The entire story on our site's performence, where it's headed and everything else

[savafan]

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/ is a website where you can create products to sell and set the prices you want to charge for them. My poetry club, The Poet's Embrace has a gift shop on here. To see what the products look like at my store, visit: http://www.cafeshops.com/cp/store.as...true&x=19&y=12

[MWM]

The only problem with making it a pay site or selling advertising or merchandise is it turnd RedsZone into a business where the owners would have to worry about all the red tape associated with haveing an actual business.

I'm with 15fan, I'll kick in $50. If you could get 50 people willing to pay $20, that's $1000 and should get you close for a year.

[savafan]

If it was designated as non-profit, I know there would still be red tape, but it wouldn't be as bad would it?

[traderumor]

The freebie days are coming to an end, sad as it is to say. I am so appreciative of the folks who make this available. It hasn't taken greed long to make its way into the information flow that is the internet. A Columbus Christian radio station just recently discontinued its streaming audio because of operating costs becoming unaffordable. Anyway, I would hate to see it go subscription for all those who will avoid the site. Volunteers, gifts, or sponsors (Baseball-reference.com keeps their site free with sponsors for team pages and player pages) seem to be the most viable to keep it "free" for surfers. I came in that way and am now willing to chip in whatever way I can to keep the board running. Banner free would be best though--they are almost as annoying as popups.

[Old Red Guard]

I will pay one month's hosting fee. I know that isn't going to support a long term solution but if Zoners can raise enough to get the first 6 months covered it would buy GIK and Boss and others time to check out advertising, sponsors and maybe even sponsoring members while increasing the board's viability. Perhaps we could get Zoner Ts for donating a certain amount, a "sponsoring RedZone" line under our signons for a certain amount etc. Any thought of selling advertising to sports bars near the stadium? Also, maybe a membership fee with a 30 or 90 day free trial on the site to new members to decide if they want to enroll - they can post free for x # of days then if they want to be a posting member they have to pay an annual fee. $10, $20 etc.

The fact is that nothing good is ever free if it requires people, resources and time to maintain it. Other sites from news to sports to hobby related ones are converting to pay systems, at least for the premium content they offer. If the amount is reasonable and spread among 150 -200 or more memberships it should be feasible. I certainly don't mind paying. That's why a sponsoring member tag or something would be nice. It would encourage membership without shutting out the students, young families getting started etc. I'll pay for the enjoyment I have received talking with Reds fans about baseball has been immense. Living in an area where Reds fans are few and far between and team news is almost entirely from the 'net, I'd consider it a small price to pay.

[TRF]

The problem with advertisements, especially for a couple of guys in college, is finding time to get them, and keep them. Then how is it done? How many Redszone members live out of state? I can't get Skyline Chili in Texas. Their ads won't do anything but make me hungry.

Now a sponsorship might be the best way. 2 grand a year might not be much to certain groups, but there might be legal issues.

[SirFelixCat]

There have been quite a few GREAT ideas that have come out on here...my personal fav's are the charity auction, ORG's idea of a 30-day free trial then $20 a year, or possibly the donation link on the site. While we don't have tons of cash to throw around, Mrs. SC and myself would gladly chip in at least $20, if for no other reason, than to get the ball rolling and give the powers that be time to set up advertising and such. I think the WLW or the mino league affiliates being sponsors is also a fantastic idea...

Regardless of which way we go, rest assured, Boss, GIK, etc. that the 'Zone will be here to help wherever and whenever we are needed

[Spring~Fields]

$130 X 12 months of annual hosting fees $1,560.00/1,172=$1.33 each or

$80.00 X 12 months of annual hosting fees $960.00/1,172=.82 each

surely we all could chip in $2.00 each per year.

[savafan]

But of those 1172 members, a little over 350 of them have never even made one post.

[SandyD]

Originally posted by TeamCasey
Wow. That is discouraging. I wish I had the expertise to help. It's sad to see this creation possibly die.

We aren't going anywhere. I don't think the membership on this board will let that happen.

Boss, I think you underestimate us. Give us an estimate of the total cost. Is that all there is to it? $2k-$3k a year? We can raise that, IMO, and more. As long as we don't need it all upfront. How much do we need to get started? Do we have to sign a contract? If so, for how long? Can we have a trial period to make sure we like what we're getting?

I like 15fans idea, and some banner advertising wouldn't be too bad. We just need to remember to click on them periodically. can we legally work out some sort of 50/50 raffle? $5 a shot instead of the usual $1? Might not work out because it's probably illegal in a lot of states. The auction idea isn't bad, but I hate auctions, so I wouldn't participate. I'd rather donate.

The key is to keep us informed on where we stand, and not to wait too long to ask for help. I mean, I can't promise an initial $50 donation or anything right now, but I'll chip in something every month for a while to make it happen. I suggested quarterly fundraisers before, and I still prefer that to monthly, but I'm for whatever it takes.

I think we want to avoid paid memberships if possible. Not saying that it won't come to that, but I think we should try something else first.

But we do need a goal and a budget. Maybe we need to establish some sort of charter. Can we get access to the charter for the old Knickerbocker Base Ball club? Could we use that as a model?

We can do this. Just let us know what we have to do.

[SirFelixCat]

Ok, dumb question, but we have well eclipsed 1,000 members now. I understand the reasoning why some do not want to charge for membership into our board, but out of those 1,000+ members, 350 or so have not even posted? Not to sound...rude(?), but if we lost some of them, what's the problem? $20 a year is hardly a large amount for such a tight knit board in which we have so many well informed and well educated (baseball speaking) people. The core of this board, and then some, would be more than willing to chip in to make this thing work. Again, while I understand the reluctance to charge, times change and hard decisions need to be made. $20 per person and the problem goes away...just my $.02

[buckeyenut]

Someone mentioned sponsorships from sports bars. Maybe Team Clark's new sports bar might want to sponsor us or advertise on the site.

Maybe the guys with Reds contacts could get some autographed stuff we could auction off as a fundraiser for the site.

Maybe we could have a Redszone day at the ballpark and charge 20 bucks a ticket or something and get discounted tickets like they do for Lutheran Day at the Reds and use that as a fund raiser.

I like the idea of the Dragons sponsoring the site and having a board for them.

[SandyD]

Originally posted by SC Reds Fans
Ok, dumb question, but we have well eclipsed 1,000 members now. I understand the reasoning why some do not want to charge for membership into our board, but out of those 1,000+ members, 350 or so have not even posted? Not to sound...rude(?), but if we lost some of them, what's the problem? $20 a year is hardly a large amount for such a tight knit board in which we have so many well informed and well educated (baseball speaking) people. The core of this board, and then some, would be more than willing to chip in to make this thing work. Again, while I understand the reluctance to charge, times change and hard decisions need to be made. $20 per person and the problem goes away...just my $.02

Requiring an annual membership brings with it its own administrative costs, and I'm afraid of losing members because they can't re-up at a specific time. And what about new members? Would ramp have paid to post on this site?

If we have a treasure chest, with a goal to meet, we can contribute what we can afford, when we can afford it. If we can meet our needs that way, that's the best. I think we can. If we can't , we have to look into the possibility of subscription. Just my opinion.

Oh, and what are the legal ramifications of subscription vs donations?

[CougarQuest]

Call me a tight wad, but I refuse to pay for sites. With that said, I have made donations to this site in the past, but there is something that just irks me to pay for a site.

If this becomes a pay site, I think we lose people, people who don't have the money to 'waste' on extras like this. I think we also loose out on people from other sites or people who have a valuable insite that won't come in. Can this stop people like ramp, cardinals fans, astro fans, etc. who can give us insite to their club that we don't know or may never know if they won't pay to come in and make one post that informs us? What about a guy who has a lot of medical bills and going through a lot of problems, or a guy out of work temporarily and right now this site is the highlight of their day a place to escape reality? The same person who is too proud to take a donation or be allowed to come in for free while others pay? Some of these people have been here since the beginning. I am totally against making this a pay site.

You want to have a "silent auction", get sponsors, get donations, I'm all for it, but don't make this a pay site because I want EVERYONE to be able to access this site whether they just read or post every second. If we loose one poster (obviously who doesn't cause problems) we may loose a lot.

[westofyou]

ORG said:

I will pay one month's hosting fee.

I will too.