[Philmont]: US Scouting Service Project (USSCOUTS.org)

This was posted on a couple of Scouting e-mail lists today.

While we were in Virginia visiting our son and his family in October,
my wife (Linda) and I had dinner with Mike and Debby Bowman. They do a
whole lot for Scouting and Mike is very involved with the US Scouting
Service Project.

Please give consideration to this appeal for help so USSCOUTS.org will
again be up and running soon.

YiS,

-- 
Calvin H. Gray
Scoutmaster, Troop 405
Associate Advisor, Venturing Crew 405
Georgetown, Texas
********
We at the U.S. Scouting Service Project are committed to supporting
Scouting through the Internet. We thank those Scouters and others who
have come forth in the past and have supported our voluntary efforts --
those efforts, which in turn, has been of a service to you, your units,
your district/local Council and to the national Scouting movement in the
United States.
Sadly, we are now off line due to the failure of our server. It was no
longer able to handle the high volume of visits to our site that
amounted to approximately 7 million page hits a month. We may be down
for now, but we are not willing to submit to defeat or wallow in
despair. We will be back. While we are confident we will resume
operations, it may be awhile before we return to the web. We need to buy
a new server and get it set up. And we need your help. But first, we
have a bit of a report for you:
We recognized that our old two-processor server with a little less than
a one-megabyte of memory was in trouble a year ago and started seeking
donations from Scouters. The response was fantastic and to date we have
had just over $2500 in donations. We were close to raising enough money
to buy a new server and still be able to support Scouting through grants
for Eagle Scholarships and West Fellowships like the one presented to
the owner of the Scouts-L listserv. However, time ran out before the
money was there and our cranky old server finally presented its last
blue screen of death.
You might think that $2500 is enough to do the trick because you can by
a fine home computer for that much and we wish that was true. Unlike
your home computer that only supports one user at a time, a web server
has to support hundreds of people at one time. In order to have a web
site that isn't deadly slow or unavailable during peak usage periods, we
need a server class computer that can handle the load. We have purchased
a modestly priced low-end web server that cost us about $4,000. We now
have just about enough money to do that, but not enough to purchase the
server, and software needed to operate it, and still provide other
support to Scouting. To be able to continue we need more donations to
help us through this tight spot. Donations are accepted via PayPal (tm)
by using the following email address:
                mailto:donate2usscouts.org@verizon.net
We apologize for any inconvenience you may experience while we are down
and will make every effort to get our sites back up for you as soon as
we can. We thank you for your support, your visits, and for the work you
do as a front line Scouter making a difference for the youth of this
great nation.
Gary Hendra, President, U.S. Scouting Service Project, Inc.
Board members: Mike Bowman, Paul Wolf, Kyna Hendra, Bill Nelson, Dave
Tracewell, Mike Walton, Ed Henderson, Lloyd Dalton
(The U.S. Scouting Service Project, Inc., started in 1994, is a
non-profit organization that makes available to the Internet community
additional information, resources and reference material concerning the
Scouting programs carried out through the Boy Scouts of America. It is
not funded nor supported by the Boy Scouts of America. All members of
the Project serve as volunteers to plan, create, develop, post, maintain
and enhance a family of websites and web resources as well as to promote
the responsible usage of the Internet and its capabilities. This is in
addition to their daily work, family and community, and Scouting
obligations. The Service Project is always looking for additional hands
to "share the fun of another one night a week" of Scouting and
additional ways that we can leverage the potentials of the Internet and
in particular the World Wide Web against the needs of the volunteer,
professional, families and their youth involved in the programs of the
Boy Scouts of America.)
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As you gather around this virtual campfire with fellow
Scouts and Scouters, do your best to be trustworthy,
loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient,
cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.
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