You may notice from month to month that SRO rarely achieves its donation goals. On average we have about 10 members who donate regularly to this site. We are very grateful to these members for helping to support the fun that we all enjoy. At the end of each month it is the responsibility of the owners of SRO to pay the balance. And you will never hear Nigel complain about paying the remaining balance because Nigel and I are passionate about racing and enjoy bringing this service to you. With that said, I personally think that our members should be doing more to help support this site. If you race here regularly and enjoy the series and the community, then please consider making a monthly donation. We understand that not everyone can donate on a monthly basis. But any amount you donate is very much appreciated. We want to expand our services and eventually add more race servers and update our website but find it difficult to justify the extra expenses. We currently cannot cover our current expenses without the owners paying the majority of the bills. So don't worry if you cannot donate. We still want you to race here and enjoy the free service. Our goal is for this community to support itself which will allow us to grow and provide better services for our members. Nigel and I are especially grateful to our Admins who donate their time and money. Without them this site would not exist. And thanks again to our SRO Team Members who have donated in the past. This community owes you their gratitude. And as always we want to hear from our members. If you have ideas or suggestions on how this community can fund it's favorite activity then please post your comments here. Thanks!
Thanks mark for bringing this topic up , Its been the downfall of almost every racing community in the past and eventually caused the end of R2P , I think if players could see the amount of volunteer time and $$$ spent every month they would be shocked .. Anything worth having is worth paying for ,even if it comes in small amounts its a huge help , If everyone simply donated the price of a coffee or Danish every month it would make a huge difference .. as it is now we have a few awesome members that do donate monthly and for that we are grateful ! however we still end up paying the lions share of the server costs ,not to mention security costs in this hack happy era of modern computing .... so the next time you feel like doing something to help this community and keep the racing going click the DONATE button even if it's just $2.00 , if enough players contribute like this we can keep this place going and also take advantage of the latest & greatest changes the future holds for this awesome hobby !
There's an interesting business saying that all our members would do well to remember - "There is no such thing as a Free Lunch" which loosely translated means "nothing comes for free". Since SRO opened its doors online racing here has actually been free, funded primarily by the SRO Management, but with the ongoing website developments and multiple sims/series that have been introduced into our schedules, not surprisingly that comes at an increased cost. Sure we could maybe run one series during the week and/or one on a weekend and possibly keep it free on that basis, but that's not what the vision for SRO was or is. With 1300 members now, it wouldn't take much in the way of additional voluntary donations to cover the running costs, so is that too much to ask? As Rob has said the price of a a coffee from only 20% of our members would more than cover current costs and more importantly help to fund improvements and additional racing opportunities for everyone.
As with most free websites you find on the internet, companies offer different levels of service depending on subscription rates. Typically the free service is limited and a paid subscription offers more features. There has been discussion about limiting the number of events per month a member can participate in when using our service for free. We are not a company and we have no consistent source of revenue. But we are considering making changes to our software to implement a limit on monthly events for members who do not contribute to the operating costs. I consider that a solution of last resort and hope it does not come to that. Your donations are the only source of revenue we have and we are not in this to make money. As Rob mentioned in his post, lack of funding has been the downfall to many sites like SRO. We want this site to pay for itself through small monthly donations. The amount you would spend on a coffee, a Danish or a pint of beer is all it would take. We have also implemented a new badge to recognize those members who donate to SRO. You will see a gold "Donator" badge attached to our monthly donors in recognition of their dedication to keeping this site running.
