Hey folks,
I've been giving some thought over the last couple of months about 2023 and where we're headed. I'd been hoping (possibly irrationally) that Proboards would have given the keys to the new forum software over to pre-existing forums by now. However this isn't the case, which is a shame. So I'm kind of launching this stuff on the promise of better to come (as ever).
I'll give some background down below* of what this supports, but if you fancy helping the forum be the best it can be we now have a slightly cheaper way for you to do this, we've added a £10 a year 'GL' tier to the club membership option. What does this get you? Well the same as the £20 tier, a warmth in your heart that you are helping to keep this all ticking along nicely, a club sticker, a club event (or two if the gods are shining on us). The £20 a year 'GTi' tier also gets an extra free RR thing each year (trying to swing mugs this year if I can make the postage work!!), and a cheaper two event show ticket (camping entry to both Weekender and Gathering at less than the cost of both tickets). Both tiers also get pre-sale on event tickets.
If you fancy it:
This is the £10 GL membership: store.retro-rides.org/products/club-retro-rides-gl-level-membership
This is the £20 GTi membership: store.retro-rides.org/products/club-retro-rides-membership
All preexisting members are GTi members btw
I'm also looking for a "buy me a coffee" type button for those that may just want to say thanks in a smaller way and not be doing with any of the club stuff. So if you sell a car or get a good bit of advice or just want to say "hey it is cool this place still exists" you can chuck a couple of quid in.
Whether you join the club or not, everyone is always welcome here to use the forum, the image uploader and all that. Always have been and always will be.
*Here in fact
So Retro Rides continues to be a thriving forum and our visitor numbers are solid and rising in fact. Our Proboards costs used to be totally offset by the adverts we have on the forum, however changes to AdSense and various other things (economy, Apple and others doing (legitimate) cookie changes etc.) have meant the ad income has been reduced, December may see that reversed, but that is only one month. Coupled with the fact that we pay for everything in dollars, it has really squeezed the finances of the forum. The image uploading and hosting has long been a very expensive thing and has only got more expensive over 2022. A couple of weeks back I took a big step and got my own box on the internet! I'm moving the image hosting code onto that box, which will really reduce the costs incurred (although the storage costs will still be relatively high). Ideally I'd be able to run the forum entirely ad free, with merch and club membership getting close enough that I'm only putting in a relatively modest amount of money each month (I've been running this place for 18 years, I suspect if I hadn't been I could have bought that Aston Martin by now hahaha). This is all a little 'how the sausage gets made' but ultimately underneath all of this forum is a big tech stack that costs a bunch of money, which I'm trying to offset as much as possible with providing enough of a good website/community/service that people are happy to buy some stickers, some club membership or see some ads around the place. My BIG ambition is to actually make some money from all this, so I can plough it back into creating content, getting show coverage, videos edited, maybe even launch something more to improve our wider retro community.
I've been giving some thought over the last couple of months about 2023 and where we're headed. I'd been hoping (possibly irrationally) that Proboards would have given the keys to the new forum software over to pre-existing forums by now. However this isn't the case, which is a shame. So I'm kind of launching this stuff on the promise of better to come (as ever).
I'll give some background down below* of what this supports, but if you fancy helping the forum be the best it can be we now have a slightly cheaper way for you to do this, we've added a £10 a year 'GL' tier to the club membership option. What does this get you? Well the same as the £20 tier, a warmth in your heart that you are helping to keep this all ticking along nicely, a club sticker, a club event (or two if the gods are shining on us). The £20 a year 'GTi' tier also gets an extra free RR thing each year (trying to swing mugs this year if I can make the postage work!!), and a cheaper two event show ticket (camping entry to both Weekender and Gathering at less than the cost of both tickets). Both tiers also get pre-sale on event tickets.
If you fancy it:
This is the £10 GL membership: store.retro-rides.org/products/club-retro-rides-gl-level-membership
This is the £20 GTi membership: store.retro-rides.org/products/club-retro-rides-membership
All preexisting members are GTi members btw
I'm also looking for a "buy me a coffee" type button for those that may just want to say thanks in a smaller way and not be doing with any of the club stuff. So if you sell a car or get a good bit of advice or just want to say "hey it is cool this place still exists" you can chuck a couple of quid in.
Whether you join the club or not, everyone is always welcome here to use the forum, the image uploader and all that. Always have been and always will be.
*Here in fact
So Retro Rides continues to be a thriving forum and our visitor numbers are solid and rising in fact. Our Proboards costs used to be totally offset by the adverts we have on the forum, however changes to AdSense and various other things (economy, Apple and others doing (legitimate) cookie changes etc.) have meant the ad income has been reduced, December may see that reversed, but that is only one month. Coupled with the fact that we pay for everything in dollars, it has really squeezed the finances of the forum. The image uploading and hosting has long been a very expensive thing and has only got more expensive over 2022. A couple of weeks back I took a big step and got my own box on the internet! I'm moving the image hosting code onto that box, which will really reduce the costs incurred (although the storage costs will still be relatively high). Ideally I'd be able to run the forum entirely ad free, with merch and club membership getting close enough that I'm only putting in a relatively modest amount of money each month (I've been running this place for 18 years, I suspect if I hadn't been I could have bought that Aston Martin by now hahaha). This is all a little 'how the sausage gets made' but ultimately underneath all of this forum is a big tech stack that costs a bunch of money, which I'm trying to offset as much as possible with providing enough of a good website/community/service that people are happy to buy some stickers, some club membership or see some ads around the place. My BIG ambition is to actually make some money from all this, so I can plough it back into creating content, getting show coverage, videos edited, maybe even launch something more to improve our wider retro community.
