Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
Posted on 08/21/2016 11:42:55 AM PDT by DoughtyOne
Hello my fellow FReepers. I hope your day has started out on the right track. It's August 21st, and we're in the middle of another FReep-a-thon. That is what I would like to talk to you about, FReep-a-thons.
Like some others, I was unable to donate to Free Republic in second quarter this year. I had the pleasure of turning 65 and this year that meant about seven of my accounts were affected. Each of them had the potential to change anywhere from $50 to as much as $200 dollars in my monthly budget. This left me unclear as to whether I would actually make it through the maze still making payments on time. I did and and now I'm on much better footing, knowing exactly why my monthly payments are and will be.. It wasn't easy. I am mentioning this because I know what it is like to have a period where things are uncertain, and you can't participate in the FReep-a-thon. This being said, I know that Jim wants you here. So do I.
There are several main reasons why we procrastinate when it comes to supporting Free Republic. We can't afford it. We get upset. We just put it off. Let's look at each of these.
I already touched on one reason some of us can't pay. We are in a valley when it comes to monthly expenses versus our income. This may be temporary, or a chronic problem. Only you know your circumstances, but I personally think that anyone who comes here, is welcome here. If you can pay, please join those who do. If you can't, plan for a time when you can. And in the over all scheme of things, I'm pretty sure most folks can give $5 or $10 dollars a month, to help complete the FReep-a-thon. Enough on that. Please, no matter your financial situation, know I and others are glad to have you here. I'm just a part of the FReeper community. I want you to be a part of it too.
Lets address the part about getting upset. I know that the supporters of candidates can been disappointed by the turn of events. They don't like their guy didn't make it, and that some other folks got upset and did things that resulted in them leaving. I'm sorry those things happen, but they do just about every general election. People pick someone they really support, they get disappointed, and they have a hard time accepting how things are going. If folks here don't express the proper level of agreement, it's easy to feel ostracized and unwelcome. I understand that. In my opinion, it all boils down to this. In the long term, we either choose to focus on the good or the bad. There are times when we get so close to a problem, that we can't see the 95% of the good that is out there that outweighs the problem. At times like that we need to back off a bit, see the complete picture, and choose to focus on the positives. This can be hard. I know that. The problem is, where else to go. This is it folks. This is the place to be.
As for the last problem, we just put it off. We think, eh there's another two months. I can get it in later. This goes beyond the ability to pay, it's just procrastination. Meanwhile Jim and his team are working hard to put the FReep-a-thon to bed. What takes us a moment to do, is taking Jim and his team two and a half months to accomplish. I know folks mean well, but we really do need to be more understanding of what the team goes through on these efforts. We need to help them wrap up the FReep-a-thons in a timely manner. For this reason I would like to make a suggestion, for those who can.
We know what we donated last time. We now what we're going to donate this time. Lets try a new mindset. This, for those who can, will help to retire the FReep-a-thon much faster. I know we can do it.
I would like folks to consciously refuse to think of their donation period to be two and a half months. I would appreciate it if we could all think of it in terms of one month. Here's what I have in mind.
1. The FReep-a-thon starts. Within five days, we pay the first half of our intended donation.
2. Thirty days later, by the 5th of the second month, we pay another payment, the last half of our donation for the FReep-a-thon.
3. Done!
I like to refer to this as, One One Done!
Those who can't participate in this, I'd like you to think long and hard if you can pay just $5.00 or event $10.00 dollars per month. It doesn't sound like it would be worth the bother, but thousands of people are here. If those thousands would pay just $5.00 monthly, it would add up to a vast amount each month. That would be very helpful to the forum.
Jim has an auto-pay program set up. I think that is the optimal most painless way to pay. I urge FRepers to join it. If you don't wish to participate in that program, please join me in the One One Done Project.
We should be retiring these FReep-a-thons at a maximum of 35 days after they start. I know we can do it, if we think differently and follow through.
Free Republic is a great internet site. It's my favorite. Long may it prosper...
Take care.
Good FReeping...
D1
Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
Thanks, DoughtyOne. I appreciate what you say.
Everybody has entertainment expenses— from gum to beer, or cable TV to occasional get aways.
How regular users, especially, can’t find $10.00 a month is an unfortunate situation indeed.
This is a private commercial site, renown in its history. Sad to see us treat our privilege, here, at the Robinson kitchen table, with the presumption that Jim Rob should also provide us the meal, too, on His dime.
Giving is no gift. This is no charity. As with any product we use, we pay regularly, because.we.*owe*.it.
Thanks, for the thoughtful reminder, *DO.
Kaboom...
Thanks RitaOK...
I agree that these Freepathons go on and on and on. How about in lieu of 10 big gulps from a convenient store or drive thru (or however many) a month Freepers drink water instead and donate the proceeds to FR. I went to Casey’s this morning and bought a little juice drink for a church kid, he took it to the register and the attendant asked me if knew it was $3.00. Well, the kid got his drink but I was surprised at the price. They display these kids drinks on the bottom shelf in the cooler just for their reach.
Thank you very much, DoughtyOne!!
I agree. Two things. Yes we can sacrifice a few things for F. R. And boy does it bother me how retailers target kids.
My pleasure Jim.
Well said, D1!
Thank you. I appreciate it.
I suppose there are a few out there for which $5/mo would be a hardship but I have to think that they would be a very, very small minority. I'm currently kicking in $35/mo so have six of you guys covered!
I should also mention that the monthly automated donations are probably TOO convenient. Reason is that twice now, to my embarrassment, Free Republic stopped getting my donation because either my credit card expired or got issued a new expiration date. I admit to not tracking my expenses that carefully. I put my Free Republic donation on a card I used for incidentals so I just pay the bill and never even bother looking at the statement. Like I said, I set it up and forget about it.
Now when that happens, most vendors I have automated payments setup for will quickly clamor for my attention by saying "Hey dude, we aren't getting your automated payment any more. What's up with that?"
But the people of Free Republic are too nice to do that. So when the payment stops, it just well, stops. And nobody tells me. Meanwhile, I'm thinking I'm doing my duty and Freeping happily along. Then someday I take a peek at my statement and realize to my horror that nothing is coming out for Free Republic.
So I wish that the Free Republic would sent an email to those whose automated payments stopped so that we can get our payments back on track right away. It can be a super polite email along the lines of "Dear valued Freeper, we know that you have generously donated xx amount each month but we notice that the payments have stopped...could we please trouble you to confirm that this was your intention?" I think that would help with the cash flow here a bit.
$5/mo as an automated payment. If just 6,000 of us did that, no more Freepathons. And since I'm giving $35 (last time I checked), we need 5,993 other Freepers to kick in the $5/mo. Probably a lot less than that as I know we have many other monthly donators here.
I read you post and it makes a lot of sense. None the less, some folks don’t like to allow access to their account.
I’d rather not debate it here, so I appreciate your comments.
Freerepublic.com is my newspaper.
It makes me a more interesting conversationalist because I find current and deeper news here than I could ever hope to find delivered in a newspaper. I don't post that much, but I'm here reading stuff pretty much everyday. And while I'm blabbering, that probably is true for most every day since Sept. 1998 and even sometime before that.
The genius of this forum is both the freedom to post items and the collection of people found here who comment freely. It's name is true. It is free. But many of us know it isn't a federal program because it's free.
Some years back I realized I needed to help fund FR but I was in no condition financially to do so. Then things changed for me and I began automatic monthly payments of $1.00 per day. Just like a home delivered newspaper used to cost.
$30 a month = $1 per day
God Bless you JimRob!
Also, I was annoyed back in the 1990s when I tried to cancel my AOL account. Took me multiple phone calls to get that done. But that came back to bite AOL as they lost millions of subscribers for being such jerks and for stuffing our mailboxes with those infernal CD ROMS (even though we were subscribers already). But that was over 20 years ago!
Thank you very much, WhoisAlanGreenspan?!!
I agree with your take on it.
I know there are some folks who don’t like to sign up like that.
This was an alternative.
Don’t forget that after the monthlies are all accounted for, there’s always a lot left over.
I’m trying to get that left over done in 35 days, so the campaign staff can rest up for almost two months.
If I say more, I’m kind of arguing against Jim’s preferred plan, so I’ll leave it at that.
One way that would help with that would be, if you are not current on your donations, then you don't get to post. You will only be able to lurk.
Yeah yeah yeah the economy and all that.
It's all going to be better if Mr. Trump wins and we start to focus on the people who live here.
In my work, and I'll bet the people who are my customers compared to the average FR poster-reader-frequentflyer would blow your doors off in cash availability. I boosted from simple repairs costing less than $5 to five dollars in the past year or so, and very rarely hear a comment about cost.
I give away leads to other stores that should be able to help you with that particular problem. And I do that for free. So does Jim. We've all seen anonymous postings where the OP never reads the replies, it's a machine! It can't read it only posts. I for one would rather FR allowed machines than ban anything. But just as I increased my sub $5 to $5 we all need to take Jim into consideration as well.
5 10 or 15 monthly, isn't far from $30 monthly. A dollar a day? That's easy for many of us.
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