Updated December 29, 2005

As you know, TrueAggies.com is free - no subscription is ever necessary. However, I do need your help. Your donations will keep TrueAggies.com running and allow me to improve the site. The more photographs and bandwidth the site requires, the higher the cost to sustain the site. Unfortunately computers, Web services, bandwidth, camera equipment, and travel costs are not free. The cost of running TrueAggies.com is increasing each month.

To keep TrueAggies.com running, I am going to try something new. Advertising helps pay some of the minor bills for the site, but there are ever growing bills that advertising will not pay. I am going to ask viewers of the site to donate to the cause. Your donations will allow me to keep TrueAggies.com running and, if donations provide, improve and increase coverage. I would like to be able to provide better photographs and have more articles, but I will only be able to do so with your donations.

Here is my proposal to the viewers of TrueAggies.com:

Good reserved seats for football are $25.00 and reserved seats for basketball range from $17 to $22 this season. If most of the viewers of TrueAggies.com would just donate around half ($10.00) of the price of a reserved seat to this site, I would be able to cover the costs of the site and increase quality and coverage. Ten dollars seems extremely reasonable and if the majority of viewers would pay that small amount, the cost could be spread out without anyone paying a huge amount. Just $10.00 to view all the photographs and read the articles. There aren't many deals like that out there these days. Ten dollars is all I ask.

Make $10.00 Donation	Donate Any Amount	Recurring $10 per Year

Here is what could happen if half the viewers of this site donated only $10.00:

Processing of the images for this site requires a number of hours because of my computer equipment currently being used. I would first upgrade this equipment to speed up the process. I have toyed with the idea of only providing a dozen images per event because of the time element, sufficient donations would allow me to continue providing a large number of images and still reduce the time required. I have also found additional hard drives and software are necessary for backups and preserving the images. Hardware and software would be a vital area for donated funds to provide the needed resources to keep the site running and improve the site later. (Update: I have already purchased a new computer and additional hard drives for the site anticipating a positive reaction to this donation request. The first dollars will cover this expense. It was taking far too long to process the images on the old machine.)

Right now I have a nice camera and some decent lenses, they are not professional quality and images could be substantially better with quality equipment. I would like to invest in some top-quality equipment to improve the images on the site. Equipment does wear out as well and I have already had to upgrade my equipment once and add additional memory cards. Sufficient donations would allow me to upgrade to more professional equipment and allow for more professional images to be available on the site.

Just as an example, a nice professional lens for football runs in the neighborhood of $5,000 to $6,000 currently (that is just ONE lens) and a medium grade professional camera body runs around $4,000 currently (top of the line are over $8,000 currently). I am currently looking to replace my main lens, which has served me well for some time now, in the near future. That would be the first need along with memory cards. If donations provide, I will look into adding additional equipment and not just replacing older equipment.

Traveling is expensive as well. I have traveled to some events, but that does start to get expensive. I would like to travel to more events in the future and provide images and articles. I still plan to travel to the WAC basketball tournament and a few away games in the future, but would like to do more if the opportunity was available. I receive numerous requests for away coverage in which I am in no position to supply at this time.

The last area would be to have additional articles and features on the site. You have all probably heard enough from me in my articles, so this would involve hiring people to write articles and provide material. This would be expense but possible. It would be nice to hear from some professional writers and have more material available.

This might seem like an impossible dream, but it is actually very realistic if viewers were willing to contribute at least $10.00 to the site. Obviously it won't work if only a handful of people donate $10.00, but there are thousands of people who view this site each month. With those numbers it would only be necessary for half of the viewers to donate the $10.00 and TrueAggies.com could accomplish most of the items listed. With your help, it will be very possible to carry out this dream. Again, Ten dollars is all I ask.

Make $10.00 Donation	Donate Any Amount	Recurring $10 per Year

 

Craig J. Peterson
TrueAggies.com