Dear members, as much as it hurts me to say this we have come to a difficult time for me to keep this forum / website going at a loss. As I said somewhere else I am approaching retirement and will need to manage my finances more carefully than I have ever did.

XT660.com it is now a loss making venture, it has been for the last 7 years, despite me asking everyone to support by clicking on the advert banners, to make just enough money to pay the monthly Internet provider fees, the vBulletin costs etc.

Early this year I spent a chunk of my own money to pay a web designer to redesign our website and that was a blow to the head.

We implemented a donation system and no donations are coming it AT all except for one good samaritan that has set a monthly payment of �5.00 minus paypal fees a net of �4.63

Our google adverts revenue are way below profit (see attached screenshot)

So from Jan 1st 2018 we will not accept anymore XT Supporter's memberships so that the one taken in 2017 will have the time to expire in 2018 and then after 31st Jan 2018 we will put XT660.com for offer at a very reasonable price to allow me to recover at least my expenditures for the website, and to come out even with the other costs.

If you all really don't want this forum and website to close down on 31/12/2019 then I shouldn't even remind you what you can do to help, the answer is all in this thread https://www.xt660.com/showthread.php?t=20688

But in the meantime I'd like to thank all you faithful members that have helped us keeping this place sane, clean and exciting. I took over this in 2006, and now 11 years later I am completely beat, I've run it at a loss for over 7 years while I was earning a decent wage but now with the prospect of retirement, I won't be able to continue to do so.

Thank you very much to all of you.

Fran

Attached Images

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Blimey Cap'n I didn't realise that things were so bad for you.

I am truly sorry thast you feel like this but then again you have made a rod for your own back by keeping the forum going, (which is great I mght add ) and not getting the forum members to stump up more money.
I do not doubt that most of the members have an XT as a toy, not for work, just for pleasure and if they value the work that you do then they need to stump up some dosh and keep this valued facility running.
I know form the last meeting Darn Sarf that you still have an interest in the forum and the expertise to keep it going.
Can you outline an ultimatum to what we need to keep this going?
I really value the work that you do and I might add if you do retire it might give you just a little something to keep you interested in bikes.
Can you please work out a figure that we need to come up with to keep this forum going. Whatever it is I for one will promote this and try and get other forum members to donate as the �10 membership per year is quite palty for working persons.
If at the end of the day members aren't bothered then it's tough on them and they will lose all the information that has been accrued over the years about these bikes.
If they do not respond to this thread then tough on them. I know all I need to know about this bike, but newer members might feel now prompted to keep the forum going to help them with future problems.

Keep us informed big fella. I'm gonna push this and try and take some of the pressure off you.

Cheers Steve

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If I'm not working, I'll be

Hi Steve and thanks for your concern, at the moment the calculated loss so far, including what I had to spend to have the new website redesigned and what it costs me every month to even out the running costs to keepxt660.com on line every month is of around �1200. Once that is cleared, if people continued to randlmly click on the advert banners and that means that as many people as possible could spend at least 10 min a day just clicking and the shutting down those advert banners, this would keep the monthly running costs at bay.

But what happens is that a few people do it for a day or two maybe just one day and then they get bored and forget to do it again. And when that effort is inconsistent, Google Ads consider it a "spike" and does not carry the profit over to the end of the month, so we get f/all

I myself have got tired of asking people to use the advert banner as I hate to beg the members for money, even though it doesn't actually cost nothing to them if not just wasting 5 to 10 min of their time a day.

My biggest embarrassment, was the donation scheme, oh yes, massive red face, that fell into a deep hole never to be found.

So I realized my loss is only going to get bigger every month, and with my future in mind, that loss cannot longer be entertained.

So are there one hundred and twenty XT660.COM members out there who value this fine forum enough to donate a tenner each to clear the forum's loss.....or two hundred and forty members give a fiver each! Within the next week. ....so its sorted ........? Steve

I�m into it,surely everyone would donate but obviously not...There�s far too much info here to just loose it.Would it all be inaccessible,or available in some kind of Archive ?but I suppose that costs money too.
Hope something gets sorted for you before then though!...

I say put a list up every week of all the members that donate saying thank you, to you all for donating. Then we all know how well it’s going. Not to show who is not donating, just to show how well we are doing. And at the end of each month show if we covered the cost or not with the donating and clicking. If it looks like the site might be lost anyway,why not show what we are doing. If people really want to keep the site going then they will have to donate or click like mad SIMPLES

just let us, members know, how much is sufficient to maintain this site...
if it's not too much maybe more members will start to concider.
just give us a number...

Spot on.

You can count me in, just need to find another 119 users that don't want to see this valuable forum close.

Sent from my SM-A310F using Tapatalk

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XT660z 2010 Blue few good bits added. Yamaha RD350 YPVS 1984. Yamaha RD350 YPVS 1989. Yamaha FZ750 1989. Beta 250 REV3 2001.

Me 2

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2011 xt660z.
Yoshimura cans ,kev mod,Dna 2, Stahlkoffer panniers,Hepco Becker box,Givi crash bars,Mita e07 tyres.