[Jean Thibodeau]

This year I'm starting it earlier because last year I started it a bit late and Nathan had already paid for the yearly hosting costs out of his own pocket.

As in previous years I encourage people to keep this thread up on the home page by posting their own reasons why they want to support the site.

I also encourage anyone taking advantage of the Marketplace to buy or sell their collectables because the existence of this site is a very good way to find the people most likely to be a buyer or to find something one wants to buy.

Also, industry professional getting " FREE " exposure to their work a place to show off their work to knowledgeable people who will appreciate their craftsmanship ..... and the possibilities of selling some of their creations or getting custom commissions: A small annual contribution is in your interest in addition to supporting the site.

After many years of starting the fund drive and keeping it " moving " along with a post every few days I'm afraid that it's almost impossible for me to write anything I haven't written in previous years, but each year there are new people and after all this is " A Fund drive " so one should expect a bit of " Poking and Prodding " from me and other people who, I hope, will help encouraging people to support the site if they can with a small donation.

My own donation will probably wait to mid-june and my next credit card billing period in about 10 days.

[Leo Todeschini]

Hi Jean,

Thanks for kicking this off and it is true that myArmoury is a fantastic resource for both sellers, makers and those interested in the subject and so I really do believe in supporting the site and everything it offers.

As you say, so much has been said before, but really it is simply that this place matters for so many reasons and its not fair that Nathan has to front it, so lets all pull our fingers out and sort it for him.

Jean can you post up a payment link?


Keep up the great work Nathan.


Tod

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Brian M.]

Thanks for starting this up Jean. Donated.

In the upper right-hand corner of any page on myArmoury there's a Contribute link. Bottom right of the page this takes you to has a big PayPal button. Easy!

I had relatives visiting from out of town last weekend. Someone spotted the swords on the wall of my office and asked a question, which spun into a very enjoyable hour or so of hands-on discussion and Q&A. Everyone was impressed with the objects on hand courtesy of Tod Cutler, DBK Custom Swords, and Albion, and we roamed through historical arms and armor, material culture, common popular misconceptions, HEMA, sword dynamics, craftsmanship, and so on. It was a blast.

Which is all to say, myArmoury is responsible for at least 90% of my knowledge and enthusiasm for these topics and this hobby. Thank you to Nathan for making this resource available to all of us, and to all of you who contribute here and help make it what it is.

[Roger Hooper]

I just contributed, and was glad to do it.

[Kai Lawson]

I can add my name to the contributor list this year again. I encourage all the lurkers who use this site in some way to join, and all the members to try to donate. We all know the reasons why we use and value this resource--do your part to give back, if you can.

[Michael Eging]

I will be supporting the site! I haven't had as much time of late to post of be as involved with the community as in years past (which I love, but am juggling some new projects). However, I love all things medieval and weapons from the late Roman period through the Renaissance are just my thing. Many thanks to the whole team for keeping this alive!

[Aaron Hoard]

Glad to contribute - get a lot of good information here and connect with wonderful people.

[Jean Thibodeau]

Just a quick thanks to all those who have donated so far and also thanks for posting and keeping the Topic up on the home page.

This place is a great source of information, and polite civilized debate, made friends here and learned a lot over many years.

Another reason to support the site is to keep this archive of information available to people.

Oh, and with the large number of Topics and postings doing a search can bring back up many old threads with useful information, and there is nothing wrong with reviving even an " Ancient Topic " if one has something new to add or a new question to ask. The original posters may not still be regular posters or readers in some cases, but other people will pick up the " slack " and give replies to new questions or comments.

[Nathan Robinson]

This is really helpful. Thank you, Jean, for initiating this. My income situation these days is, well, garbage. Prices go up, income goes down. I am guessing this is a familiar story for many!

[Jean Thibodeau]

Oh, just a little observation: Many times when I have " GOOGLED " something about a historical weapon one of the top search results are to a " myArmoury " Topic thread, which I think is sort of cool if one posts here as it means that one's ideas, observations and fact sharing are available to many more people that just those who have an uprated account here.

It does mean that the information on this site's features and Forum posts have a potential wider audience.

Oh, specifically for Industry Professionals it means that some people may see your work, or even become aware of your existence due to having been mentioned in a post, or in having posted on the Maker's Forum ..... so again giving even a small donation is a very inexpensive way to get some advertising and it also increases the odds of people finding you and maybe buying something.

I'm focussing on the Makers in this post because they are the ones who can get some real financial advantages from the continued health and existence of this site.

One could say the same for the Marketplace Forum and those wanting to sell or buy swords ( or other related things ) that might be unique custom work, or small production run collectables that might no longer be in production.

Donations have been coming in without my doing much " Nagging " this year and this is because other people are helping a lot with their own posts. It's much more interesting when it isn't just me discussing why this site is valuable to many and deserves support.

Having the hosting costs fully paid off, and not from Nathan's own pocket, should be one thing that Nathan shouldn't have to worry about ..... and even more so if his financial situation is less " Stellar " than it may have been in better economic times. With the hosting costs paid off it would be one less thing for him to have to worry about ! ( We all have things to worry about in life, so one less thing is always a good thing .... ).

[Stephen Curtin]

Happy to help out and to try keep the financial burden off of Nathan.

[Ryan Hobbs]

Here's to keeping the ship afloat, thanks for what you do Nathan!

[Gregg Sobocinski]

When I think about all of the information I acquire here, which would take several hours to obtain from other sources (many of which are repeating Victorian drivel), I am ever more grateful. Thanks again to Nathan for leading this site, the moderators for keeping the discussions pleasant to read, and the contributors for driving the topics and informative discussions throughout the year.

[Jean Thibodeau]

I'm in the process of changing to a new Macbook Air and I might not have access to my old MAC for a few days when I take it in to the Apple store to have them do the migration .... I looked up a lot of google links and even if it's easy in theory, I have a very old iMAC and I don't want to screw it up as I've read many contradictory advice on how best to do it.

Also, I sent in my Donation tonight just in case the process takes more than a few days at the Apple store, also I received an e-mail from Paypal last week that my old obsolete browser would lose access to my Paypal account at the end of this month if I didn't update to a more recent browser. I was due to buy a new MAC anyway, so this motivated me to stop procrastinating.

So it was best to do the donation now before packing up the old MAC to get it to the Apple Store.


The donation drive seems to be on track as a lot of people are making donations and " BUMPING " the Topic, still a ways to go to meet the objective but we are past the halfway point.

[Jean Thibodeau]

Oh, remember that donations don't have to be huge to be helpful, so don't feel shy thinking that the small amount you send is trivial: It is also a show of support by more members and adds to the statistics of the number of people caring enough about the site and wanting to keep it going for another year.

I think I write the above every year ......

I'm really happy that donations have been coming in with minimal " Nagging " from me and that people seem to care enough to donate but also post their appreciation for the site and what they like about participating here, posting or even just lurking and reading posts during the year(s).

[Jean Thibodeau]

Time for a little " NAGGING " ......

Some donations are still coming in, and thanks to the most recent people adding to the total, but it's sort of a trickle rather than a flood of donations.

Remember that Nathan started this site out of a passion for arms and armour and history, it was never a " Money Maker " for him, but that wasn't or still isn't the reason that this site exists and continues to exist ...... But, in a more financially challenging time for Nathan his expenses for running this site shouldn't come out of pocket.

The costs for running this site has to at least break even.

A different situation but I've noticed that a lot of youtubers are now relying on donations using PATREON to keep their youtube sites up and running: For a lot of these people youtube became their actual only job and they have been struggling since Youtube changed the way they compensate content creators. ( Now the whole youtube fairness to content creators thing is mostly off topic for this site ).

Now, I bring this up because these youtube sites are getting a lot of financial support from people who want to keep seeing the content creator's videos: So as a community do we care less for " myArmoury " and are less supportive for this site than Youtube viewers ?

Now we are not talking here of monthly sums raised in sometimes many thousands of dollars, we are talking here of a yearly donation drive with a very modest objective to pay for server hosting costs, and it's not giving Nathan a living salary, although that would be nice.

I assume that one reason for the difference in people donating money is I think that youtube sites are more " Trendy " .

[Jean Thibodeau]

Another " Bump ", donations seem to have stalled for the last couple of days and we are still somewhat below the objective.

How about looking back a week or two and if you have visited this site at least 10 times, or X number of times, why not give a dollar for each visit ......

So someone visiting this site twice a week for the whole year would have been here a bit over 100 times, so giving $10 would be like giving 10 cents a visit.

Or skip an expensive coffee or two and donate the equivalent amount ?

This site is a great resource that should be supported as there are not too many sites where one can find as much good information all in one place, plus ask questions and get helpful answers.

I visit a lot of different sites on the Internet and I only contribute money to a handful of those sites, so I also can not afford to send money to support every possible site I visit regularly, but I do make a point of supporting a few including this one that are special to me: If this site is one of your Top Sites to visit consider making one of the few you would consider donating to.

[Jean Thibodeau]

Note: The yearly average number of people making a donation each year has been between a minimum of 75 to maybe 125 in a very good year: So far we have approximately only 40 people making a donation ..... so where are the rest of the people ?

Now, time wise we are sort of halfway in duration of previous years donation drives, so there is still some time to meet the donation amount goal and the numbers of people making a donation.

Each year a few people have even made more than one donation sometimes to round out the numbers when close to an even number like $1500 or $2000 or $2500 ..... or to just cross over the donation minimum.

Considering all, the unpaid time Nathan has put in making and keeping this site running I always think that the donation goal is really just keeping Nathan from running a deficit ! Any extra money raised is a very tiny compensation for his time and can cover unexpected expenses.

So again, if you visit this site often and you want to keep it going in the future for many many years, giving the site some minimal yearly support seems like a good idea.

[Jean Thibodeau]

Last donation last friday: Should we worry that we wont reach the objective this year ? It would be the first time, and even in the worst years of the financial crisis we still reached the objective ......

I'll keep more " motivational " talk for the next time because reading all the posts above does cover most of it.


And thanks again to all those who have donated so far.


Note: I made a donation but it's not appearing in the total raised and I'm not appearing in the list of donors because I may not have been logged in when I made the donation. ( Nathan confirmed that he received my donation and that it hadn't disappeared in cyber limbo, I'm mentioning this just in case that some people might think that I didn't donate this year. )

EDITED on the 4 of July: Nathan manually fixed the issue and now my name appears in the list of donors.