Merry Christmas everyone. I hope this finds you enjoying family and friends, relaxing.
If you would do me a favor this last week of December, please consider taking a moment to post in this thread how this site helped you during the past twelve months. Maybe you sold your airplane, bought an airplane, found a new friend, found an engine, solved some problems you were having with your build, or just stayed entertained a bit in a chaotic world.
With your permission, I would like to keep this thread open until the end of the year.
I ask because donators are down 12.5%. My goal is to at least have the same number of donators as last year. These donations basically are the deciding factor on whether we make or loose money as a family. Yeah, it’s that tight. Some very kind folks sent more than the suggested $25. Others sent touching notes that I’ll save forever.
So, there are 33,140 forum accounts. Many additional thousands of unregistered ‘lurkers’.
Where things stand - the update:
1,847 people have sent in an honor system donation in 2022 as of today. 2,107 donated in 2021.
On the rules page I ask that folks not create threads in the vein of ‘people should donate’. I ask this only because of how terribly, terribly uncomfortable it all makes me. I don’t enjoy having to ask for donations AT ALL, but it is looking like maybe I should have asked more frequently. I’ve tried over the years to not be too intrusive, as I know how much *I* don’t enjoy that when I’m on the web browsing. Most every site I visit outside of VAF has a pop up ad to work through. Some of the aviation associations I belong to seem to snail-mail me a request for money weekly - others email every other day. It seems every business on Earth wants my inbox to know about some new sale or discount regarding something I don’t want and didn't ask about.
I never wanted to do that with VAF, and still don’t, and I thought maybe I had struck a nice balance of raising awareness on donations two or three times a year and not bugging with emails or pop-ups at all, etc. I think now I shot low.
Some caveats:
- No, I don’t ever want there to be a paywall. I have my reasons. I hope you can respect that.
- The mobile app of the forum software is purchased and hopefully will be running in a few months.
- 95% of my time is spent behind the scenes doing maintenance and admin work. Glamorous is not the word I would use.
The donate page is at https://www.vansairforce.net/yearlypledgedrive_value.htm if you feel so inclined. You can use a credit card. You can mail a bag of pennies. I'll use it.
Exempt from donating:
* any United States citizen who has EVER been in no-s h i t, bullets coming at you combat.* You know who you are, and I will never be able to thank you enough for protecting my way of life.* Please enjoy the site free for the rest of your life.
* anyone currently serving in the United States Armed Forces
* police officers (past or present)
* current Kindergarten thru grade 12 teachers.
* firefighters (salaried or volunteer - past or present)
* anyone employed by Van's Aircraft
* anyone acting as a moderator in the forums
* anybody currently unemployed
* the (2) renters at 'theVanCave'
I would like to keep VAF as my main job, but I’m not kidding it’s getting hard. The simulator side work I did this year won’t cover the health insurance increase we just received.
Thank you reading all this, thank you if you donate, and thank you letting me put up this one post until the end of 2022,
Doug (your VAF host)
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