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Zone Update To the Silent Majority. The Bare Facts. The Result.

Cricko

Zone Owner⭐⭐
Staff member
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
38,500
Location
Leigh-On-Sea
Ok guys and ladies, this is how it is.

ShrimperZone costs over £3200 per year to just run. We have lost due to retirement and other reasons 3 of our sponsors, in fact we are not even sure we will have the others by the start of the season as we are still awaiting replies from them.

That leaves us in a very precarious position as to whether we will have funds to continue.

We have some regular people who time after time help out with donations/quizzes/monthly DD's that all goes towards the running costs. These people are absolute stars hence why they now have a ⭐ by their names. I have gone back 6 months as a start date to find those people and if you do not have one but have helped, my apologies, Please PM me and let me know. I will also add I have a few missing people from my list who have DD with us but I cannot find them by their email addys on here, again PM me if you are one of those.

The vast majority of the members who log on day after day to either read or post on here do nothing to help The Zone financially.

Yet we have over 1000 daily visits. It just does not make sense that for the cost of a pint we could have funds for the year+ It is your Zone so it is time to dig deep people.

It really is up to you the members to help us. The alternative does not bare thinking about after 20 years of The Zone.

There are various ways you can do this.
1. You or your business sponsor a box on the Zone.
2 Find us some sponsors.
3. Set up a monthly direct debit for a fixed amount each month.
4. Just donate an amount.
5. Support us on our quizzes etc.
You can use the Green donate button in the Nav bar to help with DD's or just donate an amount, or PM if you require our bank details another way to pay or wish to help in some way.

I cannot reiterate enough how crucial of a time this is for The Zone so it is back us or lose us.

The choice is really up to you. Click here to help us. https://www.paypal.com/donate/?cmd=...0.00&item_name=ShrimperZone&currency_code=GBP


Thanks in advance and UTB.

John.
 
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Do you have the ability to add advertising through Google? Not ideal but could bring in revenue. Also SZ merch with a small profit? Would be quite tricky - but would the club be interested in making this an “officially backed” forum?
 
Do you have the ability to add advertising through Google? Not ideal but could bring in revenue. Also SZ merch with a small profit? Would be quite tricky - but would the club be interested in making this an “officially backed” forum?

We could use google ad's but have always stared well clear as we don't want these forums covered in other peoples ad's . The income from those to us would be minimal as we are a specialised site and not mainstream. We do Zone Merchandise every now and then.

We would not approach the club for help. We are independent of them and wish to remain so. If they helped they would want some control over members views and content.
 
Think being visible with the money spent and the income (think like a tracker) could help. Seems the zone ask for a lot a cash and have various things going on a lot of the time to raise cash, so a bit of transparency could help people see what the short fall really is and then can make the choice to help or not.
 
Think being visible with the money spent and the income (think like a tracker) could help. Seems the zone ask for a lot a cash and have various things going a lot do the time, so a bit of transparency could help people see that the short fall really is and then can make the choice to help or not.

Really?
The dedicated server costs us £2200 per year.
Accounts fees etc are nearly £400 per year.
Various licenses with Xenforo and others, domain charges etc cost £200 per year.
Paypal costs to us vary per year but are a cost.
Bank charges are £80 per year.
Costs of forum upgrades and add on's are about £150 per annum.
Technical help from time to time from the USA or Xenforo UK vary.
There are other costs but they are not at my fingertips atm.

Income for the forthcoming season re sponsors atm stands at zero.
Various fund raising ideas have bought in approx £450 this year.
 
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The dedicated server costs us £2200 per year.
Accounts fees etc are nearly £400 per year.
Various licenses with Xenforo and others, domain charges etc cost £200 per year.
Paypal costs to us vary per year but are a cost.
Bank charges are £80 per year.
There are other costs but they are not at my fingertips atm.

Income for the forthcoming season re sponsors atm stands at zero.

Then how much do you currently take with monthly DD, prizes and random donations...?

What’s the missing portion that leaves you short ?

Rather than begging for cash every few months

Why not set out a plan with costs, diarize the competitions and think about an addition benefit for a monthly payment with a sponsor potentially sponsoring a SZ top or something?
 
Then how much do you currently take with monthly DD, prizes and random donations...?

What’s the missing portion that leaves you short ?

Rather than begging for cash every few months

Why not set out a plan with costs, diarize the competitions and think about an addition benefit for a monthly payment with a sponsor potentially sponsoring a SZ top or something?

got a lot of views for someone without a gold star.
 
What’s the missing portion that leaves you short ?
Conscious that I’m no longer involved in the running of the zone but for me, that’s the thinking that needs to change. It’s not you (ie the owners of the zone). It’s us (those who benefit freely from using it every day).

It’s about US all keeping our forum going.

A strong message above from John but one that needed sharing. Reminded me that I hadn’t set up my direct debit. I’ve now done it.

Great that some share sharing ideas.. Google Ads - we’d literally get pennies and the forum would become as bad as the Echo… costed plans before a donation would even be considered etc.

Come on folks, pound a month? Couple of quid a month? A fiver?

How much daily, weekly, monthly value do we all get out of this place?
 
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@Cricko - you may do this already but is it worth networking with the owners of one or two other similar forums to see whether they have any ideas on revenue raising? I'm sure you have thought of most of the options and ideas already, but you never know.
I go on a few of the other club forums to seek help in tracking former players for SUEPA, and whilst there are quite a few poor sites out there some are not bad and must have their own significant costs to meet like SZ.
I have been on the Doncaster forum this week and that seems to use a similar platform to SZ, another I was on a month or so ago which was decent was Burnley. The Doncaster one also helpfully has a sticky thread giving links to many other club forum sites.
PS thanks for the star!
 
I thought I have just explained all that in my various posts on this thread.
No you haven’t, you’ve explained the costs.

How much have the sponsors been paying?
What’s your monthly income from DD, competitions and donations (you can use an average over the last year or 2 to get some consistency)
 
No you haven’t, you’ve explained the costs.

How much have the sponsors been paying?
What’s your monthly income from DD, competitions and donations (you can use an average over the last year or 2 to get some consistency)

You can go and look at the accounts online they are there for all to see. I am not going to spend anymore time explaining every small detail to you, now give it a rest please.
 
It’s no exaggeration when I say that during the last couple of years (what with the back to back relegations and a global pandemic) this forum has been a place for me to still interact with others regarding the things I hold so dare to my heart. Without it, I think the lockdown would have been even more unbearable than it already was. The Zone for me is a unique forum, it’s easy to navigate forums, it’s large yet somewhat decided member base.. which isn’t a bad thing at all, the fact we all have opinions and are happy to share them is what makes this for me one of the very best football fan forums around. For these reasons I’m happy to sign up to a monthly donation.. if someone could just explain to me how.. :ROFL:
 
It’s no exaggeration when I say that during the last couple of years (what with the back to back relegations and a global pandemic) this forum has been a place for me to still interact with others regarding the things I hold so dare to my heart. Without it, I think the lockdown would have been even more unbearable than it already was. The Zone for me is a unique forum, it’s easy to navigate forums, it’s large yet somewhat decided member base.. which isn’t a bad thing at all, the fact we all have opinions and are happy to share them is what makes this for me one of the very best football fan forums around. For these reasons I’m happy to sign up to a monthly donation.. if someone could just explain to me how.. :ROFL:

It can be done via the paypal linkhttps://www.paypal.com/donate/?cmd=_donations&business=john@shrimperzone.com&handling=0.00&item_name=ShrimperZone&currency_code=GBP&Z3JncnB0= or i can give you our bank details via PM?

Thank you.
 
In the spirit of fairness, couldn't you introduce a system where you buy a quota of comments, so maybe by paying £5 you get the opportunity to make 100 comments?
It would be easy knowing when to "top-up" because of the message counter at the side of your comment.
At least this way, everyone would be paying in what they "put in" in terms of a comment, and surely no-one could argue at paying 5 pence a comment?
You would know better about the logistics of this working than I would Cricko,but it is only another way of looking at some form of future funding.
 
Nice idea but that does not awaken the silent majority.
I think you would be surprised at how big a proportion the "unsilent minority" are on here.
Plus I think you are understandably less likely to get contributions/donations from people who are just passing through or who are just having a nose.
 
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