Yes it looks like it is time to ask for donations again … thanks @Patrick for prodding things in this recent thread:
It looks like the last call for donations was in Nov 2020:
According to that thread we were $2600 in the black as of December 2020 after that most recent round. Jan 2021 through Feb 2023 is 26 months since the last call.
Expenses
The good news is AWS made a major change in their pricing model in this period (we pay them to store and serve all of our pictures) and that is now only $16 per month as opposed to $80 or so that it was costing. The price change hit in Jan 2021 so in this period we did 12 months at the $80 and 26-12=14 months at the $16. On the other hand email is costing more to send, we are now paying $15 a month to Mailgun to send the email. The web server itself is run through Linode (now Akamai through a buy-out) and that is $50 per month. Unfortunately I just got an email that the prices are going up 20%, but that has not hit yet.
So, it looks like $80 * 12 + $16 * 14 + $15 * 26 + $50 * 26 = $2874 of expenses in this period. It looks like we hit pretty close, $2600 - $2874 = we are only $274 in the red now.
Donations
Please send your donations to my Paypal account: sfs@scottfrasersmith.com. If you use the “friends and family” option there is no surcharge so please use that. The next call for donations will be when the money from this call runs out.
While Paypal is a lot easier, If you would prefer to send a check or cash that will also work. Here is my address.
There is no recommended amount. Just give what you want and/or what you can afford. If you are low on cash no problem just wait til the next (or next next) round. The more we get the longer we can go between calls.
BTW I should add since people started sending things in early we already have $505 in according to my PayPal! Thanks early donors, we are already back in black!
By far the best resource I rely on for learning about growing all of the things I have in my yard is this forum and the incredible people who participate. It would not be possible without Scott’s generous time and effort, as well as the wonderful team of moderators who have volunteered to assist in the time I’ve been here.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank @scottfsmith and all this sites admins for providing such a great resource for home growers. As a Canadian I sadly find it next to impossible to locate information on fruit growing in my own country. Your website is invaluable to me as most of the posts from the US PNW relate directly to my growing area.
After being a member of your forum for around a year my grafting success rate has improved dramatically. I attribute this directly to all the great information on grafting I have found here. Thank you so much for providing this great forum. I currently enjoy reading this forum more than any other resource on the web.
Thanks @scottfsmith, for some reason I was unable to send as friends and family. Another seller from another forum just informed me. I must admit, I’m not a PayPal person.
