Please Support Car-Seat.Org: Advertising, Sponsorships and Subscriptions

Status
Not open for further replies.

azgirl71

CPST Instructor
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

I see ADMIN was able to give you a better idea of how long it takes. Thanks ADMIN :).
 
ADS

Admin

Admin - Webmaster
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

Thank you everyone for your generous donations! As you may know from the January, 2008 updates thread, a small extension was made to the subscriptions of early contributors. Since then, forum donations continue to cover hosting, software and other costs. There should also be enough to cover the upcoming website updates. Subscription costs were maintained for 2008 with no changes.

Ultimately, the goal is to break even without a surplus or shortfall from the costs to keep the website and forum running. I will re-evaluate later this year, based on continuing subscriptions and growth of the forums that might eventually spur the need for a costlier hosting package.

Thank you again!
 

azgirl71

CPST Instructor
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

Thank you, ADMIN for providing a place for me to go where people understand my car seat safety passion :D.
 

CRS

Senior Community Member
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

Thank you, ADMIN for providing a place for me to go where people understand my car seat safety passion :D.

Ditto! I'm proud to be a car-seat.org supporter, it's so deserving!
 

Admin

Admin - Webmaster
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

Just to be clear, donations for Car-Seat.Org will be used only for forum and website costs, including but not limited to hosting, domain names, chat room, software, addons, skins or other services/enhancements. If this policy changes in the future, I will make a post about the details.

Seatcheck.net is my own inspection service and a set of webpages for Illinois specific information. DuPage Safe Kids is the local Safe Kids chapter I coordinate. They do not support and are not supported by the Car-Seat.Org forums except that they all depend on my time and effort. I do host a webpage for them, of course, but that is the only real connection to the forums and website.

In the unlikely event of a surplus, funds would most likely be saved for future expansions. At the current rate of growth, it's quite likely that the forums will need a managed, dedicated hosting package within a year or two and those can cost $150-$300 a month or more:-( That doesn't include the costs of the chat room, software and domain names that add up to another $25 a month or more at current prices.

I would expect that there could be a few server/hosting moves in the near future, depending on how the load of our forums is tolerated by providers, especially those who have submitted the less expensive quotes that are possible with the current rate of donations. I'm not making any promises of course, but in any case, I don't forsee my plans for a vacation house in Malibu moving forward anytime soon... I'll just be happy if I can avoid any additional personal expenses beyond those I've made over the last 7 years lol.

To update earlier comments for consistency:

All proceeds from donations/sponsorships will be used primarily for the Car-Seat.Org, Car-Safety.Org and Seatcheck.net website expenses but may also be used for other child passenger safety related expenses incurred by its owner(s). Proceeds will not be used for any type of personal expenses that do not pertain to child passenger safety activities.

I make this update because it became apparent as I did my taxes that for both accounting and tax purposes it would be very difficult to separate my Seatcheck.Net website and CPS services from Car-Seat.Org and Car-Safety.Org which are all essentially intertwined due to my personal ownership and involvement. So, I did not want to mislead anyone in regard to this detail in the event it might affect someone's decision to make a subscription.

To reiterate my other previous comments, no surplus of funds from forum subscriptions is being used for that house in Malibu or any other personal expenses not related to my CPS websites and activities. As I said before, after website and CPS expenses, any surplus will be used mainly for future cost increases and expenses or possibly refunded to donors in the form of extra time on the subscriptions, as was done late last year for active supporters, benefactors and sponsors at that time. In addition, donations and sponsorships are not used to support DuPage County Safe Kids, which is a non-profit organization and completely separate from my personal websites and services, except that I also volunteer my time as coordinator of this Safe Kids chapter.

As I said in a previous post, my intention is to break even on my CPS activites that include Seatcheck, Car-Seat.Org and Car-Safety.Org. Last year, I accomplished this goal fairly well. The tax liability for my CPS related business activities was a "profit" of $168 dollars last year after expenses. The current rate of donations and sponsorships have so far covered the increased costs and also allowed for some upgrades including larger chat room size and general website updates and improvements. These "profits" will also be used to offset future expenses and upgrades and hopefully a surprise or two along the way.

Thank you again for your support!
 

azgirl71

CPST Instructor
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

I thought you were hoarding the fund to statr a car-seat.org compound in Costa Rica :p J/K

Thanks again for all your work!
 

SafeDad

CPSDarren - Admin
Staff member
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

I thought you were hoarding the fund to statr a car-seat.org compound in Costa Rica :p J/K

Thanks again for all your work!

I'm thinking a Car-Seat.Org retreat center for members would be a related expense!
 

azgirl71

CPST Instructor
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

I'm thinking a Car-Seat.Org retreat center for members would be a related expense!

I think a retreat center could be a related expense. It could be therapudic for those of us that need to be around others like us :D. Medically neccesary I think. ;)
 

UlrikeDG

Admin - CPS Technician Emeritus
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

I suspect most of us would be more giddy if you said you were buying a carseat testing facility than if you said you were buying a tropical resort for use by Car-Seat.org members. ;)
 

SafeDad

CPSDarren - Admin
Staff member
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

I suspect most of us would be more giddy if you said you were buying a carseat testing facility than if you said you were buying a tropical resort for use by Car-Seat.org members. ;)

Might be worthy of a poll. While you do that, I'll work on finding 10 million in donations...
 

2wild

New member
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

forgive me for being dense. so one only needs to donate at the supporter level
in order to be able to actively post ISO or WTS threads in the swap forum?
 

2wild

New member
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

I thought you coud use a credit card? i only see pay pal as an option...
 

Admin

Admin - Webmaster
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

Due to privacy concerns, new members will no longer have access to the Community Member forum. Newly registered accounts now must have 10 posts, 10 reputation points and 30 days registered to have access to the Community Member forum/usergroup. This is the same requirement that has been in place for chat room access.

In addition, future subscriptions at the Sponsor and Benefactor levels will no longer have access to the Senior Community Member forum/usergroup. Instead, Sponsors and Benefactors will have automatic access to the Community Member forum/usergroup as part of their subscription.

Access to the Senior Community Member forum/usergroup will be granted only as follows:

The only users who can read and post in this forum are:

1) Admins

2) Community Members with at least 300 posts, 150 reputation points and 365 days registered (subject to change)

3) Technical Professionals with at least 50 posts and 180 days registered and 25 reputation.

4) Moderators and Usergroup Leaders with at least 25 posts

5) (Some long-time users may be grandfathered from an earlier change)

A few other notes-

Donations at the Supporter level will not automatically gain access to either Community Member or Senior Community Member usergroups. If they have access to those groups already, they will continue to have access.

Donors with currently active Benefactor/Sponsor subscriptions will be grandfathered into access for the Senior Community Member usergroup until your subscription expires and is not renewed. If your Benefactor/Sponsor subscription exprires, you will at some point lose access to the Senior Community Member usergroup unless they have met one of the criteria above. This affects about 30 people.

Less active new members may lose access to the Community Member off-topic forum. I apologize for the short notice and any inconvenience. If you would like to participate in this forum, you have 3 options:

1) Access is free when you reach 10 posts, 10 reputation and 30 days registered.

2) You may request to join the Community Member Usergroup in your User Control Panel, Group Memberships area. Requests are granted at the discretion of the usergroup leaders. Generally, this will only be done if you have participated in the Community Member forum already or if you "know" someone who has access already and who will vouch for you. Please list their username in the reason for your request.

3) You may subscribe at the Benefactor or Sponsor Level

No other members will lose any access or features in this change. If you think your access has changed in any way beyond what is mentioned here, please send a private message to Admin.
 

Admin

Admin - Webmaster
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

To reduce the risk of data loss, our provider is working with me to setup a better backup system. Hopefully, a slave database will allow essentially no loss of data if the primary database fails. In a catastrophic event, backups will now be done a few times a day rather than just once overnight. Absolute worst case, we should only lose 6-8 hours of posts, registrations and messages. The cost increase should be within the current level of subscription proceeds. The next step would be to go to a dedicated server system with a business class replication backup system, but that type of setup can easily cost hundreds of dollars a month. Hopefully, that won't be necessary.

Current donors, benefactors and subscribers as of last Sunday were given a 1 month extension on their subscriptions as both a thank you and as credit for the downtime Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Thank you to everyone who has subscribed. More improvements are always on the way! In particular, I will be looking for a plugin to improve our Swap forum with automatic feedback, once one becomes available for the latest version of our forum software.
 

Admin

Admin - Webmaster
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

Some additional changes to the fine print were made, especially considering how payments from corporate/business sponsors are treated.

I have reviewed subscription costs for the new year. There will be no increases for any level effective January 1st, 2009. I will evaluate them again later in the year.
 

SafeDad

CPSDarren - Admin
Staff member
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

I believe the system sends you a notice before your subscription expires. The end date may also be listed in your User CP Paid Subscriptions area.
 

crunchierthanthou

New member
Re: Please Support Car-Seat.Org

another :yeahthat:, but with a link. click here to see when your paid subscriptions expire, to renew or to donate. I received an email notice a week or two before mine expired last time.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Car-Seat.Org Facebook Group

Forum statistics

Threads
219,655
Messages
2,196,895
Members
13,530
Latest member
onehitko860

You must read your carseat and vehicle owner’s manual and understand any relevant state laws. These are the rules you must follow to restrain your children safely. All opinions at Car-Seat.Org are those of the individual author for informational purposes only, and do not necessarily reflect any policy or position of Carseat Media LLC. Car-Seat.Org makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. If you are unsure about information provided to you, please visit a local certified technician. Before posting or using our website you must read and agree to our TERMS.

Graco is a Proud Sponsor of Car-Seat.Org! Britax is a Proud Sponsor of Car-Seat.Org! Nuna Baby is a Proud Sponsor of Car-Seat.Org!

Please  Support Car-Seat.Org  with your purchases of infant, convertible, combination and boosters seats from our premier sponsors above.
Shop travel systems, strollers and baby gear from Britax, Chicco, Clek, Combi, Evenflo, First Years, Graco, Maxi-Cosi, Nuna, Safety 1st, Diono & more! ©2001-2022 Carseat Media LLC

Top