=][= Age of Darkness: Fund raising =][=

[Caillum]

A great rent opened into reality, spilling forth the Battle Barge PURGATOR.

Debris and smoke poured from the flanks of the ship. Signs of battle decorating it from stem to stern.

The ship had not been seen or heard from within in the sector for over a year. The engines, that had powered it out of the Warp, flared briefly and died. What visible lighting there was on the ship blinked and and the ship went dark. Drifting in space.

Well....what a year it has been. The site has taken a bit of beating over the last 12 months, along with the staff. This has led to fixable issues going untouched.

DDoS attacks, server crashes, hack attempts and just life in general have left the good ship B&C battered and listing in space, but still fighting.

As many of you know Brother Argos stepped down two years ago for health reasons. Unfortunately this past 12 months those reasons became his young daughter's health issues. As mentioned elsewhere she has been dealing with a rare form of Ovarian cancer. This has been recently added to by an emergency heart surgery due to complications from treatment of the cancer. His wife also had to have an emergency surgery.

My own mother fought lung cancer since last July and passed on Easter Sunday.

We've had several mods families be visited by the vile creature know as Cancer in the past year.

And yet another mod, whose mother passed away suddenly and unexpectedly.

Due to these real life issues we have managed to beat back the various attempts against the server and at least keep the site up, but we haven't had time to repair the damage.

So what does this mean for the future of the board?

For this year it basically means raising more money than usual.

Argos, once his family health issues are in a more stable state, will be getting WarriorFish server side access to take over the roll of Tech-Priest to the B&C.

In the meantime though, we need to raise funds in order to hire some help to repair the damage, get us fully upgraded to the new 4.x version of the software and make sure our server is sound and stable.

This is where you -- as ever -- come in.

The B&C exist for you and because of you. Our goal way back in 1999 was to give back to the community. In the 18 years since this community has grown and fostered into one of the best on the internet for 40k. You guys generate the content here that people love to read.

With 8th Edition rolling in we have a chance to continue to grow and foster the community.

We have a lot of plans that we would like to do for the site in the next year, a small sampling being:

- Upgrade the site to the most recent version of the IPB forum software.

- This includes fixing the gallery area, email system and the page delays people see currently due to scrap code.

- Bring back the ETL (though it will probably be a 2018 event)

- Bring back the Golden Bolters

- Add Facebook/Twitter account integration

- Add Tap-a-talk integration

- Finish the Project: Argos army (totally on me btw but life being what it was......)

There are other things we would like to do but are still debating, restoring Blogs for example. Once we have a more solid footing for these will let you all know if we will move forward with them.

HOW CAN YOU HELP THE B&C?

Our yearly costs as they currently stand are $3,000 USD per year ($250 a month roughly). So we need to at least get this amount. Obviously any time we have done a donation drive in the past you all have stepped up above and beyond and we crush the goal out quickly.

So this year our goal is AT LEAST $4500. This will cover our yearly hosting costs and give us funds to get some work done that will hopefully repair the ship.

At any given time we have roughly 100 registered users and 1500 guests on the site. 1600 people in total. If each person simply gave $3 for the year we would crush that goal out without much effort.

Anything over the goal will go into the emergency fund.

Your donations will help assure that we can continue to provide you with a platform for the quality content and Fraterhood that you have helped to build.

Obviously the great community projects that you all regularly participate in and continue to help make this community a true community will continue:

E Tenebrae Lux (to return in 2018)

Call of Chaos

Cruasde Expansions

and more!

You, the Brothers and Sisters of this site are why it is the community it is today. Let's keep that going for another 17 years!!!!

We would like to have all donations collected by the end of August as our pay-period is in Sept.

There are several ways to donate.

First is to use the Donation Tracker on the right hand side of our screen (if you are on mobile platform you will not be able to see this).

Second you can donate directly via Paypal to: bolterinquisition@gmail.com

This year, you can also (if you'd like to get something in return) make a donation via the 2009 Poker Deck. A small portion of which will go the B&C and another to your fellow Frater Aerion the Faithful.

Finally, if those options do not appeal to you and you would prefer to send a check/money order you can contact Kurgan the Lurker and he can give you details about North American and European locations that you can mail those to.

I will endeavor to update the donate bar in the donate box on the right hand side in a roughly 12 hour cycle.

This site is great because of you, so please help us in helping you have a place on the internet to enjoy your hobby.

Thank you to all.

[Slips]

Good news everyone! 

 

We hit our goal!! 

 

So, what are we to do. Well Sept. 1 we will pay for another year of service. In addition I've already spoken to Brother Argos and we will be making arrangements to not only get the server repaired but the IPB database as well and then moved over to the 4.x version of the software!!

 

 

Now, I want to put forth a little challenge for everyone. Last year we hit our goal early too (cause you all always come through and we do that each year) and we rolled into 2017 with $1600 (roughly) in the till towards this years fees. 

 

Once again we have hit our goal early (6 weeks early in fact) and I'd like to challenge everyone that can, to continue to donate, donate for the first time, or whatever to help the board out. Let's go into our "fee pay period" with a leg up on the next year (or emergency money towards whatever may happen).

 

So I bumped the target goal out a bit more to see if we can reach that. 

 

Thanks once again to all of you for supporting the B&C and continuing to make it one of the best places on the web for discussing 40k.

[Caillum]

Hi everyone.

So this is it. Our final 4 week push to try and hit the "stretch" goal.

Big things are coming, including updated software and server repairs.

If you can donate great! We also appreciate the support of the community so that we can keep this place running for you!

And just as a little teaser......