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[CreedP]

I'm going to sticky this for easy reference in the future, but for those who have asked how they can donate for the efforts to keep Raw Deal going over the years, here's the information.

While I can't accept any donations for Raw Deal without a legal issue, it's certainly legal to support the website we use for it!  :)  So here's the link to the PayPal account for TCO:

TCO PayPal Donation

I've covered the website costs for a while, already paid for the domain renewal - that's the easy part.  However, the site that hosts this forum is significantly more, especially since we kept exceeding our allotted page loads and 'CPU usage', resulting in temporary shutdown, so I had to upgrade our hosting package.  The new costs are:

1 year - $420
2 years - $670
3 years - $880

It's not due for a couple months, but I want to post this now so we have plenty of time.  Covering 1 year is the goal, and we have a big headstart on that thanks to one TCOer's generosity (thanks again!)  But obviously if we can get the discounted rates for more years, then we don't need to bother for a very long time. :)

Thanks in advance for any assistance, rest assured it is GREATLY appreciated.  (...and could curry small favors like gaining a 'TCO Donor' tag if desired)

CREED

[CreedP]

Just following up on this, we have just about enough for a 1 year renewal, thank you again guys.

There's still one month to go, so anything further would help keep the doors open another year.  We'll see how it goes.

Thanks again to everyone who's chipped in!

CREED

[CRASHER]

hey, is there a way I can venmo a donation over?? I have two customers who insist on paying me via Venmo, and I'd love to put it to good use (well aside of paying for my ice time!)

[CreedP]

I'd literally never heard of Venmo until you asked about it.  I'll try to remember to check on it.

CREED

[CRASHER]

I'd literally never heard of Venmo until you asked about it.  I'll try to remember to check on it.

CREED

That was honest to God the same reaction I had when the first guy asked me to pay in it  :laugh:

It's a mobile app basically, it's HUGE in the ice hockey community ....heh

[CreedP]

Unfortunately, it's about that time again.  Renewal for the hosting company where this website lives will be at the end of November, and thankfully the prices listed in the first post are still the same.

There's a bit in the renewal fund already, but only about $50 so we still have a way to go.  Unfortunately, my funds are rather limited this time around (summer beats up my budget, living in the desert with high electric bills) so I won't have a lot available to cover the difference if we want to keep TCO alive.  But they're offering a 3-month renewal, so we have two options:

1) Donations get us to the 1-year mark and we renew in November.
2) We can renew for 3-months, and revisit this after the holidays in 2020.

Let me know what you guys think, it'd be great to keep TCO alive if we can!

CREED

[KD8ESU]

Unfortunately, it's about that time again.  Renewal for the hosting company where this website lives will be at the end of November, and thankfully the prices listed in the first post are still the same.

There's a bit in the renewal fund already, but only about $50 so we still have a way to go.  Unfortunately, my funds are rather limited this time around (summer beats up my budget, living in the desert with high electric bills) so I won't have a lot available to cover the difference if we want to keep TCO alive.  But they're offering a 3-month renewal, so we have two options:

1) Donations get us to the 1-year mark and we renew in November.
2) We can renew for 3-months, and revisit this after the holidays in 2020.

Let me know what you guys think, it'd be great to keep TCO alive if we can!

CREED

If my math is correct (assuming you have $50 even in the lockbox), that put you at $55 needed to get to 2020?

PM me with specific numbers on what's going on.

[CreedP]

Good news / bad news....

Bad first, I was planning a 3-month renew for now, but been very busy with my position at work changing, taking an online music course, being sick, and Gem having another knee surgery.  And it auto-renewed for 1 year, which wiped out my savings/overdraft protection.

Good news, two people made some nice donations that covers almost half of the cost, so I'm not overdrawn, but I'm out about $240 I wasn't planning to spend.  And of course, TCO is renewed for another year, so that's good, heh.

(The frustrating thing is, had I realized when they were processing payment, I'd have switched it to a credit card, but it was still set to bill my debit card.  Argh)

So any donations to help cover the cost would be greatly appreciated, especially that the vote has been cast for us to renew for a year, haha.

CREED

[Keith0913832]

I'll drop in some donations in a few hours. Thanks for tanking the amount. What would allow to downgrade the plan so it becomes cheaper?

I've seen how Facebook, Flickr and dropbox/onedrive can store images. Would pushing all the downloads off this forum help?

[CreedP]

Possibly for part of it, but they also monitor CPU usage, as in 'how much computing is necessary to generate the pages?'  We got our first warning in a long time last month, likely from the new set dropping (thankfully we still came in under our allotment, or they'd have shut the site off for the rest of the month).

Hopefully no one's automatically updating the site anymore, there's no need for that, but there's still a lot of casual visitors it seems.  (Maybe bots too, who knows)

That said, thank you for the help.  I don't know if anyone else uses Venmo, but thanks to Crasher I got that set up if anyone prefers that.  PayPal seems rather universally accepted, though.

Again, thanks for the donations, past and present, it's greatly appreciated!

CREED

[CreedP]

So unfortunately, we're back to that time of year again, sigh.  I despise asking for money, just ... ugh.  But alas, COVID has been unkind to the economy, and the hosting company has raised their prices. Normally I'd mention 2/3 year plans but those are increased higher as well, sadly, so it will cost $479.88 to renew for 1 year.

I'm torn - TCO has been such a staple for Raw Deal, dating back to the printed game, and the sole host for Virtual Raw Deal over the last decade-plus. There's so many memories, and archived rules questions, and history... it's tempting to just let it slip, switch to Dropbox for hosting the card files, and fully move to Discord (not too sure about the FB group, haha).

The good news is, the bucket is not empty.  There's already been a few contributors (thank you again!!) and we've almost hit our first $100 mark, but there's still a way to go if we're going to keep the ol' red-and-white around for another year.

As always, everything you guys do to keep us up is greatly appreciated.  And rest assured if I can ever get hired for that lottery jackpot winner job I keep applying for, I'll never ask again!  haha

Take care, everyone, and thanks for all the memories.

CREED

[CreedP]

A quick Thank You So Much! to those people who have contributed, we're at $180 of the $480 goal, which is 3/8th of the way there, or 37.5% if you prefer.

Seems we might be keeping TCO around a bit longer, if this keeps up!

CREED

[CreedP]

WE DID IT!

Wow, thank you guys, this is the first year we hit the renewal goal 100% from donations!!

I am so grateful, at this very difficult time, to have the support of Raw Deal players... I can't even put it into words.

Again, from the bottom of my tiny blackened heart.. THANK YOU!

CREED

[Scotty]

Sweeettt!!!! Our community is amazing!

[CreedP]

Okay, good news / bad news.  Bad news first, it's that time again: website renewal is upon us, so it's time to put out the Tip Jar for donations toward renewing this crazy site. :)

The good news is two-fold... one, thanks to some extra donations last year, I was able to extend it 3 more months, which works out way better for me at least! And two, I worked with the host's site support to downgrade our plan, since we aren't as active these days. So far there's been no warnings, and that's great news.

Looks like with a late donation last year, we're already at $35 out of $300 to renew, so for anyone interested:  TCO PayPal Donation

Thanks in advance, long live Raw Deal!  :)

CREED

[KD8ESU]

I was waiting to see when this was going to happen.


So $300 - $35 = $265 left to pay to keep TCO up; my math is correct, good sir?

To the Community at large:
People, this is Tax Return season.  If you have gotten any fun from the TCO community, you can send a few bucks to keep this going.  It would be nice to get past next renewal, but I'm keeping my expectations in line.



I'll be messaging you in a few days, when I call my bank about a few things.   ;)

[CreedP]

WOW you guys are awesome, thank you so much!

We're already up to $225 out of $300 and the first week isn't even done!

I appreciate this SO much, much thanks to everyone tossing a coin to your TCO (O' Raw Deal of Plenty, haha)

CREED

[CreedP]

A quick update, we're now up to $270/300 that's awesome!

In fact, since I'm doing a LOT better financially this year than last year, we could actually do a 2-year renewal at a discount, which is $480 (3 is 630, doubtful we'll get that far though).

Much appreciation to those contributing, hooray for Raw Deal!

EDIT: Woohoo! 325/480, our first 2-year is on the horizon!

CREED

[CreedP]

I'm heading out of town for an extended weekend vacation, Gem & I celebrating 13 years together.  :)

Just wanted to again thank everyone for the support, currently at 385/480 for the 2-year renewal, I don't mind covering the difference but welcome any further support.  If there's more, perhaps 3-year is an option, perhaps haha.

Anyway, again - you guys are amazing, so grateful... have a great weekend!

CREED

[CreedP]

Back from vacation, we're up to $450/480 and I am so very thankful for everyone's contributions.

There's been a very generous offer to split the difference on the upgrade to the 3-year renewal, and I'll do that so we won't have to worry about this place until 2025, haha.

Viva Le Raw Deal!

CREED

[CategoryOneGames]

Did we reach the goal on this?

[CreedP]

Yes, actually, a few people split the final bit to reach the 3-year renewal cost, so we're good until 2025 yay!

CREED