What is the Associated Fanart?
\r\nBasically it’s an association of members that has formed to propose standards and ideas for fanart.\r\n\r\nThe association will also help pay for hosting costs for the site out of membership dues and any other funds it receives, therefore all donations will go through the association, as the association takes dues yearly our hope is to be able to pay for the server yearly as well, that is why we have a goal set for paying next years hosting costs with an indicator of what we are short of.\r\n\r\nWhile not directly connected to fanart.tv, fanart.tv is a founding member (as are individual fanart.tv members) and as such will implement any of the ratified standards, and will be a beneficiary of support from the association.\r\n\r\nIt was born out of a desire to get a more open dialog with the community, as the fanart.tv site has grown I have been making all the decisions on where we move forward where I would prefer a more democratic approach.\r\n
I hear there are fees? Is fanart.tv becoming a pay site?
\r\nAs I have already said, the Fanart Association isn’t directly connected to fanart.tv, we want to create a framework that any site can utilise for consistant fanart, and as such we hope that many other sites, in time, become members, so no, fanart.tv isn’t becoming a pay site, but the Fanart Association WILL have membership dues.\r\n\r\nMost associations have membership dues, this allows it to pay for it’s costs and move forward into the future, it also gives members a reason to participate, it’s often easy to be blase about something that doesn’t cost you anything.\r\n
So is this a commercial venture?
\r\nNo, absolutely not, the association will be strictly non-profit.\r\n\r\nAny membership dues taken will be used in the following way\r\n
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- Pay hosting costs for fanart.tv
- Anything over this will go to a vote but proposed suggestions would be\r\n
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- Donating to other projects such as XBMC, thetvdb, themoviedb, openelec, etc
- Running competitions on fanart.tv
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Who can join?
\r\nThe group is open to anybody that wants to get more involved and the more members we get the more likely that the site will be self sustaining.\r\n
How will it work?
\r\nThe association will comprise of a management committee and normal members, regular meetings will be held where members can put forward suggestions and vote on any suggestions, a copy of the constitution can be seen here.\r\n\r\nThe management committee holds office for a year, at the end of which time any member that is fully paid up and has been a member for a year can apply to join the management committee.\r\n\r\nThe current dues are set at the following and can only be paid yearly:\r\n\r\nNormal member: £30 /yr (works out at about £2.50 a month)\r\nManagement member: £50 /yr (works out at about £4.17 a month)\r\n\r\nThe payments must be made on the same date each year (Jan 1st) but for part month joiners are set pro rata at 2 month increments, thusly:\r\n
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- Jan/Feb joiners would pay the full amount
- Mar/Apr joiners first payment would be £25.00, therafter £30
- May/Jun joiners first payment would be £20.00, therafter £30
- Jul/Aug joiners first payment would be £15.00, therafter £30
- Sep/Oct joiners first payment would be £10.00, therafter £30
- Nov/Dec joiners first payment would be £5.00, therafter £30
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\r\nMembership dues will be decided at the annual general meeting\r\n
What benefits will I get as a member?
\r\nSimply put, we have no idea, it would be awesome if we got some members signing up that could offer benefits to other members, but that’s not something we can guarantee, so currently the only real benefits will be helping to shape the course of fanart.tv and not having to see any adverts on the next revision of the fanart.tv site.\r\n\r\nMembers can attend meetings at the following url http://fanart.tv/associated-fanart-meeting-hall/\r\n\r\nSign up now
*sigh* the membership thing has hijacked the registration page so it’s not possible to register without going through the payment thing, I will try to fix this ASAP
Is the membership page fixed now? Can people sign up?
Had a think about it but the cost is just too much per year 🙁
P.S. Love the new totalizer at the top of the page, it immediately got me thinking how I could help the site.
Well as we got new members we could lower the amount, the issue is at £40/yr we already would need 36 members, but if no-one signs up then I guess it’s no help at all, it’s a shame because the lack of interest really makes me unmotivated to do anything with the site and long term, if it can’t sustain itself I will have to move the site on to a much cheaper server which if you think the site goes slow on the evenings now I can only guess what it will be like then.
I’ve changed Associated Fanart dues for normal members to £30/yr (works out at £2.50 a month), this does mean we will need about 43 members to cover the server (it is actually less because it doesn’t take into account donations, but if we get no donations we need enough members to cover the fees ideally) if we move to the better server (the one quoted above) or if we stick on our current one (which struggles with demand in the evenings it seems) then we would need 27 members, if we can’t even manage that then come January I will downgrade the server which will only require £660 for the year and will look at throttling the bandwidth across the entire site so it will be slower for everyone all the time but more reliable.
How is it? Can I join the AF membership?
Abybody can join, just sign up 🙂
I’d like to, but the one off-payment puts me off. Far better for me is a DirectDebit for xGBP a month, is that not possible?