Thank you everyone for making donations to WOTA recently. Either this is normally the time of year I ask, or something else has triggered the donations, but they are much appreciated.
I had an email back from Geoff, our donations manager M0PYG, stating that he feels it is time to hand the role on. I totally understand, and would like to personally thank Geoff on behalf of everyone at WOTA for his support of the programme over the years.
He has suggested, and I agree, that it is time to ensure that folk are happy in their existing roles, and to invite anyone who might want to participate, in taking on a position. Over the years although the membership changes very slowly, we have had new participants join and without any fanfare make a valuable contribution in the form of activating, chasing and writing well received reports on WOTA discourse.
From my perspective I am happy to continue supporting the website. Previously I would ask Geoff to release funds from the donations pot held on PayPal, so I wasn’t dipping in directly. I am still a user of the account, so in the absence of a donations manager I will publish the content of the account to the WOTA Groups IO List and invoices that need paying. If anyone objects to that scenario, let me know, and we’ll work something else out. If anyone would like formally be the donations manager, that is the extent of the role, you will be called upon a couple of times a year to release funds from the PayPal account - that’s it!
If anyone wants to make a donation please do so through the website. It really does make a difference keeping the site running. I haven’t been keeping up to date with invoices so will try to tally what is owed this evening, but it looks like there are enough funds to see us into the new year.
Having completed a grueling 6 month contract converting a credit card system for my previous permanent employer, without any time off, I have very much welcomed my new role which drops me down to four days a week. I have attempted to become more active in the last couple of months, and am hoping to get out on the fells again at least once a week where I can. I look forward to maybe catching some of you on the radio once again.
It’s maybe not quite as great as I first thought, because I haven’t asked Geoff for a transfer from WOTA since 29/08/2023!
The current balance in the WOTA PayPal account is £179.44.
I’ve just paid the domain renewal Domain Renewal - wota.xyz - 1 Year/s (27/12/2024 - 26/12/2025) directly from the WOTA account directly for the sum of £11.99.
Current costs for WOTA hosting are as follows:
What For
Frequency
Amount
WOTA Main Site Hosting
Annual
£36.00
wota.xyz domain name
Annual
£11.99
Discourse VPS Server
Monthly
£11.04
So by my calculations costs per year for WOTA Hosting is £180.47. This has kind of snuck up on me because the Discourse VPS Server payments went from yearly to monthly, which are a lot easier to miss than a lump sum.
The majority of this cost is for the discourse server. We wouldn’t want to restrict photo uploads, but there was a jump a couple of years ago in cost due to increased disk space requirements. I personally don’t think the WOTA experience would be the same without discourse. I will investigate if there is a cheaper solution.
By my calculations we have £179.44 in the WOTA Paypal Account, but I’m currently owed £196.84. On top of this we have the main WOTA site domain name and hosting renewal for 2025 due in January which will be an additional £36.
Whilst I am not a very active WOTA Activator these days I wouldn’t want to see WOTA die a death, which is quite possible now it’s 15 years since it started. People come and go, interests in the hobby change, and we are all getting old(er).
Could you remind me of the PayPal address for WOTA donations and I will also throw my DWP OAPs Edward Heath Xmas bonus into the (2E0) mix Good idea Reg!
Thanks Mark for playing a big part in keeping WOTA going. Without your good work I fear it would have gone down the pan some years ago.
I’m currently attempting to setup a discourse server on a linux box on my home network. I have a fixed IP address, and now have 1GB fibre, so there should be no issues in running the server locally but it is something that needs testing first, and restoring the wota site backup is proving ‘interesting’. I then need to get a security certificate for HTTPS, but I’ve done that not too long ago and there is now a service that will allow you to do that for free.
If I can get that working that saves the majority of the cost.
Good idea Reg!