I’d like to take the opportunity of the New Year to look ahead with you on matters related to the blog.   My idea for this post is to tell you what my goals for the coming year are and what challenges we are (or that I am) facing, and then to ask a couple of questions from you, the members, about how best to proceed. Goals and Challenges I have several different goals for the blog this coming year. Financial.   This past year, as I indicated in my past post, we pulled in $61,000.   That is a significant increase over the previous year.   I would like to keep the increase going, and have as a target $70,000 for 2014.   This will obviously mean acquiring significantly more members; keeping the members we have; and hopefully increasing the number of donations from people who are already members.  On that final point, there are some people who generously give everything from $25 and up.  I appreciate more than I can say, from each and every one of your [...]

  Here at the end of the year, on this New Year’s Eve, I’m reflecting on the blog and how it has gone over the past 12 months.   I’d say this has been a fantastic year.   Every now and then (like, every ten minutes) I wonder if it is really worth all the time and effort.  I’ve continued to post five or six times a week (usually six), and each post is about 1000 words long.   But in addition, I need to approve all the comments that come in, and respond to the ones that have asked for a response.  Altogether it takes about an hour of my day.  On one hand, that doesn’t seem like much – hey, it’s only an hour!   On the other hand, I already don’t have enough hours in the day.   We need longer days and more days in the week!  I’ve often wished there could be some kind of trade-off system, where people who are bored with nothing to do, for whom the hours and days drag on and [...]

I very much regret to report that all the free memberships that have been available by the generous donors who are already members on the blog have already been given out.   So please do not send in a request if you have not received one.  Hopefully we will be able to make more available in the future. Thanks again toall the  donors.  Your response was heartwarming.  And to the recipients, I hope you enjoy the blog!!

  There are still a few free memberships to the blog available to those who need them, thanks to the incredible generosity of others. These have been donated for a single purpose: to allow those who cannot afford the annual membership fee to participate on the blog for a year. I will assign these memberships strictly on the honor system: if you truly cannot afford the membership fee, but very much want to have full access to the blog, then please contact me. Do NOT reply here, on the blog, as a comment. Send me a separate email, privately, at [email protected]. In your email, please:   1) Let me know your situation and;   2) Provide me with the following information: a) Your first and last name. b) Your preferred personal email. c) Your preferred user name (no spaces). d) Your preferred password (should be 8 or more characters, no spaces). The donors will remain anonymous, but here let me sincerely thank them once again for such kind and generous donations to help others in [...]

  Thanks to the incredible generosity of other members of the blog, I am happy to announce that there are a limited number of free one-year memberships available.   These have been donated for a single purpose: to allow those who cannot afford the annual membership fee to participate on the blog for a year.   I will assign these memberships strictly on the honor system: if you truly cannot afford the membership fee, but very much want to have full access to the blog, then please contact me. Do NOT reply here, on the blog, as a comment.   Send me a separate email, privately, at [email protected].   In your email, please:   1)        Let me know your situation and 2)        Provide me with the following information: a)    Your first and last name. b)     Your preferred personal email. c)     Your preferred user name (no spaces). d)    Your preferred password (should be 8 or more characters, no spaces).   The donors will remain anonymous, but here let me publicly extend my heartfelt thanks for such kind and generous donations [...]

  As many of you know, thanks to a couple of generous donors, I was able to give out some free memberships to people who very much wanted to be on the blog but because of personal circumstances, could not afford the membership fees.   I put out the offer on my facebook page, and within twenty minutes I had thirty requests –all from people who were eager to join but simply did not have the means to do so otherwise.  I had to shut down the offer nearly as soon as I made it.   This has made me suspect that there are a lot more people out there like that. And so an idea has hit me.   Why not do more of the same?  Would any of you be willing to donate one or more memberships during this holiday season?   Each new (year-long) membership would cost $24.95 – so let’s just say $25.      You could donate to the blog any increment of $25 that you want – so if you want to give one [...]

  I very much regret to report that all the free memberships that have been available by a generous donor have already been given out.   So please do not send in a request if you have not received one.  Hopefully we will be able to make more available in the future. Thanks again to the anonymous donor: and to the recipients, I hope you enjoy the blog!!

  Thanks to the incredible generosity of a member of the blog, I am happy to announce that there are a limited number of free one-year memberships available.   These have been donated for a single purpose: to allow those who cannot afford the annual membership fee to participate on the blog for a year.   I will assign these memberships strictly on the honor system: if you truly cannot afford the membership fee, but very much want to have full access to the blog, then please contact me. Do NOT reply here, on the blog, as a comment.   Send me a separate email, privately, at [email protected].   In your email, let me know your situation and provide me with the following information: 1)      Your first and last name. 2)      Your preferred personal email. 3)      Your preferred user name (no spaces). 4)      Your preferred password (should be 8 or more characters, no spaces).   The donor wishes to remain anonymous, but here let me publicly extend my heartfelt thanks for such a kind and generous donation to help [...]