Beginning with the server, the site is growing (in all ways) at such a rate that it’s outstripping the capabilities of the existing machine. Traffic is high and the number of articles (as what WordPress calls “posts” and “pages”) continues to grow.
Apparently, as I understand it, when WordPress does any one operation, it has to cycle through all the articles, including revisions. And, given the ever-growing number of readers, the server is slowing down from all the requests made of it and the work it must do for each request.
Why you have been unable to access it at a few times is that Casey has been in there turning the screws and rejigging the bells and whistles.
He’s both optimizing the existing server and seeking a new arrangement. We’ll be archiving posts before January 2012: so that’s three years of posts. That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to search on them or get at them. It means they’ll be physically located elsewhere so the site will not need to cycle through them with each operation. Casey has also minimized the number of revisions retained.
The work he has been doing to keep the server running is what has come to your attention, that and the moments at which the server has groaned under the load and simply shut down.
For all the years he’s been here, and totally unbenownst to me, Casey has been paying for all costs associated with this site, to the tune of $8,000 of his own money. Casey has a family to feed. I have now personally taken over that cost, with much gratitude to Casey for his unsung service. The costs are usually $350 a month (which includes FeedBlitz) but at this interim time they are $500 a month.
I live on a half pension and am in debt up to my eyeballs so I’m going to need to do a bit of a dance to make this arrangement work. Neither Casey nor I have the funds to simply purchase another server or do what big companies might do to upgrade their service so we are applying bandaids like mad until we figure out how to make the jump that we hope will solve the problem completely.
We’ll be putting up donation buttons on the site for the server, the team, and the charity. That may help us ease the load.
Now you may be saying, well, wait a minute, we just contributed $25,000 to the team. Why can’t that be used to purchase a new server, etc.? That sum of money has been used to stabilize the team, some team members being three months behind in rent, most team members having exhausted their savings which were geared to last till 21/12/12. Some team members live in countries where the cost of living is two to three times what it is where I live, and I thought I lived in a reasonably high-cost area of the world. But it is not high-cost compared to theirs.
That sum of money did not go to all members of the teams that make up the Nova Earth Society. It went to those in need. And it went to cover whatever each person’s needs were – low if they were low and high if they were high, without questions asked. Their costs were paid till March 1, which buys us a month to come up with a way of making the Nova Earth Society self-supporting. If not, we’ve agreed that we will need to disband. We don’t intend to come back to you a second time. It is make it or break it.
Without your support, the various teams would have been reduced to me and a few editors who have jobs, scribbling away, plus the discussion group. No radio shows, no Pre-NESARA component, no lightworker charity, no plans for conferences and later television. But even more importantly but invisibly, no solid group of people spearheading an increasingly global conversation on how to take this world and make it work.
And of course you’d be back to hearing me teeter on the edge of exhaustion trying to pull all the levers and cover all the bases as I was doing before the teams came together and took so much work away from me in the process.
So people are diligently working away creating webinars, conferences, Internet portals, etc., part of whose raison d’etre is to support the team. And almost every member of the various teams is sitting on several committees, wearing several hats, doing whatever needs to be done, which makes it exceptionally busy.
We know NESARA is coming; we don’t know when. Once it does, all worries will fly out the window. But we’re needing to survive until then, as you are. And of course you’re aware and we’re aware of all the rumors about the revaluation, imminent release of Pre-NESARA funds, etc. We don’t publicize them because we’re as tired of waiting as you are and we don’t want to keep you going up and down on a rollercoaster. But we do follow them.
We’re even being sandbagged in certain places for not being willing to post on the latest rumors. Some people, new to the Ascension scenario, become excited by the latest pushes here and there. But after you’ve been through a few iterations of sensational claims made and nothing resulting until the entire global operation is ready, you’re less inclined to jump when someone makes a new claim or a new personality arrives on the scene.
Things will happen when they do. A very large intergalactic and interdimensional effort is underway. Matters do not depend on the latest crusader. They depend on all of us pulling together.
Since I’m on the subject, let me mention the second half of the fund-raiser. The second sum of $25,000 has probably just about been dispersed to lightworkers in need. All of you out there know who you are. And all who have donated have been thanked and we’ve kept you as up-to-date as we could on where the help went. We can only know about that when recipients send in a thank-you letter. And we posted all we received.
For the period of time during which we had money, lightworkers had heat and light, many were able to buy things for their children, some retired debts that they could not manage otherwise, some had their cars, which were vital to holding down a job, repaired, others purchased needed medicines, etc.
There was a small degree of fraud, including people making requests under several names, which PayPal is able to trace. There may be several emails, but they all go to the same PayPal account. Some when they were discovered became abusive and you can expect to hear some accounts that question the Hope Chest, etc., from people who tried to work the system and were found out. That goes with the territory.
But for 99% of all who received your gift of money, it was a taste of NESARA and a love-gift at Christmastime that said they were cared for. It was a wonderful experience for everyone concerned and we only wish we could carry it on forever. But we’ve now reached the bottom of the Hope Chest once again and cannot continue to see to people’s needs at the rate we have for that brief and wonderful interlude.
For the Hope Chest team, in a manner that was unpredicted, it had the unforeseen benefit of allowing us to test out all our procedures that we’ll be relying on when the very large sums of money start rolling in from Pre-NESARA and NESARA sources. It was like a shakedown cruise for us. We had never had the opportunity to see what situations will come up later and what they would require us to know and do.
Everyone on the team has had around a month of pre-trialling our routines as a fund-dispensing outlet; what we learned was invaluable and could not have been learned any other way. When the NESARA dam breaks we’ll be able to avoid many pitfalls and be enabled to work quicker, reach farther, using more means and channels than otherwise, and with fewer bottlenecks.
And the whole of the Nova Earth Society teams has been unalterably changed by the experience of last month. Members of the team who were behind the eight ball saw that the team cared for them and would act quickly and without hesitation when the crunch came. They saw that other members of the team would not insist on all sharing equally but attend to the greatest need first. We went through a war together to see to the whole team’s well-being and we can see the impact it has made on the team.
The teams now cooperate in a way that was not even thinkable before. Various members are now acting for the total team without the need for as much interfacing as may have been necessary before. It’s as if we’ve faced a tremendous peril together and got through it as a team. It has annealed us and taken us all to a much higher level and will never be forgotten as a shared experience.
Whereas the teams were working in isolation before, the teams and their leaders have all now worked on each others’ projects, made connections that were not made before, and agreed on common values and procedures. It might be comparable to a rural community going through a forest fire or a flood and having drawn together. Neighbor meets neighbor, generosity is extended and caring expressed. Each gets the measure of the other and new friendships are established.
So here I am scribbling away and holding down this front, Stephen and Mary are building the portal, Stephen is setting up the webinar, Graham is planning the conference, Linda is advising us and sharing her experience from having hosted webinars for years, Karen is steering the Hope Chest, Andrea has helped out in many new areas, Casey is leading the overall organization, all is in flux and all is coming together.
But the biggest difference is the loving way in which people are interacting. Something has happened. People came to the rescue of team members who were really facing a very difficult situation and you know when that happens both the one extending and the one taking the helping hand benefit. We’ve become a very large but close family and even if we don’t make it past March we’ll always look back on this time as having been a high point in our lives, a point so high that we were altered as a result of it in a way that happens very seldom in life.