Randy,Originally Posted by Randy Meijer
"Guys and Gals, It's time to get to work!!"
Well maybe and maybe not?? I don't want to throw a wet blanket on this party; but it seems to me that we may be getting the cart before the horse if you get my drift. I think it might be prudent to wait for a request from Keith for donations before we all go firing off checks in the mail. Certainly it is a wonderful sentiment and surely appreciated; but we may be potentially causing Keith more trouble than help. Supposing there are considerations that the general membership are not aware of and Keith has already decided that it is in the best interests of all involved to change the ownership at SMC. Under that scenario, conceivably, he would feel obligated to return all unsolicited donations and we, with the best of intent, would be doing nothing more than saddling him with the distasteful task of returning all of those donations. It does not appear to me the situation is that critical that we can't wait a day or two with our donations to confirm with Keith that he wishes to attempt a volunteer effort to raise the funds necessary to keep SMC operational under the current structure?
Having said that, I did a few calculations which may or may not be of any consequence. There are 176 pages in the membership directory with 30 members on each page which works out to 5280 ft per mile....no no...total members. In an earlier post, Keith stated that it would take $5 from each member(?) to resolve the financial problem. I have no idea whether he was talking about total members or active members or the top 1,000 members?? Let's take a worst-case figure and say he needs 5 bucks from everyone on the list. That would project to the neighborhood of $26,400 per year or $2200 per month(a hair less than what John figured)!!!! WOW !!!
Big bucks, folks.......
OK, we all know that everyone of those 5,280 "members" is not going to send money. A big chunk of that number...probably more than half....are folks who signed up, gave SMC a look for a week, posted once or twice and then never came back again. Just to get a number to work with, I arbitrarily picked folks with 10 or most posts as active members who might be likely to send some money and it turned out to be a nice round number....1500 members. Now, of that group, some are no longer with SMC and some will not be able to donate. Again in a totally arbitrary fashion(but with an eye to making the math easy) I assumed that 66% would contribute(probably a high estimate) which works out to 1000 members. From there it is easy to see that we would need $26 from each of those members....or maybe more.....to keep SMC alive and kicking for a year. That is a pretty daunting task in the current economic environment and may not be realistically attainable?? I don't know??
I want to reiterate that it is not my desire to cast a cloud over this effort. It is a commendable one in intent and spirit!! My only suggestion is that we hold off for a short time until we get directions from Keith on how he would like to proceed.
Thanks for your post as my thinking was much along this same line.
I am happy to contribute as I enjoy this forum as much as anyone here and want very much to see a continuation, but we need to think long term and not just buying a few days. And as you said, we need to await Keith's input and wishes. There is one more thing I would like to inject being a Public Accountant and that is the income tax consequences from these "donations". This could cause an income tax liability that would have to be paid by Keith and Jackie and these deductions are not tax deductable to the giver, not that it matters in my case as I would be more than willing to forego that aspect as would most everyone here.
Let's just slow down and finish thinking this thru with our leadership before we jump and make mistakes.
Don't want to rain on anyone's parade, just rather be cautious and not make a mess for someone else to have to clean up. Intentions are good from all here and many want to help, including myself, but advise caution in how we approach this. Let's respect the house we are visiting and wait for the hosts to speak.
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