Contributors Only Forum Discontinued

[webmaster]

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!

[TiltonBB]

Thank you to the Webmaster for all that he does.

I am one of the 18 who makes a monthly contribution and I had hoped that many other people would do that too.

It is a small price to pay for the information and enjoyment we all get from this site.

After over 50 years of enjoying Lake Winnipesaukee I still learn things reading the Forum on this site and I try to check it at least once a day. The recent discussions regarding current legislation have been very helpful and informative.

I would hate to see this site go away. If you haven't already done so, please consider making a monthly contribution, even a small one.

[TomC]

Yeah - I'm in too, but there is no dialog in the private forum and I have not posted there more than once or twice.. all the action is in the regular sections.

[FlyingScot]

Thanks for all your hard work, Don. I'm in for annual donations. I think I tried to do it last time, but got frustrated and stopped. The PayPal was a breeze, no excuses this time

[BroadHopper]

Thanks Don,

I would rather make my donations through PayPal for simplicity on my end. I will be canceling Patreon and continue on Paypal.

[ghfromaltonbay]

Don, Thanks for all you do. I reverted back to PayPal and canceled Patreon. Much simpler to do annual donations!

[webmaster]

Thanks to everyone who donated since I started this thread or in the past! Many of the donations are very generous and it's gratifying to know that keeping the site open is so important to many of you.

Since these donations began last fall I've been able to pay all the site's expenses from the fund and the latest contributions should enable me to keep that going.

Thanks again!