EXPECT SOME FORUM OUTAGES OVER THE NEXT 48 HOURS - 6-22-14

[beemaster]

During the next few days, Robo (our technical Administrator) will be moving our beemaster.com site and forum to another server. During this time, expect to see the forum off line for several hours and your network may not recognize the new location for up to 24 hours after the move takes place.

I need you all to know that for 7 years our forum has been hosted FREE by Zunibee on his server - this was his gift to the forum because he strongly believes in our mission to be the best family oriented and advertisement free beekeeping site in the world. Without getting into details, cost of hosting our massive site have grown beyond Zunibee's abilities in this cost prohibitive world of website hosting. But to Jay, I want to thank you, for every member here, for your years of incredibly solid service and BRAVO for all you have done for us - you have helped us grow in countless ways.

So as a recap - over the next 48 hours or so outages and possibly other short outages may occur as we migrate servers . This is a massive undertaking by Robo: our back-up server which is is a huge part of where member donations are needed is backed up and our massive collection of more than 10 years as a forum are about ready to be moved.

As a final note: to all of you who have donated to the forum over these many years, I hope I have expressed to you how appreciative we are that you believed in our mission enough to help us succeed. Now as we move on, our operational expenses are about to climb quickly, but it is our promise that there will NEVER be any type of advertising on Beemaster and we will always do our very best to remain a family friendly safe-haven on the Internet.

Thank you all for your attention and best wishes to Robo for a smooth transition.

Sincerely,

John, Beemaster

[sc-bee]

Thanks Jay and Robo also thanks to you John. And let's not forget Ken  :-D Thanks to all!

[Kathyp]

yes, thanks to all.  this has been more than a web site.  look how many of us have been able to meet and form friendships over the years.

don't be shy about reminding people to donate.  i forget if you don't poke me.  maybe a banner at the top of the page reminding people that this thing runs on donations  :-D

[Better.to.Bee.than.not]

I do not mind advertising frankly, as long as it is products and such that you believe in and not just done for the $ first. There are great bee suppliers out there that I would be proud to advertise for frankly.... Of course whatever you guys do or do not do though is good enough for me, and you've obviously been doing right for a long time doing it and you and other users invaluably helped a lot of people, including myself, with tons of stuff.

[GSF]

I agree, this place has a touch of "family" to it for me. I'm not ashamed to tell folks that the folks on Beemaster has been my mentor(s). It seems we all have a kindred spirit.

Same here with the donations. Like Kathy said, I'm glad you mentioned something. In the next couple of days I'm gonna throw in a couple of pennies myself. Heck, what do they charge for a beekeeping class?

[JPBEEGETTER]

John, I hope you got the C-note I sent you. Never heard a word. but hope it does some good ,JPBEEGETTER.. Joel Paul

[beemaster]

JPBeegetter

I wrote a post THANKING YOU when I received it - it is posted in the forum. The problem with Paypal is that you get people's names but of course in the forum people are mostly anonymous and putting the two together is impossible. So I made a post thanking JOEL for his awesome contribution, hoping you would see it - I believe it was here in Coffee House.

And YES a "C-Note" is an awesome gift to the forum! it does wonders at keeping us going. Until I find the post (or someone else does) THANK YOU AGAIN - few members have been so generous and most of those I knew their names so it made it easier to track them down.

But KUDOS to EVERYONE who has donated! I know even a $5 donation is impossible for many members, so to see anything come in is always a blessing.

I also know that using Paypal only has limited us greatly - many people would opt to donate if we took credit card donations and that is something we will be looking into as costs start to rise.

But to all, and I know many of you I haven't tracked down for a personal thank you, you gift is not over looked and it all gives us a kitty to draw from. Losing the donated website hosting was inevitable but totally understandable. I beleieve our data usage outweighs our content, at least it surely does over months time, that will likely be the largest part of operations - let's face it, lots of people, both members and visitors surf Beemaster Forums every day and that stuff adds up quickly in the techie world.

Thank you all again, I have always tried to be open with everyone, being as transparent of a forum as possible is part of the spirit we promote. You know your donations are important and I try not to be a beggar because we not at that point. I know if donations made the difference of being everything we promise to strive for, or closing the doors or opting for commercial advertising - I would foot the bill because the mission is that important - not just to me, but to many.

Thanks for reading.