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A brief explanation
is printed in Blue.
A complete explanation is printed in black.
I created the CV Alumni Central with funding
from a grant which I and the CV Activities Foundation applied for
and was awarded.
The website was part of the Alumni Project which was a large
effort to fulfill the requirements of the grant.
At that time I had been experimenting with website building,
having created two very basic sites. When I contacted
professionals to do the
site building work I found it was too expensive.
However, one webmaster that I met took an interest in my project and
he volunteered to
help me should I run into difficulties.
Gary Roberto didn't realize what he was volunteering to do.
After some design and basic site building stuff, I had to start
paying him
something as I was becoming a burden. It is one thing for a
volunteer to have a good heart. It is quite another to ask him
to spend hours
teaching a newbie like me without some compensation. What I
paid him was a tiny fraction of what a professional would
charge,
and he was and still is a professional.
Gary had chosen to rent the
mainframe space from a professional web-hosting company that was
local. With a few of the grant
dollars that I had left we got our site registered and became a
presence on the World Wide Web, The CV Alumni
Central.
That is when I started meeting so many nice people
on-line, all CV Bear Alumni. The months went by, the money ran
out, and I found myself
spending a couple of hours every day building the CV Alumni Central,
helping people with their reunions and events, posting pictures
and
stories, honoring Bear military and creating an Email data base.
Anything and everything Columbia Blue and White went up on that
site.
Gary sat back and watched in amazement while over a two year period
I built one of the largest sites he'd every seen.
I must admit that it was fun and I soon felt like a
CV Bear myself. (My three kids all went to CV)
Early on it was hoped that Bear Alumni would
step up, form an association and help with the operation of the
site. But, after
spending
a great deal of money and effort, I realized that it was not going
to happen.
Using the website and Email news I made a number of
pleas for donations, some wrapped around promotions like homecoming,
picnic, etc.
And I had some great helpers. I really appreciated their hard
work. But, very few alumni stepped up and their donations were
few.
We did not receive enough money to keep the
site in operation. But, through the kindness of Gary and our
hosting service the site remained
up and quite active. I registered four or five alumni
to their class sites every week. There were over 700
registered and we had over 25,000
visitors to the CV Alumni Central.
When the economy went into the
toilet our host lost his programmer and his investors pulled
out. The mainframe that was hosting our
site went off line.
It takes a great deal of money to run that kind of an
operation. They didn't even know who we were but, they
did know Gary and knew what
kind of a gentleman he is, so they let us use their equipment even
though we didn't have any money to pay for it.
Gary tells me that the company owner and his wife are now expecting
a baby.
Being the kind of professional
that he is, when he saw the end in sight, Gary backed up (copied)
all of our files. Nothing is truly lost.
But, it will be a major task to rebuild The CV Alumni Central.
Gary and I are up to the
rebuilding task but we will need some financial support to find a
new host and buy and learn their software.
We have discussed selling advertising space on the site. It
truly is a busy place offering good exposure.
I will continue to communicate with those alumni who
were receiving the Online News.
I can be reached by phone at (509) 255-6131 or by Email at david508@ptera.net
Dave Graham
Alumni Site
Manager and
CVAF Secretary - Treasurer
(509) 255-6131
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