Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Thank You Ryan for your suggestions, I understand and recognize all of your points - and frankly you have made some very good points. The problem is that Mike Tan (Tanner) has stepped down from managing the site - and actually is looking for someone to take it over, so making changes right now, is not going to happen unless someone can step up and take it on. I am not capable nor interested in that part of TPMG, as I am not a computer geek. As you know, in the past and present, TPMG has been run by volunteers, and we try our best to do what we can, but with the present arrangement there is only so much that can be done. So I have been poking around the forum looking for others interested in helping by becoming a moderator, organizer, whatever you want to call it. And as far as I am concerned - we can drop the "official" bit, because there is no us vs. them really. We are all equals, and we do our best to try to serve the TPMG community. This is not a formal club in any way or form. Never has been.

Part of what the organizers do is help to collect money - which goes to the site fee's, which is paid in quarters - roughly around $40 or something like that per quarter. Mike lets me know when the bill comes up, and I send him money. I am the holder of the cash box, and I have no problem disclosing that TPMG currently has around $245 in the funds. So we are ok for a while - and in previous threads I never indicated in any way that TPMG was going broke - only that the same people were donating money over and over, and I felt bad about that situation, because there are a lot of people taking advantage of the site who are not helping out with donations. Again, we'd love to add a paypal option - but someone has to modify the site, and manage the account. I am not willing to do that, thus the pigs work for me. We just need to make sure we bring them out to all of the events.

If there are others willing to help run TPMG and help make improvements as to how TPMG can operate - by all means, please volunteer! There have been some great suggestions, and we'd love to impliment them, but it takes people to make it happen. Everyone seems to have an opinion, but nobody wants to make it happen, ALL TALK - no action!

So that is where things stand. We can keep going on like this for maybe another year, but frankly, I am getting busy now that I have stepped up as the president of the Beach Photo Club - I don't have as much time for TPMG as I used to. I want to still stay connected, and I don't mind looking after our finances, but I need more people to help run things. So that is where I am coming from.


David

That's very helpful and provides a lot of context.

I would be willing to step up and either fully take over, or assist someone else with taking over control of the site/forum.

I've had personal complaints about the speed/updates of the site and would happily (albeit gradually) clean things up. I would require speaking to someone abut what the cost/figures are and where hosting lies and for how long it is locked up. Based on the figure you posted above, I am weary that we are getting the quality of service that we should be for the money.

I will blindly assume that most people on the forum would like this database remains, despite what happens to the site/forum and as such I'd need to speak to someone about that as well.

I think there are improvements left right and center that we could make, and that have been suggested and would happily help out in that manner.

Note: After further scanning the forum there are LOTS of ideas oozing out of users/photographers on improvements to make. I haven't worked with phpBB in a long time but will do some research to see if it is capable of the wonderful things we'd like to do, but I might caution that some of these changes would require a different code base. Anywho, just an FYI.

Yet another edit: After browsing the phpBB site for a little while, I do see many stock improvements that could be made to our wonderful little community. As such I have faith that we could maintain this original database as is - at least for a while - and continue to improve.

Thanks.

Thanks David that makes things more clear.

With all the IT people in the membership it would be nice if a few IT people would take over from Mike as Webmaster. I see that Alexander has already volunteered

As for moderators unfortunately we still need one or 2 when things get badly out of hand. Maybe it would be enough if they were passive only coming in with their King Solomon type wisdom when requested?

Well...I've moderated for a few video game companies before. Not sure what needs to be moderated in these forums since most of us members are adults and not a bunch of whining, bickering 13 year old girls. How much moderation is needed? I see there are some "debate" and maybe conflict of interests in boards like the Critique board but that's why it's called a Critique board.

If needed really...I'll volunteer for moderating.

I could be a Moderator! (Err, wait I am the one who probly needs the most moderating). I work in IT, but I don't know anything about HTML, PHP, etc. But still willing to help out anywhere I can.

Hi All,

The forum has been modified, and now all events are posted in a single area. I don't know how that works out with the front page and event listings, but for now Mike (Tanner) graciously made the change this morning. I am gone to Victoria for the next 4 days, so with regards to other issues, we can discuss next week.

thanks,


David