As you know, the issue of funding for harp-l has reared it's ugly head again. I can simply no longer afford to house and run the list at my own expense (time and money), and harp-l can no longer afford to be dependent on just me.
Before going any further, I want to say DON'T PANIC. There is no danger of the list dying or changing in any way. The response to my appeal for immediate financial and administrative assistance has assured us of that.
Also, the idea of a membership fee for either the list itself or the web archives has been discussed and REJECTED as being against the basic charter of harp-l, as laid down by creator-harp-l (Chris Pierce).
What we need to decide upon is the strategy and philosophy for ensuring that harp-l can fund itself in the long run, and not rely on any single individual to ensure either short or long term survival and growth, and not charge membership fees.
To this end, I established a new list, harp-l-funding, at the beginning of this month as a forum for discussing this issue. I deliberately ran it as an "invitation only" list for the first couple of weeks, as I knew that I would have to go through some fairly painful and personal discussion about my personal status and affairs, which I didn't want to do "in public".
PLEASE don't be offended that I didn't invite "you" (whoever you may be). During the initial phase of discussion, I could only deal with about half a dozen folk. The choices I made are in no way intended to imply that the individuals concerned are any more "important" than anyone else. They are just people I feel I know well enough to lay open my financial and personal life to, and/or who have experience in such non-profit fund raising exercises, and who are sufficiently email oriented to get that part of the discussion over with quickly.
Now that "Phase 1, In Which Hugh Bares His Soul" is complete, it is time to send an open invitation to harp-l.
If you have an interest in being an active participant in discussions about harp-l's future as a self funding, non-profit organization, you may subscribe to harp-l-funding by sending the command:
subscribe harp-l-funding
... as the first (and only) line of a message to majordo~arply.com.
Please note that the posting address for harp-l-funding is ...
harp-l-fundi~rgon.garply.com
... and NOT (repeat NOT) harp-l-fundi~arply.com. Don't ask.
If you have no immediate input, please at least send an introductory message to harp-l-fundi~rgon.garply.com as soon as you are subscribed, so we know you are there.
Lurkers are cautiously welcome, but I may start pruning out "inactive" members if the list becomes too unwieldy, or if discussions become too, erm, frank and open. For similar reasons I may have to impose a limitation on the number of members of harp-l-funding, so if you have any strong views, I urge you to subscribe as soon as possible.
Don't worry about being left out, though. I will ensure that nothing goes on "behind closed doors" and that regular summaries of anything the funding group comes up with are sent to harp-l. Any recommendations the funding group dreams up will have to be "ratified" by the main list, anyway, in a process to be decided.
As usual, thankyou *all* for your help and support, and above all for being harp-l'ers. You make me very proud, and constantly surprise me with your dedication to, and belief in, this forum. I truly believe that harp-l is making a difference to the harmonica community at large, and is a model for such special interest groups on the Internet. And it's not me that does that, it's you. It's time we moved on to the next plane of existance.
