Who would be willing to make a donation?

Website · Post by **coyote1980** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 10:20 pm

Hi everyone,

as everyone probably knows, running a club as big as this is not cheap. Basically most our expenses are the webspace we use and that alone is about 60 Euro a year. Since we have started using PHPBB as a forum the allowed 1.5 Gb traffic per month has been exceeded beyond 3 Gb a month. This forced us to pay another 71,40 Euro for the period September '03 to August '04. For a student like me this is a pretty big sum of money, so I have been thinking about ways to cover the expenses.

In my opinion it would help a great deal if some (preferrably all

) would be willing to make a donation to the club. Everyone would be free to decide how much he is willing to contribute to the club, the more the merrier of course!

Since about two years I have been keeping a log which you can regard as some sort of cash-book where all incoming and outgoing money is registered. Also all money from the club is kept safely in a nice Volvo-map. So you need not worry it would end up in my own pocket (if there's anyone who thinks I would: c'mon, get real..

).

When we would start accepting donations there would be three ways by which you could make your donation:
1) Sending money in an envelop to the same address you can post to when you want a clubsticker.
2) By transferring money to my personal account. It would mean putting Volvo 480 Club EUROPE donation or something in the subject. Since July 2003 this should be 100% free of charge for everyone in the EU as long as you follow certain rules. Some of these rules are that you fill out the IBAN account number of the beneficiary, the BIC code of his bank and that the amount of money being transferred is below 12.500 euro. (I would be happy to pay for the transfer if anyone was willing to make such a contribution). I will advise to check with your own bank how this stuff works since the slightest error can mean the difference between a free-of-charge money transfer and about 10 euro of costs that need to be covered by both sender and receiver.
3) Payment to a creditcard or through PayPal.

All the money that we receive more than the hosting costs can and will be used to produce things for a clubs webshop. Think of coffee-cups with text and/or logo, or T-shirts, or Caps!

I have added a poll to see how everyone feels about this issue here.

MatBat · Post by **MatBat** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 8:36 am

I have been wondering how you have been keeping the Club running (financially). Never realised you were funding it on your own!
I think that donations are a good idea.

I hope others feel the same way.

Gimle · Post by **Gimle** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 10:57 am

I think it's a good idea, but wouldn't a annual contribution of all members be better? Like € 5,- or somthing? Then there would be more money in the club and you can separate the true members from the non true members...

Just my 2 cents

chriskay · Post by **chriskay** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 3:57 pm

I'd certainly donate. Can you use English banknotes? If so, give the address to send to. And thanks for all your effort & expense in runnimg this site.
Chris.

martinholmesuk · Post by **martinholmesuk** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 4:19 pm

Give me your home address (PM me) and I will send you euros!

Martin

(or paypal if you wish but I have euros in my wallet already)

Website · Post by **coyote1980** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 9:20 pm

Thanx everyone,

so far it's looking very promising

I will make the page with donation instructions tomorrow after I have had a terrible presentation

Yes, have to present about something we haven't even build yet at school, that's gonna be hard...

At least the projector-sheets look good

But once again, thanx everyone for being willing to contribute!

Website · Post by **coyote1980** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 9:31 pm

Oops. Forgot to mention: no, I can't do too much with UK pounds or other non-euro currency as I will be charged a great deal when converting it at a bank. That would be sad.

But maybe you could transfer money from your bank-account from the UK to us for free, when following the rules mentioned earlier, but that you should check with your bank...

dragon · Post by **dragon** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 9:35 pm

there's no way to send euros from the UK without incurring charges (usually big charges) - correct me if I'm wrong on that, but so far HSBC charged me 15 odd quid to send euros electronically, and Abbey National charged be 25 for the same, both electronic transfers, both in euros and both to Dutch bank accounts...

Paypal is a much better way to go all around...

Website · Post by **coyote1980** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 9:50 pm

Hi Dragon,

when was that? New EU-laws forbid banks to charge anything when transferring money in Euros from one country to another if the IBAN and BIC are filled out, all data on the sender is filled out and if the sum is not above 12.500 Euro. This law was implemented July 2003.

I have made two international payments last week and in both cases something went wrong. One occasion the german bank had charged 8 euro transfer cost which they were not allowed to. We are working on correcting this. In the other case my bank had charged me 5 euro. I have managed to get them to correct this error.

Best way is to contact your bank and see what applies. I do think they will charge you in non-Euro countries when you want to sent out money in the non-native currency.

That's all I know about this matter...

dragon · Post by **dragon** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 9:59 pm

I read the law as "they cannot charge any more than they would charge to send the same currency inland" - as all (seemingly) UK banks charge to send euros even within the UK, so they charge to send it out of the UK. The same charge, the same amount.

But to answer your question, this was a) 5 weeks ago and b) 6 days ago.

dragon · Post by **dragon** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 10:00 pm

dragon wrote:I read the law as "they cannot charge any more than they would charge to send the same currency inland" - as all (seemingly) UK banks charge to send euros even within the UK, so they charge to send it out of the UK. The same charge, the same amount. Using the BIC and IBAN numbers for Dutch bank accounts (which UK banks haven't cottoned onto yet as they always have to find their advisory books to find out what they mean)

But to answer your question, this was a) 5 weeks ago and b) 6 days ago.

Website · Post by **coyote1980** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 10:04 pm

OK, I see what you mean, this IBAN/BIC thing is not going to work for UK members. Yes, in that case PayPal is the best alternative, right beside sending Euro's in an envelope if you happen to have some

Preferrably in some tape so that the postman isn't too keen on keeping that envelope

kirsty_2003 · Post by **kirsty_2003** » Sat Dec 20, 2003 9:57 am

could you write a cheque instead of sending money?

Website · Post by **coyote1980** » Sat Dec 20, 2003 10:57 am

Hi Kirsty,

I have no idea, not familiair with cheques at all! Maybe someone on the forum has an answer if this would work? I believe when writing a cheque from the UK to the Netherlands a lot of costs will be made when cashing it? Anyone?

dragon · Post by **dragon** » Sat Dec 20, 2003 3:14 pm

Yes a cheque will work, yes you will be charged lots for cashing it, so unless you're donating 50 quid or more at a time, I don't think it's viable for Daniel...

As well as Paypal, I suggest you sign up for a Nochex account, Daniel - with Nochex, people can send you money with their debit cards, even if they don't have a nochex account themselves (for a very small fee) - with paypal, people have to sign up for an account before they can send money, with nochex, they don't.

Website · Post by **coyote1980** » Sat Dec 20, 2003 3:42 pm

Thanx dragon!

I will pass it on to Ed Koedijk, he's the man with the 'golden card'

Think that after your post it is safe to conclude that cheques won't work... Don't know other (cheap / free) ways to make a donation than the ones mentioned earlier...

king_j · Post by **king_j** » Sat Dec 20, 2003 4:20 pm

you get 3gb bandwidth, my site i get 40gb, and its the same price as your paying.

Website · Post by **coyote1980** » Sat Dec 20, 2003 4:58 pm

Thanx!

I know, until we had the forum on our server it was no problem here, but with the increased traffic it might be worthwile to check prices elsewhere. I have seen packs with 10 Gb traffic and 100 Mb space for half the money we pay right now. But I haven't looked up if they are reliable.

Anyway, we have a contract that runs for a year and it ends in August. So until then I have plenty of time to check for other reliable providers.

Ekoedijk · Post by **Ekoedijk** » Sun Dec 21, 2003 8:37 am

have tried to open a Nochex acount, but i can't place a normal duct bankaccount or Visa card anywhere. So i don't think this helps for this time...

Mhh. looked some further on the site

NOCHEX is an online payment system that enables businesses and individuals who are trading online to accept instant, guaranteed, low cost payments from anyone with a UK debit card.

So is doesn't work for dutchies sorry

Volvo 480 Club Europe

Who would be willing to make a donation?

Would you be willing to make a donation?

Who would be willing to make a donation?