earned !

Nathan also has the tendency to spend any surplus raised for the site and for occasional prizes, when there is a surplus.

When viewing a Topic not everyone bothers going back to the first post, so just in case I brought this one back as a quoted post for people who didn't bother to read the contest conditions ..... and I also wanted to give this Yearly Donation Drive Topic a " BUMP ".

Donations recently came in with a short flurry of activity, stalled for a few days and then had someone make the most recent donation. We are close to the Donation objective but not quite there yet.

I would be a shame ( Literally a shame ) if this was the first year where the donation goal fell Short, most years we exceeded the goal by a decent margin. :( Turn the :( into :)

Leo Todeschini wrote:

Hi All, I love this site and everything it gives; no point in listing all the great points, you know them, so instead I am putting my money where my mouth is. Every individual donating will be entered into a draw for £200 of Tod Cutler vouchers to be spent at www.todcutler.com where you will find all manner daggers, fittings, maces and so forth. First place will win £150 Second place will win £50 The draw will be made at the end of the drive. I will pay for the postage to wherever you are in the world. Note: A few items are out of stock at the moment as they proved more popular than we expected, but we will be largely restocked by the time the draw is made [ Linked Image ] Please donate to help keep this fantastic resource running. Tod

Hi All,

I think it is time to wrap up the competition...

I would firstly like the thank Nathan for bringing this amazing site to us. Without writing a full essay it is simply not possible to describe what this place gives me, you and the casual browsers, so I won't bother - you know it all and I am glad that so many supported the drive, but lets never forget that Nathan needs and more importantly, deserves out help. He founded it, but it is our site. As part of this, as well as donating, I put up two prizes of £150 and £50 to be used against products from the Tod Cutler site www.todcutler.com

The list of donors (discounting anonymous (thanks guys)) is 58 long, so using Googles' random number generator the winner is

number 5 - Adam Rose

runner up is 42 Gidello Kristian

For those who read Douglas Adams, that is of course the meaning of 'life, the universe and everything' - strangely appropriate.

Well done guys and thanks for donating. The deal is, you choose what you would like, email me and I will pay the shipping.

You can win daggers, knives, maces, scabbard fittings, leather craft and all manner of other bits and pieces and again, you will find them here www.todcutler.com

Tod

Congrats to the winners and thank you Leo for running this.... extremely generous!