Donations - and other financial arrangements

[Delta]

Well, some of you may have noticed that there is now a donate button next to the options button. While I'm happy to continue paying for the hosting and domains indefininitely it would be nice if some of the cost was picked up by the members. Right now we are small and there is nothing in the donating members section - so really there is no incentive to donate atm, but in future (once we have some merchandise) I would like to offer either a big WCC sticker or something along those lines as well as access to the donating members section.

I've also had a couple of people contact me saying they would like to post up their services, and that they could donate something to help. I'm going to have a chat to an accountant about that before I say yes or no, mostly because it may be construed as "paying" for a service - which implies all sorts of things - not the least of which is that WCC is not registered as a business and the tax department may be very unhappy about it.

Basically the use of funds will go as follows - anything donated will sit in paypal until hosting/domain fees come around for the year. If there is more money in the account than the fees, then the rest of the money will go towards other club expenses - I'm going to get some stickers made up (both small and large). Hopefully there will be enough in there to have a nice 1yr anniversary party - either a bbq at the end/start of a cruise or perhaps subsidised t-shirts or something.

Anyway - I thought I'd just post up and let everyone know what the donate button is about and where the money would be going. Those who have asked about posting up your services - give me a couple of weeks to find out what has to be done or what arrangements are considered ok in terms of Australian Law.

[Delta]

After speaking to a few friends in the correct industries I'm happy to say that donations will be fine as long as they are used for club purposes only and it is stated that the "donation" does not imply a service or product being bought.

For those that would like to advertise their services I technically can't let you "pay" to advertise on here. What I can do is say this:

"I'm happy for people to advertise their services on here as long as they get permission from me directly and we come to some arrangement that you will donate something if you are making money from the forum, and that you will give your services at a lower price to those who ask for your services via the forum."

As I stated earlier, all funds will be used to pay for hosting costs and the remainder (if any) used to purchase initial merchandise or to help pay for anniversary get-togethers.