blonde, going forward.

[tikay]

We have had to make some changes to blonde, to keep us financially viable.

In short, snoops & Floppy have agreed to step down for a few months, until we can find a way to finance their costs.

Rich & I met with them both yesterday. I had kept them up to date regularly, via long e-Mails, so they knew the spot we were in. They both understood & agreed totally, not happily, but stoically. The plan is to get them back around August time, if not sooner, the decision to be reveiwed/implemented in March or April.

The Updates in particular, are a sore point with us. Without Updates, blonde would be poorer, & richer. Poorer, because they are popular. Richer, because without them, we'd have (I estimate, I may be a bit out) between £30k & £50k in the Bank right now.

Updates are MY baby, let's be clear on that. I started them. I've defended them. I was wrong - they cost us too much, & the "payback" in revenue terms was nil, though the community payback is huge.

Right now, we cannot afford them. That's all there is to it. We struggle to pay Chris's wages & Exs some months, & I have no plans to run up a debt to him that we cannot repay. We have paid all of Decembers Wages, & we have just about enough to cover January's wages. So we cannot spend any more on them, until we get some money in.

This is a heartbreaker for me, & I intend to try & keep the Updates going somehow, even if only by community minded volunteers. We shall see, everything is moving a bit fast right now, so give us time to sort it out please. More news soon.

For now, a huge thanks to Floppy, who, particularly latterly, has worked heroically on "solo" Updates to preserve cash. He understands fully, & will keep his options open, because we all agreed (him, Rich & me) that we want to reserruct the blonde Live Updates.

The reality is the notion that Members would play more on blonde because of the Updates was a misnomer. There is a total disconnent in that logic.

As to snoops, well, that's even worse. snoops IS blonde. Nobody - nobody at all - has done more for blonde. Nobody has worked harder, done more, gone more extra miles, anything, everything, snoops is the man.

So I really enjoyed seeing him yesterday.......

He knew it was coming, it has been well flagged for some time.

The Home Page is his baby, & blondepedia, & they are excellent, superb, absolutely top notch. But they get no traffic, (or nearly no traffic), & earn not a bean.  A luxury, a magnificent luxury, but we ain't got the money to pay for it. It's as simple as that. And no less gut-wrenching for me, Rich, or snoops.

I have just one blonde ambition right now, get snoops back, get Flops back, & carry on as before. And I generally get what I want. You'd better believe me - I do, I'm a spoilt bastard, & I generally get my way, if I want something bad enough, & I sure don't do quitting.

But I MUST clear our debt to Rich first. Doing that is easy.

We owe Rich quite a bit in wages, but nobody else, & I have to get that cleared next. With just Kev & Rich to pay, we can sort that out pretty quickly, assuming Cardroom Revenues hold up. I just HAVE to get Rich's wage backlog cleared up before we countenance any more spending on Updates & the Home Page. To do otherwise, would be fraudelent.

We have about enough in the Bank, allowing for overdue debtors (excluding Trillion) to pay January's wages. February will be easy, as our cost base will be so much lower. I'm assuming January Cardroom & Casino Revenues are "reasonable". They were OK at the mid-month stage.

Our Cardroom is quite proifitable, always has been. But not profitable enough to cover all the Updating & Home Page Costs. So the Cardroom will continue, & Kev has been told to sweat it, & sweat it hard. Expect to be spammed.

Do you know of any viable alternative? I don't.

The Forum will continue as is. Rich has been paying the Hosting Costs for some time, they are about £250 per month I think. Given he's owed a good few months wages, plus those Server Hosting Costs, I have now taken on that liability, personally. So that's safe, & sorted.

So, for now, Cardroom & Forum "as is", & Rich will, from now, until we can get snoops back (fingers crossed) maintain the Home Page. Amazing guy, Rich, he's not been paid for x months, but is taking on more work.

A big thank you from me to all of them. I've not written to them personally yet, subsequent to yesterday's Meeting, but I will, I'm just a bit pulled out right now.

snoops seemed fine & dandy with it yesterday - or as fine & dandy as one could hope. Top man him. I note Dana is well upset - I understand that. Totally What can I say? It'd be wrong to employ him when I do not know for sure we can fund his February, March & April wages. VERY wrong. We are not Trillion, we pay our debts. (Rich apart, we have none). And if we think we cannot, we don't incur them.

Lastly, I am not seeking to transfer any of this blame to Poker Trillion.  Their (our....) £7k would merely give us another month's breathing space. That'd be handy, but that's not the root cause, not at all.

Big thanks too to a whole bunch of blondes who have belatedly, but thankfully, started to support the blonde Cardroom in the last few weeks, via Staking, Sponsoring or blonde League, or just playing on blonde. That will bring benefit very quickly, if sustained. When I see the amount of staking on the Internet Board some days, almost all of it on Tilt & 'Stars, I do wince a bit, but there it is, you can't force peeps to do anythng, & it'd be wrong to try. We do have an individual who wants to become a blonde Shareholder & do Commercial Staking on the blonde Cardroom, but first he has to get hold of the Shares at a "fair price". Not easy.....Very complex, in fract.

Flame away, I'm all yours.

[Rookie (Rodney)]

tl;dr

[AndrewT]

tl;dr

+1

He doesn't half ramble on when he knows he'll have an audience.

[Horneris]

Itll be total com when we stumble into Subway after a night out in Headingley and see none other than Chris "Foaming Homer" Hall serving up the buttys.

Toasted? yes plz Flops.

[NoflopsHomer]

Itll be total com when we stumble into Subway after a night out in Headingley and see none other than Chris "Foaming Homer" Hall serving up the buttys.

Toasted? yes plz Flops.

Pickles and Potter across the road is way better.

[Geo the Sarge]

Tony,

As usual appreciate the frankness, was gonna PM you with this but no doubt your inbox will be full.

You have documentedwith honesty, for a while now, the problems of funding and I'm sure like me, that blondites appreciate this.

There was a thread championed predominantly by Tracey and Laxie which highlighted potential means of creating this revenue. Obviously the main one being through supporting the cardroom. However there were other suggestions on the line of subscriptions and the like.

What I find baffling is that we have not had any feedback on the various suggestions, we blondites have not been approached (apart from being asked to play more on the cardroom) to assist in funding for the likes of updates.

I appreciate that things can get costly and whilst any contribution I could personally make would be minimal, from what I seen there were a few who were prepared to offer what they could.

Were any of these looked at and if so, what were the reasons for not approaching the blonde community to assist?

We have a saying up here that goes "mony a mickle maks a muckle" most people associate it with the mountains out of molehills scenario, however there's another comparison - "look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves" in other words if there are enough of us that can give a few pennies, the pounds will soon gather.

Not having a go in the slightest, I'm just frustrated and I assume many others are that I haven't been given the opportunity to assist.

Geo

[AndrewT]

Tikay has repeatedly said that forum access and updates will always be free.

[kinboshi]

Tikay has repeatedly said that forum access and updates will always be free.

But at what cost?

[The Camel]

Why don't Blue Squirrel employ Blondepoker to do the updates on the UKPT?

[byronkincaid]

Tikay has repeatedly said that forum access and updates will always be free.

But at what cost?

£250 per month atm

[Geo the Sarge]

Tikay has repeatedly said that forum access and updates will always be free.

And now that the updates can't be produced free we just give up on them??
 

Like many others, it was the live updates that brought me to blonde, some might not be happy about that but there we go. blonde has given me so much and I'm now being told that I can't give back because Tikay wants them to be free to us all.


Geo

[tikay]

Thanks Geo, & I'm impressed with that mickle & muckle malarky. Is that Kidz speak?

Apologies if you think we have ignored your, & other, offers of help. I'm way behind with my PM's (you were not wrong there!).

Rich, who runs the business, is always open to offers. I'm gonna leave this one to him. That's what we pay him for. Oops, I just remembered, we don't.....

except to say......

Charging for Updates? A great idea, but I do not think it would work. It only wants one person to C & P an Update Post, & everyone who has paid gets cheesed off, & so they should. We have looked at it, & I can't see how it would work.

Voluntary donations, from the "Community"?

A lovely thought, but blonde is a Ltd Company, & has Shareholders, many of whom would sell at the drop of a hat. I can't quite find the right words, but Shareholders benefitting from donations seems wrong.

I need to think on your thoughtful Post Geo, & I'm all a bit brain-frazzled right now, what with this & that.  Let me cogitate for a while. But thank you.

PS - You coming to Edinburgh on Saturday? I'll be at the Gala Maybury - it'd be grand to see you.

[HOLDorFOLD]

I would willingly donate here and there where I could hence asking/pondering as towhether would put a 'donate' button onto the forum  (a lot of sites do have them).

Sometimes I am unable to play on the cardroom due to my own techy probs here so can't donate that way. 

I would more than willingly donate directy if I could as to me this site (the live updates, results service and forum) is more than worth it.  I would see it the same as an annual subscription to a poker magazine - except it's more value for money than just a magazine (IMO). 

FWIW I would subscribe (not donate – subscribe)  just to read the updaters reports alone as they are excellent, so please at least 'think' about having a donate button on the forum for the people that would be willing to donate 'whatever' here and there. 

Besides - it'll give Kev something else to spam   

I can see the Sig now  ..... "Did you enjoy our updates .... please help to keep them going by clicking on our donate button now"    LOL, tongue in cheek BUT I'd rather have this option then lose the writers we have.



Feeling quite sad about all this.

EDIT - was typing this while the last couple of posts went on site

[TightEnd]

Why don't Blue Squirrel employ Blondepoker to do the updates on the UKPT?

because they do it themselves Keith (I know you know that, just saying)

[George2Loose]

How come sites like AWOP are still financially viable? They employ 4 people and have a lot more equipment. Also I was under the impression that that the tours paid something to have people blogging/updating?