ROMEO WEBSITE UPDATE ON COSTS

[schoolmaster]

I want to provide an update on ongoing support for the maintenance of the website. As many of you know, Jerry created our website in 2008 and has faithfully maintained it all these years. Maintenance of the website does come with annual expenses and for years we have been informally managing that through a system of contributions collected by ride coordinators for each local group and occasionally at group events such as the Rendezvous.

I guess somewhat by default over the years I have become the Romeo "treasurer", coordinating the annual collection effort from Area Coordinators and working each year with Jerry to cover his costs. Each year we try and anticipate what expenses will be for the next year and I try and maintain a balance in advance to cover those costs. We owe a debt of gratitude to Jerry for developing and maintaining a quality website for our use. (If we had to purchase this service commercially the costs would be substantially higher!!)

If you have been following Jerry's posts of recent issues with the website which he ultimately resolved, we are back in business. Each year with the complexity of the internet it becomes necessary to update our service and with it come increased costs. I recently sent Jerry $700 to cover the most recent server addition and to cover costs for this next year. I do have just a small reserve left but we will need to initiate another collection effort in Spring, 2026 to be able to cover our renewal costs that will occur at the end of next summer.

I just wanted to provide a general update on how we finance the website and where we currently stand. This amazing organization has survived for nearly 20 years completely run by volunteers who support it as riders, coordinators, donors, contributors to maintenance of the website and in many other ways, volunteering their time and talent to keep it going. I appreciate how you all support this effort to keep this thing GOING AND GROWING each year. I will look forward to getting a collection effort started next spring so that we will have sufficient funds to continue to support the ROMEO website.

Mick Lowe
Former Eastern Ks Coordinator & "default" Treasurer