[mesanu]

Hello all,

What ever you decide to do, I will stay with you.

And thank you for all of you when are writing to this forum.

BR

Sami

[AdamS]

Firstly, I would like to add my voice to all those above in thanking Lee and Keith for the running of Beoworld, and to Steve for sponsoring it. The site is an invaluable resource for B&O nuts like me but I have also been well aware that traffic has been reducing over the years, which is very sad news. I’m active on many hi-fi forums and, predictably get asked lots of questions about B&O which I’m more than happy to answer, but I always try and point people in the direction of the site.

As to Gold membership, it’s something I consider essential for access to the magnificent repository of service and user manuals. The prize draw is a lovely bonus and I have been lucky enough to win on several occasions, but if this were to drop to once a year or even vanish altogether, then it wouldn’t affect my membership decision – I’d still stay Gold. Like chartz – I’m not going anywhere!

I would also personally be more then happy with an increase in the cost of membership but I do appreciate that this may well have the effect of putting people off – you can’t win in this one!

In my own small way, I’d like to help by making a donation to the coffers and Lee – if you do decide to continue with the draw, please drop me a line as I have some items in the Smith Beocollection that i would be more than happy to donate for the next one.

[Miki]

Hello everyone,

First of all a big thank you to Lee and Keith of course.

I didn’t become a Gold member because of the prize draw but it was a very nice bonus. Winning the B&O Vintage Matchbox Delivery Van was a very happy day for me!

I would prefer if the prize draws continue. Annually or if possible bi-annually. I also wouldn’t mind to pay more for the Gold membership.

Miki (Gold member since 2010)

 

[ThomasF]

Hi all,

Similiar to Miki, I joind the community to get ideas, chat and access to manuals etc, not for the prize draw, which I found out later and saw as an exiting bonus!

As long as I have an interest in old B&O equipment (wich unfortunaltely is a new and small niche of my interest for other older electronics) I will support and hang on as long as possible by being a Gold Member (with or without the draws).

Thanks for all your hard work behind the curtains of BeoWorld!

Best wishes and regards,
Thomas (just a newborn kid with regards to all oldtimers here ;))

[deaddruid]

The economics have to balance. If the books cannot be made to balance, we’ll be looking at site closure – maybe not tomorrow, but soon. If subscriptions don’t cover the cost of the draws, then we need to increase income, or reduce the cost of the draws.

On increasing income: I became a gold member because I wanted to support the good work that Lee and the team were doing. To me, the small difference between the cost of Silver and Gold made the latter the obvious choice. Whether the cost is £30 or £35 would not make any difference. However a move to £40 might have caused me (if I’d just arrived at the site for the first time) to pause, and ask whether I really needed to pay that much. My guess is that those members who currently pay £30 are unlikely to baulk at £35.

On reducing the cost of the draws: We need to consider why the draws exist. I see this as two-fold: they are an exciting point in the year to look forward to, and they bring the Beoworld family together. They are good for the former, but not really so good for the latter. I think that the move from monthly to quarterly was a big change. A change from quarterly to annually (a Christmas draw) would have much less impact. A quarterly draw I often miss, but a once-per-year Christmas one would be special.

So as a minimum, I suggest £35 and an annual draw.

However it’s also worth looking at the issue from the other end – why someone might want to be a Gold member. Perhaps Silver could offer a limited number of downloads, whereas Gold is unlimited. Perhaps Gold could be marketed as the “true enthusiast” membership – same as Silver, but with a donation of £5, £10 or £15 (minimum £5) towards the work of Beoworld.

Similarly, if we look at the draw from the other end – it’s unlikely that someone would join Gold *just* to participate in the draw. It’s more the icing on the cake. Would it be possible to replace this icing with something else? I seem to remember in the dim and distant past that there was a meeting at the Kensington Roof Gardens. I have no idea how successful (or otherwise) that was, but it was thinking outside the box. How about an annual Gold meeting, funded by attendees, not by the membership fee. In addition to simply meet & chat, we could run a handful of tutorials – I’d be happy to run one on basic electronics, basic electronic fault finding, or even how to solder. I’m not necessarily recommending an annual meet as the right way forward, but more about not constraining ourselves to an undue focus on the draw.

Mark

[Guy]

I’ll keep this short and focused because there’s lots to read above, and some great ideas and thoughts!

I support Option 1: a Bi-Annual Draw with the current Membership rates.

Other comments:

• Main effort should be towards keeping the forum going, maintaining and building on current level of interest, tempting back old members and encouraging new.
• For me, content, format and usability of the Forum are much bigger factors that the Prize Draw, which I too see as a ‘bonus’ (and I have been lucky enough to win great prizes four times since joining in 2007).
• Whatever is decided, I do think that both current members and new visitors need a more obvious indication of the levels of Membership and the benefits of each of these levels – perhaps a clickable banner that encourages site visitors to explore these membership options further.

I would also like to echo the thanks of other Users for the unflinching support of both Lee and Keith – I know that some great work goes on behind the scenes to keep the site running smoothly and I am eternally grateful!

EDIT: And big thanks also to Steve for continuing to sponsor and support my favourite forum! ?

[doubleola]

Hi Lee,

First off, Thanks for all you and Keith for all you continue to do. Like most, the Gold membership was worth more to me than the Prize draw, which I never paid attention to due to formerly been based in the US. The knowledge base, advice, manuals, connections and conversations have always paid for my investment in membership. I have often saved so much money from paying for consultation time to troubleshoot challenges B&O equipment that even some new dealer employees had no clue how to resolve.

I personally would continue to support the annual fee but as suggested it may be worth revisiting the membership types fee structures with possibly lower membership with lower fees and gold for those like myself who value the Gold benefits. I would also consider allowing members to donate above and beyond the gold fee of £30 if they wish. I personally would do so within my budget.

Cheers,

Ola

[vikinger]

Hi Lee,
Difficult. I suspect that many who buy new high end B&O don’t come here these days.

The site is useful for repair or compatibility issues for older products.

The old humour – camaraderie has gone from the site, due to members who haven’t renewed, but also from a period when any off-topic humour seemed not to be tolerated….. which was overcome by the old Wednesday evening Wedthred. Present day ‘Wokeness’ probably now makes much comment even less tolerable.

Keep the forum going. Seek out dealer sponsorship, or small commission fees for dealer links. Make the draw only once a year around Christmas.

And why not invite all old members back to a formal site relaunch with a discount offer for gold or silver subscriptions (direct debit or continuing credit card renewing automatically after one year at the full rate?)

Graham

[timornellas]

Hi Lee

The draw is of no importance to me as the value in having access to such a rich resource of information is worth the annual £30 fee.

Thank you for the work you have put in this invaluable forum over the years.

 

[Foxtrott]

Hello Beoworlders

I will also take this as an occasion to thank Lee, Keith and all others on the Beoworld Team for all the heart, energy and effort they invest to keep this site up running. As someone who is a bit of a numpty with IT-stuff, I have no idea with of all that comes with running a site like Beoworld, but it surely it a lot and also costly.

Yes, I do always hope to win at a draw (who wouldn’t?) an I won’t deny that I was very happy when I won something and I do enjoy my prizes…. but like many others the prize draw and the chance of winning was always a nice extra to the main motivation of supporting the site with the membership fee and would continue my support even if there was no prize draw.

I would go for the Bi-annual draw option and personally I would also have no problem with an slight raise of the membership prize (like 35 or 40 GBP).

Regarding doubleola’s suggestion of allowing to donate more tha the gold fee: This possibility already exits via the “Donation to Beoworld” item in the sites Gift Shop, but this option is a bit hidden. Maybe a “make a donation” button that links to this item might make this a bit more visible for members who want to use this option…. just a thought.

Whatever descision is made I will keep up my support and I hope that Beoworld community will last.

Cheers
Foxtrott

[Millemissen]

Funny – I never though of becoming a Gold member just to be able to participate in the Prize Draw lottery.
I thought that this was just a bonus for the Gold members.

I am pretty sure that there are several reasons for less and less Gold members.
There are overall very few members/people who constantly post on the forum nowadays.
The interest for B&O, new or oldschool however, is there…….no doubt.
But people have gone elsewhere – there are lots of facebooks groups, discord etc etc nowadays.
And most people expect advice, insight for free.

Imo this is a sad development – places where people, who are interested in B&O can connect to each other, are getting more and more diverse…..it is not just the one place – Beoworld – as it was before, where people meet.

Unfortunately the fact that the forum sadly got corrupted – and that there was a time gap before the new version went online – meant that a lot of the previous members/contributors were lost.

People simply do not seem to know how well the new forum has become – and they do not realize that the knowledge of Beoworld is searchable for anyone (unlike what excists in closed FB groups etc).

Why not just have one yearly Prize Draw – and prizes don’t have to be expensive……you certainly should not have to pay yourself.
It might be possible to have something sponsored.
I am sure that those who are willing to pay for a Gold membership/have the spare money will continue to do so.

As you also suggested above….it might be necessary to find other ways to finance Beoworld – Patreon and alike could be a way to go!
Anyway, something needs to be done – not just for the sake of the Prize Draws, but to keep Beoworld alive.

I will also express my huge thanks to you and to Keith for all that you have done in the past and still do.
We should be grateful that you have explained, what it means to run a free forum…..not many of the more frequent posters/members know about this.

MM

[mullerm]

My 2 cents:

Some members (like me) would be happy to donate an extra amount from time to time. But I need to be prompted. I had no idea that the site was so heavily subsidised nor did I notice a “donate” button.

So I propose that on a yearly basis you circulate a message requesting a donation from those who are willing and able.

And the easier you make it to transfer money (PayPal? Credit card?) then the more likely folk will send some amount.

[beodim]

Hi Lee,

Being a vintage B&O collector, I have been a Gold member not because of the Prize Draw but in order to support this great platform and resource website. Happy to continue being a Gold member going forward regardless of the Prize Draw existence. I would also have no problem with a membership fee increase if this helps to cover the costs of maintaining this website. Many thanks to everyone involved in running Beoworld!

Dimitri

[Beitie]

I pretty much second all of what Steve from Sounds Heavenly said.

I’m not much of a regular on the forums, but I do enjoy my Bang & Olufsen items, and work on items from time to time as well.

My first time as a Gold member came when an item on my Beogram 9000 broke, and a member was kind enough to send me a replacement just for me signing up and helping with the site. From there I’ve kept my Gold membership because the access to the service manuals was a help to me.

I somehow won a prize last spring, and didn’t realize it till much later. I can’t lie that I was pretty excited about it, but it also didn’t have the most impact on my decision to re-up my Gold membership.

Option 1 would be my vote, but I’m not going to be heartbroken with whatever happens, and I really hope that we can keep on with this brand we love.

[deaddruid]

Actually, the annual message asking for support is a really good idea. The Internet Archive does this to raise funds, as does Wikipedia. It’s an opportunity to remind people of the work that the site does, and how much cash is needed to keep it afloat.

Mark

[Gadams]

I was both surprised and sorry to hear the Lee has been paying for the prizes. I did not join Beoworld for the prizes an when I did win one it was my first ever time at winning any sort of prize so it was a lovely surprise.

Neither Lee nor Keith are paid for any of the Stirling work they do and the immense time it takes to run the site so thank you to both of them.

Having read the posts I like the idea of courses run by members for the benefit of members.

Of course we should pay whoever runs the course with some money going to Beoworld as well. This would help encourage new members to join and keep existing members who want to learn more.

In addition, I think the fee should rise. Personally, I would pay £50 per year. As an angler I pay this for club membership and that is considered cheap.

we should all do our best to spread the word on the other internet sites as to the benefits of joining Beoworld. I am a member on a number of these and they are not a patch on Beoworld with a lot of misinformation at times, something we don’t get on Beoworld.

As for the prize draws, well, until things get better perhaps we should only do one a year then increase them as funds allow.

For me, the main thing is to keep the site open as long as possible, it’s in all our interests.

Thank you

[glundsgaard]

Hello Lee,

I also love being part of this forum. I was first introduced, to less than a year ago, by Steve through his remarkable UTube videos. It has been a wonderful resource of information through the technical manuals and chats I’ve had access to.

I feel the Prize Draw should be during the Christmas Holiday Season. Just once a year.

I believe a donation button would be a nice reminder for all the members along with a rise in the membership costs. BeoWorld is a valuable resource to us all.

Thank you, Lee. And, thank you, Steve.

 

[Glitch]

I am a relative newcomer here (~6 months) and not a “paying” member, so I’m not sure if my comments will carry any weight. I’ll post anyway since it might provide an alternative point of view…

I considered paying for a membership but ultimately decided against it. My impression is that the membership provides three things: 1) Entry in the prize draw, 2) Access to the manual scans, and 3) a “rank moniker” by my user information. I’ll address these in reverse order…

3) Titles don’t mean much to me so this wasn’t a consideration.

2) Access to the manuals was my primary consideration. However, it is not clear what is in the Beoworld manual library and if it any different than what is available (for free) elsewhere. I considered paying for a membership just to see what is there, but decided not to, mostly because I prefer original paper manuals. The library would provide some benefit even if I plan to purchase a paper copy. It would show what is included in the manual (i.e. full adjustment procedures versus just a schematic) before purchasing. The other use I have for the manual library is to be able to reference a manual (for equipment/manuls that I don’t own) in an attempt to help other members debug their equipment. Perhaps as part of the “membership sales pitch webpage” there could be listing of the available manuals and an example of the scan quality.

3) The prize draw was actually detrimental to my decision to buy a membership. When I researched the prize draw it seemed suspicious. It seemed to be “too good to be true”. The prizes were too nice and too numerous. It also seemed that “the regulars” were winning a disproportionate percentage of the prizes. There seemed to be a “good ‘ol boy club” vibe to it. I wondered if the silver member’s fees were being used to subsidize the gold member’s prizes. Lee’s post at the start of this thread did a lot to explain my misguided observations. The quantity and quality of the prizes were due to Lee’s generosity in heavily subsidizing the draw. The familiarity of the winner’s names was due to the decrease in the number of gold members (i.e. most of remaining gold members are active, long term members). Regardless of this epiphany, I hope that there remains an option (preferably anonymous) to support the core operation of the site independent of the prize draw.

I want to thank Lee, Ken, and any others that keep the site running. I know that it is a grueling, thankless job. I hope that I’m able to do my part by “paying back” those that helped me by helping others. My goal is to be able to “pay forward” with advice in case I need help sometime in the future.

I hope that people don’t lose sight of the idea that the site’s most valuable assets are the information in the posts and the camaraderie of the interaction with the other members.

Glitch

[jbarhydt]

After my initial reply I have kept up with all of the other great ideas and comments generated. Here is one more half-baked idea that maybe someone on the forum can turn into a great idea. What if a user could post a question that a more knowledgeable person could answer in return for a contribution to the cause. For example let’s say a question is a real head scratcher and requires deep knowledge, and a member is willing to pay $50US for an answer/solution. The member that answers the question gets some amount credited towards the membership fee while the forum gets the cash. I can think of questions that I’ve had over the years that I would gladly have paid an expert to answer. Here is one example – I had an Avant 55 that died, but I salvaged the working speakers and motorized movement before heading to the recycle center. I’d be happy to pay for a solution on how this can be reused, wiring diagrams and such. Maybe this is outside the scope of the forum, but it is an example of something where the manuals and schematic don’t seem to be readily available. Maybe there is a member that sees the question and says that they can answer it for a “b ticket”. I go to the Beoworld store and buy a “b ticket” for a set price. In some ways this is similar to buying the postage to mail a prize. The member that answers the question gets some level of credit from the answer. Maybe it could be as simple as the “buy Lee and Keith a coffee button”, but it is a payment for someone’s membership. Anything to keep this site viable. Cheers.

[Stefan71a]

Lee and Keith,

Thanks for bringing up our situation to the surface (say ours since I think we should share the continued existence of the Beoworld community and its sites) – I’ve been a member since 2010 and have not been a gold a member all the time. The gold membership I got to access the enhanced information in terms of manuals etc (this is a real gold mine in finding older B&O technical information).

The prize draw was a bonus I did not pay so much attention to at the time, but during the last years, I have been a lucky guy, and I am now the lucky owner of 2 B&O prices.

I stand behind the 1st option, reducing the amount of price drawn to 1-2 / year – a Christmas celebration/price draw would be the one to go if it will be one / year.

I´ve earlier been running nonprofit community web pages by myself for many years and know exactly Keith´s situation and how much TIME it takes to keep up with patches, hacking attempts, enhancements, etc… For Lee, I see you have put your own heart/soul into this site and clearly earnings as well via your earlier business.

Some ideas for possible adjustments/enhancements.

1. Auto renew payment – I can only see to myself, I´ve missed renewing the membership every time. Would it be possible to have an auto-renew setup (not sure if your payment solution allows it – not all payment gateways allow this).

2. Several payment alternatives for the subscription
Depending on the % fee for the payment handling. Due to many people’s financial situation right now and what I read between the lines members are not always willing to pay a possible increase in yearly fee… Can an option be as it´s on other sites, that you have a slightly higher total yearly cost but you as a member have the option to split it out on a longer time / see it as a monthly subscription that doesn´t have the same impact at the time it occurs?

3. Try to reactivate older inactive users (many can be like me – missed renewing my account).

4. See if we can engage community users with deep knowledge in different areas to write special projects/articles (if we are willing to sponsor with our time to write on what you can achieve/enhance the usage with your B&O equipment).

These articles could then be available for paid members, but with a teasing ingress should be publicly available and could also be sent out via monthly e-mails to the registered members.

5. Also if we see users start to be active in other closed forums (Facebook etc) can you partially integrate the forum/sites with Facebook and other social sites and members’ possible Facebook profiles? Know Kith this may be a fundamental change in the ground.

I used this way in the site I used to run, as soon a member logged in on the community site it was a notice showing this on Facebook. Also if we wrote something on the webpage it got a push with ingress to Facebook and we took back users’ activity to our site. Then you got indirect advertising about the site to users.

6. Make it easier to see different member levels, and push the customer for the member levels you wish they should take. Also as other have stated, make it easy to donate to our world’s existence..

When I today should renew my gold membership (again I missed it) I pressed renew my membership link and on the renew side I did not notice the default membership choice is the free membership plan… guess what happened. Realized after a second attempt that the Bronze level is the default re-new suggestion!

To finalize my thought, I feel a bit worried that so much of our site relies on Lee and Keith´s time and possibly own money. I´ve seen what may happen when one of two enthusiasts for some reason can´t keep up and I think we should have in mind how to secure and continue Lee´s and Keith’s creation in Beoworld.org and allow them to have some peace in mind.

Anyhow, I´ve greatfull for the energy and time you put into Beoworld and Stevens’s sponsoring/support of Beoworld.

Greetings from Stefan in Sweden

[Author]

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