The community in my other forum.

Just thought I'd share an experience with my other forum. It is mostly run by one person. He has been running the site for a very long time. He upkeeps the server, moderates, takes care of the financials, writes code for the forum, and everything else imaginable. The site is run strictly on member donations. No adds or anything else.

Over the last winter, he completely rebuilt his bike, new paint job, gear, the works. This is after his third accident on the bike. He finishes it all in time to make it to our biggest event of the year. Unfortunately, he was hit by a car an hour away from the event (he rode from CO to NC). Bike wasn't totaled, but it was going to take another couple of months rebuilding it to get it back to where it was.

So, since the new model of his bike came out (VFR1200), a good portion of the memberships donated to a fund to buy him one. It turned out as good as we hoped. Post-hos and lurkers alike all donated. After a couple of months, we donated over $10,000 to get him a new bike. A month later, he took the insurance money from his old bike, and a chunk of his own cash, and actually did buy one.

Flew from CO to OK, where he was picked up by a few of the forum members, and taken out to celebrate his new toy.

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e8...dup/Teaser.jpg

I hope Alan has the same success as we have had over the years. Good luck!

Great story! Looks like we are already down the right path to becoming a tight knit community once again.