Last year in an effort to encourage donations to help keep this site online I setup up a Patreon account to manage any donations. I donate to several sites through Patreon and noticed that many of them offer private forums and other perks for their members. I thought I'd try adding a private area for topics unrelated to the Lakes Region that could be accessed by making a small donation.
After about 5 months the private forum hasn't really worked out. I only have 18 Patreon donators and only a few have posted on the private forum. It hasn't had a post since December and almost all the posts were from one member. A few of the contributors asked me to remove their ability to even see the private area. 18 members is not nearly enough to sustain a private forum so it's time to write it off as a failed experiment. The monthly donations from those 18 Patreon members are still an important contribution to the site and I hope no one will cancel just because the private forum is no longer available.
After setting up Patreon I realized that Paypal's donation system was easier to use and seemed to be better suited for this site. I shifted over the "Donate" buttons to Paypal although the Patreon membership is still available and may be a good option if you're already using Patreon for other donations.
As always any small contribution is greatly appreciated and will help keep this site online. I received a lot of one-time donations last fall, including a few very generous ones, but I haven't received any at all since then and the funds are very low.
If you value this site and forum please consider a small donation to help keep it online and available. Both Patreon and Paypal are options.
https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hoste...=DSEEMJMVCMYVW
https://www.patreon.com/winnipesaukeeforum
Thanks to everyone for your support!