In the past years ago, we put on the Desert Dash dualsport event yearly and we usually brought in enough money to cover the costs of the website.

But we haven't done the Desert Dash in a few years and this winter it probably won't work out because I won't be able to ride for awhile due to eye surgery.

I will be posting a poll to see how many people find our forums valuable and helpful and if they'd want to donate to keep the forums alive for another year. Hopefully next year in the fall and/or winter we can put on a dualsport ride or 2 as fund raisers.

Here is a breakdown of costs:

• Linode / Linux server hosting costs about $75/month = $900/year.
• Go Daddy domain hosting, SSL certificates, etc. cost about $100/year.
• Invision Power Board license and other fees cost about $80/year.
• We haven't had anyone maintain our site for a couple of years and it was running fine, but we recently had issues that shut the site down. Uncle Cameron who built the site about 24 years ago came to our rescue once again and got the site back online but there are still issues remaining and we need to do monthly maintenance. He originally asked if I could pay $100/month and I said no, so he offered to maintain the site for $50/month. That will cost $600/year.
• Total approximate costs to keep the forums going is $1680/year.

If people are willing to donate enough to keep the site up for another year then I'll do that.

56 people at $30/each would be about enough, but I don't even know if we have 56 active people who would donate.

If you'd like to donate using paypal, please click on "sending to a friend" otherwise I don't get the full amount.

If we won't get enough committed donations, I will leave the site up for about 3 months and then take it down and it will be gone for good.

Please let me know what you think, any input you may have and please answer the poll questions.

The link to donations is on the front page of our site at https://dualsport-sd.com/ or you can PM me.

If I don't get enough donations within about a month and I decide to shut the site down, then I will refund your donations.

Thanks for listening.

At least 11 people (fake and/or scammers and spammers) have tried to join the forums in the last week from all over including Russia, China, other countries in Europe and Asia, etc.

We'd like to ask for help to keep SDAR website and forums alive.

Every year, the Desert Dash always brought in some money to help offset the costs of keeping the website going, but we haven't been able to put on any organized events lately, which means we really don't have much cash flow since we don't have any mandatory membership fees.

If you would feel so inclined to help SDAR, please donate if you can.

There is a donate button on the front page of our website, and/or you can PM me to ask how to send a check or how to donate. If you decide to support us with a donation, please make sure to include your real name and forum name.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks for your continued support over all these years. 

Sincerely, KTMrad

Randy Lazar

SDAR Founder & Vice President 

We have added a featured members photo window at the top of the site. Photos of members rides with links to their write ups will rotate in the window. We have also added a weather update that will alternate in that same window. 

We are working on something (like a tab) that can be put into members posts so that I can know if the original poster is comfortable with me sharing it with other social media. This is a public forum and people can see anything posted, but I do understand that we are more than social media and that some people like the club atmosphere more than having things posted on other social media outlets. This tab will also help us search photos to be shared in featured windows. More info will be sent when we finalize the process.

Finally we are reworking the Home Page. It is being completely revamped and we are trying to bring in some social media windows so that events/ rides / photos can be shared on it as well.

I hope everyone enjoy's the upgrades.

Thank you

Many thanks to Jesse.

If we could get about 4 volunteers to help, that would be great and we could keep up on validations, it's not a lot of work.

What it consists of is this:

I would give you access to the forum software to check the Member Validation section.

Then you copy and paste the email of the person trying to join and send them an email asking who they are, etc.

When they respond and if they answer the questions and seem like a real person, then you approve them and send a welcome email.

We can't automatically approve members because we get spambots and marketing people trying to join and then the forums would be full of spam and advertising.

Please let me know if you can help out, thanks !

EDIT:

April Cover Photo Contest for our SDAR FB Group...
Please submit a photo with at least 3 riders with their bikes posing or action shots, photo must be horizontally oriented.

 Mimi Selly  (SDAR President) and I will choose the best photo. Please submit your photos by March 20th.

You can submit them here and/or on the FB page.

Thanks,

KTMrad

SDAR Founder & Vice President 

I'd like to mention that using the donate button,  you don't need a PayPal account. It gives you the option of donating thru PayPal or by using a debit or credit card.

Also, when you donate,  it gives you the option to send the money to "a friend", which means we get the full amount of your donation. If you don't choose that option, then PayPal takes out a small percentage each time.

Mimi will still need help with donations in the future, and it would be great if a few people could step up to help her drum up some paid advertisers on our site.

Since the Desert Dash is not happening in February,  the only way we can keep the site and club alive is thru advertising and donations for 2022.

Many thanks again for you all having enough interest to help us keep SDAR alive. 

Here is the link to the donate button on the front page of our website....updated now.

https://www.paypal.com/donate?token=Kutk6zk0S4cOvENuWpteptJ_l5pzgXgCOgy7e78e8iNM2GY8MdLJ8DHmcfrP4EkroteRRNKRt14nWbTP

KTMrad - SDAR Founder & Vice President

Thanks for your continued support of our dualsport community  !

KTMrad - SDAR Founder & Vice President 

Judging by all the talking we've been doing, I think she'll be able to do it.

I'll keep you posted.

I for the life of me cannot remember. . . or find how to change my signature line.  Could someone please take this old man by the hand and lead me to the answer?

My background for this task comes from running one abandoned website, and being a global moderator on another local website.  I have been with SDAR for 14 years, and have seen a lot of changes over the years,  some good, some not so good.  With the advent of social media sites, forum style websites have been declining as people favor the ease of going from their page or news feed to a page that caters to and provides to some degree, a convenient alternative to regular forums.  However, these pages fail at organizing information in a neat and easily searchable format.  So there will always be a need for forum formats for those die hard enthusiasts looking to research for a ride, technical information and other topics.  It is important not to let our type of forum fade away.

SDAR is unique because it is designed for local people, real people who will probably be seeing one another and riding together, as opposed to large open forums, where a bulk of the members will only see each other on line.  We are community, and more than just cyber community.  I have been going over some of the upkeep costs of the site, and have found  that has become pretty expensive to maintain.  I am hoping that we will retain and increase our number of supporting members, and that we can increase our sponsoring advertisers to keep things running smoothly.

If anybody has any questions, or needs any help on the site, or also has any helpful tips or information, I will be available.

This person should be experienced in computers, web design, software, and be able to learn the forum software.

If you or someone you know might be interested, please let me know. We can discuss fees, etc. on a monthly basis. There's really not a ton of work involved to do this, we just need someone who can make changes to the site and upgrade the forums when necessary. 

Thanks in advance,

KTMrad

SDAR Founder and Vice President 

We do this to prevent spammed from getting on our forums.

Thanks. 

Finally getting to my question.   What I don't see is how to leave someone a "like"....how do I do that?     I did a search of the site for into and came up empty.

Thanks!