Collecting money - asking for donations ?

[Greg]

As the 44 board are asking for donations to help keep the site running it leads me to think is this legal or right ?? because it would seem unfair that the Charity gig at the Pia Bella last week were prevented from collecting monies at the door and yet here we have a commercial operation asking the public to make donations.
Only wondering what others thought of this scenario ??

[Donna]

hohum...

Firstly it does seem unfair about that charity v commercial donations.

But what gets me really are the figures quoted:

Our yearly costs are roughly as follows:
Dedicated server hosting with MS SQL database engine ~ £4000
We had to install a good firewall due to computer attacks ~ £5000
Bandwidth charges ~ £1000
Maintenance, backups and coding ~ £2000
Content creation ~ £1000
TOTAL: £13000

Ok 44 is hosted in London server52740.uk2net.com (77.92.68.141) and those figures don't make sense to me. http://www.uk2.net/dedicated-servers/

Dedicated server hosting with MS SQL database engine ~ £4000
The most expensive package there is £269 pm (that's £3228 pa). Add in all the extras listed on the hosts page I linked to before and it comes to £324.99 (exclude the £70 for the googleadwords as they have their own ads there, not googles) - that's £3899.88 pa.

We had to install a good firewall due to computer attacks ~ £5000
Surely this should be in the hosts remit? Paying for a dedicated server I would expect the host to provide a secure service.

Bandwidth charges ~ £1000
Well uk2.net say their monthly traffic is unmetered so wouldn't that mean the bandwidth charges are included in the above figures?

Maintenance, backups and coding ~ £2000
The higher figure above of £3899.88 under hosting included the extra for backup. I guess this is mainly made up from Izett's own charges for his work on the site.

Content creation ~ £1000
Again this would be Izzet's own charges.

I just can't see how the figures come ANYWHERE near the £13,000 quoted. Please do point me in the right direction if you are able.

[tamand]

I see that stupit witch *edited* is at it again on the other board, she is so twisted i wonder if her old man knows what shes up to half the time, probly dont have one, she tries to make trouble at every turn, she as usual only tells a bit of a story in her posts i think though she is really doing you a favor on here she keeps plugging the site and getting youse publicity luvin it.

Moderators note: lets move on from this

[Greg]

My personal opinion is that less than 5% of the 8000 members (400) will donate, it might even be as low as 2&1/2%, lets see shall we