Donations

Noticed there is a DONATION box on site....... just wondering if many people ever put a few Euro in box?

Thing is, this is a great website for selling equipment. Within the last couple of weeks I have put 7 items up and sold 6 :woohoo: The only item I didn't sell was my Canon 18X50 stabilizing Bino's and i'm starting to use them again...... maby they're too cool to sell. In fact next week i'm going to increase the price by €100, put them on the ebay's of this world and if they aren't gone by end Dec i'm going to keep them.

Getting back to donations, unlike other web based selling mechanisms this site is free! I think that if it was suggested in "Buy & Sell" section of Forum that people consider making a donation if they sell stuff (say suggest 5% of sale price) that people would feel morally obliged to put a few Euro in the box....... I know I will.

Just a thought, Damon

It is not Astromart and would kind of defeat the purpose of the site as a community site in my own humble opinion. I am sure that any donations would be welcomed though by the committee for the upkeep of this great site but its up to the individual I guess - correct me if I am wrong;) .

Intresting topic Perseus.

I have to admit that I have noticed the "Donate" button but have not donated. The thought has never really crossed my mind to donate direct as I have always kinda thought that my club membership went towards the running costs of the overall IFAS and affiliate groups .

I'm gonna be putting a lot of gear up for sale to fellow club and IFAS members in the next few weeks .It's a tuffy whether sales should pass on a cut of 5% donation to the site as 5% could be a deal breaker when factoring in a price on some items.

I'm gonna probably sound selfish now but, if I can afford 5% of a hit for a donation I would rather it go to my own club knowing that it will feedback into IFAS in the long run rather than donate direct to IFAS and take the chances of the cash been thinned out and disolved by all the other groups around the country .....( I'm playing Devils advocate here and hope you get what I'm saying).

At the moment Deise Astronomy (my club) has a lot of plans for the future and we need cold hard cash. We are going to have to beg ,borrow and steal to realise the ambitions we have ,and it's not gonna be easy in the current climate.




I do think that donations are very worthy to a group/glue/rock like IFAS that is the link that binds all of our clubs together but as a club member I feel that any succesfull organisation is only as strong as it's foundations and the clubs are the foundation of IFAS .



If you are not a club member then " DONATE YOU CHEAP GIT" .


joner...proud club member.

The idea of the donation button was to let (predominantly) non-club members contribute to IFAS (and this site). It is purely voluntary.

Of course, anyone selling equipment through the site gets a captive audience of potential buyers and sure, its a good idea that if you found the site useful in helping you shift unwanted equipment that you hit that paypal donate button and throw us a few quid There is no *requirement* to do so but anything donated will be put to very good use.

The clubs (and therefore its members) contribute to IFAS already (by annual subsription). So there is certainly no expectation that they would contribute twice. That said, many members with a spare few bob *have* contributed in the past and certainly those that have used the site to sell stuff.

But as I said anyhow, donations are purely voluntary whether you're a club member or not.

I'd also point out that we got the donate button working a couple of weeks back and here is the message I posted:

www.irishastronomy.org/forum?func=view&catid=1&id=87159

Any and all money IFAS receives will be ploughed back into astronomy - simple as...

Cheers
Dave