Hi all,
Just a note to remind us all of what we have, and what we stand to
lose if we can’t find some serious funding for the project.
The ganoksin site (home of Orchid) gets up to 1.5 million hits a
month. There are over 4,500 professional members of the Orchid list.
Hanuman edits the messages from several hundred down to the ones that
get published. The average visitor to the site lingers for about 25
pages. I have over 500 pages of my writing on the site at:
http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/tree.cgi along with other authors. It
is the largest free educational site in the world for jewelers. The
archives provide a huge resource for jewelers worldwide. Hanuman took
a year off unpaid to build the site in the first place. We have
extensive expansion plans for content, and service, but cannot act on
them until funding issues are addressed. We have entire books ready
to go up on the site-same problem.
It costs almost $2,500 US a month in server fees, that is hosting is
not a problem (though the files are pretty massive), but the real
cost is our success, the number of hits, megabytes downloaded etc is
what costs so much. You pay for the pipe, the traffic, not so much
the storage. This has always come out of Hanuman’s own pocket. The
donations have helped, but at no point have they covered costs for
more than a month or two. My efforts to get large companies on board
have to this point, failed, though they all applaud what has been
done so far.
Hanuman has now burned through his personal savings keeping the site
running. He is not a wealthy man, just an idealistic one.
He works a full-time plus job as well as working for Orchid and
ganoksin.
He spends many hours working on the Orchid list daily, without
recompense.
Besides the running costs, Hanuman himself needs a break, and the
sooner the better.
We MUST find $50,000.00 a year for two to three years, to allow
Hanuman to leave his current job, concentrate on Orchid and Ganoksin,
and pay the fees that are needed to run the site. This will give us
the time to figure further funding out.
One of you, dear Orchidians, knows a wealthy person or company who
can be asked to sponsor the site. We need you to think hard, and
connect us with the right person, who wants to do some good in the
world and help build a lasting service for the jewelers and metal
workers of the world.
Help us find a sponsor for the site, before we lose it. We need YOU
to network for us, to find a patron.
If you would like a copy of our site description please contact me
off-list at @Charles_Lewton-Brain.
Thank you,
Charles Lewton-Brain
Charles Lewton-Brain
Box 1624, Ste M, Calgary, Alberta, T2P 2L7, Canada