Hey guys,

I know normally I just copy the same info from the year past into this post and start a new thread, but I need to share info and concerns.

First off, September 1st will be the 20th anniversary of VHLinks. Yes this dumb site has been around 20 years!!! This will also be our 7th year of taking donations for the server.

So right now it's already August 12th, in some places August 13th. That means we have about six weeks to raise the server money, and I have more concerns this year than most. And yes I know I say that every year, but it's true. The biggest concern is that we don't have near the same amount of users who visit here regularly to contribute. Add to that that the band is completely dormant, we don't have a ton of time until October 1st, and I'm not sure how much I can contribute if we get close. Apart from that I'm totally confident.

Also earlier this year I got rid of Jamtothis.com, if you didn't notice. It just wasn't a site I wanted to continue to look after anymore. I took it over as a favor to keep it going 15 years ago, but it's a little bit of a headache with spammers and copyright BS, so for me it made sense to walk away from it. I just didn't have the time or honestly desire to keep up with it anymore. With that said, we probably we don't need as robust of a server as we have now with that site gone. I love the company we're with, I've been with them 16 years, and they do give us a good deal, but I really have to determine whether us raising this money anymore is really feasible. I am also going to look at cheaper options for next year since we don't have the bandwidth of JTT, but for this year it's too quick and I don't want to make changes. So if we can get through this year with our normal donations, maybe next year we can do something cheaper. But it's going to take a pretty determined effort to make it. And like I said, I don't even know how much I can contribute it we don't get there. But let's get on it, and now the obligatory stuff I post every year.

First of all, as I say each year and will continue to for as long as we do this, not having to pay the server is a huge load off of my plate financially, so I really thank all of you who have donated to keep this place going.

The server bill is due the on October 1st, so need to have our $4,000 in donations done by September 30th, which is more like $4,400 if you take into account the fees GoFundMe charges. We have some money in the kitty from last year, ($50 which isn't much) but the goal to get more than $4,000 again this year so we have some overspill for next year in case something arises and we have issues. I say this every year. Having more in there is better than having less. So watch the donation tally graphic I have on here, as that's what will be accurate for what we've raised for this drive.

We're looking at needing about 150 people to donate $30 and we'll be there again. That takes into account GoFundMe fees. Again there is NO OBLIGATION for ANYONE to donate, it's purely up to you. Nobody is required to donate to post here, this is completely voluntary! Also if you donated last year, and you're obviously donating a bit under the year time frame, I'll still make sure it doesn't end until next October, so don't worry about that.

How Do I Donate This Year?
Go directly to our GoFundMe page (linked below and the donate link at the top goes to it), and directly do your donation from their page. It's super simple, and you DO NOT need to be a GoFundMe member to donate...it's not like PayPal. I have set up three tiers on there like we used to have $30, $50 (can't do the old $51.50 one anymore sadly), and $100. So you can just click on one of those to save yourself some time. You of course can donate less than $30, but that really won't help us get to our goal, and you won't get the premium membership if you do. So I urge you to please donate at least $30 if you can.

After you donate, you MUST private message me here to let me know you've donated so I can manually update your account here. If you don't, there's no way for me to know who has donated what because the name on your donation won't tell me your username. I am using my computer to check for PM's not my phone, because for some reason I don't always get PM notifications on Tapatalk.

What's nice about GoFundMe is it will tell us where we are in terms of donations in real time on our donation page there.

If you have any questions about this process of using GoFundMe, please just post them in this thread. The link is below.


2020 VHLinks Server Drive @ GoFundMe!

Brett I don't want to use GoFundMe, can I send a check or money order?
Yes of course you can, contact me privately for mailing.

I will post this in various places on the site so people don't miss it, and I really would love to get it done early this year and move on from it (I say this every year. )

I thank you for your continued support of the site, which has served the VH online community since September 1, 1999!

Brett