As of up until now hosting for livetodai.com has been a free service provided to the community, this hosting service is ceasing late December and has left the admin team in the situation to fund the costs of the site.
We have been discussing options and are working behind the scenes to make this as affordable as possible, the site is now running on a lower end server that may suffer “slow downs” during peak usage. This will be monitored and if it becomes unreasonable we will re-evaluate.
What does this mean for our community?
In the short term we have enough funding to continue the site on for 6+ months, we are hoping coming into the new year we will be able to commit some more personal funding towards the site and also come up with ideas about funding the site from the community in ways the community is happy to contribute.
Some ideas are:
Funding from donations, with possible rewards such as L2D Badges, Members lounge etc
Funding from meets, where a race meet is had there will be a small portion of costs contributed to the running of the site
Merchandise - Stickers, Shirts etc
During the transition period there will be some outages, all outages will be communicated as best as possible.
We need your feedback.
If you have feedback or suggestions on ways to raise funds we would love to hear, please posts your comments below.
The below poll has been set to anonymous for voting.
What if the willing people make a small monthly donation to help with covering costs?
And if enough people got on board with regular donations there would end up a surplus of funds with which we could feed back into the community through competitions, meet bbq’s, and maybe even gofundme type things if somebody is in trouble?
I don’t know what the monthly costs would be to run this but I’m sure with enough people donating, the cost would only be a couple bucks a month per person…
Who is going to miss that???
We can add $5 to the cost of entering the trackdays and get $75 from Lakeside and $100 from Willowbank. I think most entrants would be willing to pay the extra. And if we had surplus we could use it to buy little trophies to give out for fun things on the day (slowest car, furthest travelled or etc).
Yes there is Facebook. It’s quick, free and, well, you know what you like about it. Questions come and go. Answers get posted and lost to history (yes searches are possible).
This forum on the other hand is an information base. There is the written and photographic knowledge of unique info as shared by quite a number of Dauhatsu enthusiasts. Then many of these people have documented their builds. These are from worldwide contributors in nearly every contient and from both hemispheres. Many of these builds are up there with the most professional builds you’d find in any forum, albeit not mega expensive and we can learn how to get big performance from little cars on tight budgets. For these writers they have the history of what they have done captured sort of like diary entries and for everyone else we can read, enjoy and learn. While not perfect there is a bit of a data base of Dai info and essential car knowledge - (please help contribute as you can) - where you will find pioneering info if prepared to think about key words and use the search function. Here on Live to dai there is a benefit of arriving with a little knowledge and leaving with a heap of understanding.
The forum has not been for everyone, some come and go, or just pop in and out when they need something (that’s fine, but at least do a tiny contribution I suggest a dollar or two or else post info and pics of what you are up to). In my opinion this is a welcoming place and talk has been open, non judgemental and yet a place for constructive criticism. It has not been a place to bolster egos. I tread carefully in saying that as I do post a bit, not for acknowledgment, but to sincerely help on the performance and development side of what we are about. There is a lot to learn by sharing here, and in a practical sense “parts and help” are shared/traded in a community spirit. LiveToDai is a family, we might grind on each other at times but being of the same (motoring) lineage there is selfless support of each other. The culture has been of getting down to buisness and leaving the unproductive joking and banter to social network media. The benefit of the LiveToDai forum is being part of the spirit of what it is to own a Daihatsu. It’s a help group, your therapy space and a way for each Dai owner to give back a little in a “pay it forward” kind of way.
So i guess we better start getting some designs together for shirts and maybe keyrings i have a 3d printer that i never use much maby anyone with a printer could donate some prints to be sold by the forum
Can i use the 2nd black and white on there I have a heap of t-shirts I bought ages ago cheap. They are packed atm and I could probably use that pic with the live to dai font over the top and get some dark transfer sheets to make it a thing for some t-shirts to sell. with that on it.
Side note, I get that running something like this has a cost but trying to attract funds by offering merchandise and promoting events which are typically QLD only, has no real leverage or enticement for some unfortunately. With that said, if its mere dollars, then of course we’d pitch in to support the sustainability and success of a community.
as far as I’m aware to date the only merchandise that has been available thus far is the stickers which have had postage cost included in them and I have sent them overseas quite a few times. Events have been organised by Robert Hovey in QLD off his own back I have simply helped where I can and asked what I can do to help and to sing out if needed. We are simply trying to look at ways to raise funds to keep the forum running for everyone. If you have some ideas we would love to hear them.
From where I stand I see a clear solution.
We make a Daihatsu car club!
There are already race events, so we could create a daihatsu cup. Each race has different classes, there would be a scoring system for the year, and a winner/runner ups for the year/ season. To be eligable for the cup you have to be a member of the club and buy a yearly membership, funds from this could help fund the website.
I cant do much from here apart from donate, but I would be willing to help administrate.
My slalom club here organises the NWD cup, the framework is already there and would work well for this idea.
The best 30% (up to 5 participants) of each class get a trophy at each race.
A point system based on times, or a table based on position and number of entrants
Trophies are not expensive, and I think it would compel more people to enter track day events and buy a membership to enter in the cup
I mean we already have track days, we already have a website, it just seems logical to me to make a competition out of it to help raise funds.
Hmm, I’ll have a think about this. Imagine awarding a Daihatsu World-champion!. Okay we can’t get together to compete, however, if those that race logged events/races we could do participation points per event, and figure something out for extra points - like documenting the event gets points. Hmm, a $20 entry fee to be in the running for the year with some going to a trophy (I could cnc a trophy - so it would be for postage). Points for adding photos and info to a build thread, points for entering/doing comp and points for documenting in photos/video. Mehhh, not sure how to make it work or who would do the tally’s. Just an idea. Someone else might have a better system. But dang, who would not want to be 2019 L2D Daihatsu Worldchamp!
I was just thinking like a small championship for south east queensland, just work out a scoring system for the track days. But thats also an awesome idea!
The scoring system for something like that would be difficult, it would have to take into account contributions to the forum, results from local events ect. and calculate them in a way that provides a level playing field for everyone, but it would definitely be cool and a great way to include overseas members. Id definitely enter in something like that!
