All,
Thank you for the wonderful comments, emails and even a few phone calls. I've been asked if this is due to anything like a health issue or anything like that and I can assure everyone that I believe that I'm healthier today than I was five years ago. I've also had several members ask me about the annual costs to operate the site and the amount of technical ability required to maintain it.
The site is hosted on a Blue Host server (
www.Bluehost.com). They are a great web hosting company and I would recommend them. The cost of annual hosting and renewing the DNS name 65GS.com is around $100 a year when purchased in three year blocks. The site is a combination of custom and off the shelf code. The Forum is built around SMF and the gallery is built around Coppermine. The rest of the site is custom made and the registry is driven by SQL and a custom grid for look up and form input. In the simplest format, the Gallery and Forum could be separated from the registry and ongoing support would be made very simply and maintaining it would be from the admin consoles (no code, just click-able menu options).
The SQL portion of the registry was developed by a programmer from Russia that I found on
www.guru.com. This site allows you to post a project that freelancers from all over the world can reverse bid on. I paid a little more than $300 to have this developed and up to a couple of days ago, everything ran pretty well (and then I screwed it up). I think now is the time to decide if the registry will continue to be part of the 65gs.com site or if it should revert back to a "paper system". I personally think that if the registry is to continue in it's electronic format, an overhaul should happen based upon member and admin requirements and this will more than likely require another round of programming and another investment. Now is the time for everyone to speak up and say what they did and didn't like about the registry format and from this improvements should be suggested in the form of clear requirements that the programmer would understand and translate into a finished product.
I've heard some great ideas for possibly kicking off a new site and joining up with V8Buick.com or expanding the site out to cover all nail heads etc. Since the 65 group is somewhat small, there could be a great opportunity to cover 64 - 67 and cover more years. Rebranding the site from 65gs.com to something else isn't that hard to do and it personally these changes won't hurt my feelings as the content and members are what is important. A website can also have multiple web names that all point to the same site (example -
www.65gs.com and
www.1965gs.com both point to the same site as long as you are able to secure the name and willing to pay for it annually).
It's really good (and sad at the same time) to see the interest in keeping the site going and thank you again to everyone who has contacted me out of personal concern and with offers / questions regarding what's required to run the next leg of our journey.
Chris