Dear Forum Members
You may or may not be aware that I have run the LOSW website over 24 years
and the forum for almost 17 years, in that time I have had a lot of help from Tony
and the admins keeping things running, keeping the site safe and free from
spam and other nasties. The amount of time the site has been offline has been
immeasurable over these periods of time, sadly to do all this costs money and
over the years the prices have risen considerably, in the last five years some
members have been very generous helping to fund the site, but this year due to
cost of living that tailed off.
So between myself and other admin members we have discussed the options for
2026, everyone is keen to see the Forum continue beyond February 2026 and
the only way I can see this happening is that the forum is funded by an annual
subscription, we would need a minimum of 25 members to agree to this and
working out the revised Forum cost would be £5 per year.
To keep the admin time and cost down this would be collected by the last day of
February each year starting in 2026, and if someone joins part way through the
year the same cost would apply.
Without a subscription you would be able to view the site, but not able to
Post or see pictures, send private messages or use the chat box, so your activity would be limited.
It has been decided that only the Forum would continue, the main website will no longer work, and for the Forum to continue to operate Tony would move us onto another server to keep the cost down, other than that most things will remain the same.
So I need to hear from all members who would like to see the Forum continue
by the end of January, if the numbers are sufficient we can look at other server
sites and get the site moved over by the end of February, and provide payment
options for the subscriptions.
If we don't have enough members to cover the cost then the Site and Forum will
close by the end of March 2026
You may or may not be aware that I have run the LOSW website over 24 years
and the forum for almost 17 years, in that time I have had a lot of help from Tony
and the admins keeping things running, keeping the site safe and free from
spam and other nasties. The amount of time the site has been offline has been
immeasurable over these periods of time, sadly to do all this costs money and
over the years the prices have risen considerably, in the last five years some
members have been very generous helping to fund the site, but this year due to
cost of living that tailed off.
So between myself and other admin members we have discussed the options for
2026, everyone is keen to see the Forum continue beyond February 2026 and
the only way I can see this happening is that the forum is funded by an annual
subscription, we would need a minimum of 25 members to agree to this and
working out the revised Forum cost would be £5 per year.
To keep the admin time and cost down this would be collected by the last day of
February each year starting in 2026, and if someone joins part way through the
year the same cost would apply.
Without a subscription you would be able to view the site, but not able to
Post or see pictures, send private messages or use the chat box, so your activity would be limited.
It has been decided that only the Forum would continue, the main website will no longer work, and for the Forum to continue to operate Tony would move us onto another server to keep the cost down, other than that most things will remain the same.
So I need to hear from all members who would like to see the Forum continue
by the end of January, if the numbers are sufficient we can look at other server
sites and get the site moved over by the end of February, and provide payment
options for the subscriptions.
If we don't have enough members to cover the cost then the Site and Forum will
close by the end of March 2026
