IT'S A GAS, GAS, GAS!!
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Name: Keno
E-Mail: keno@fairpoint.net
Subject: Gasland's 5th Annual Fundraiser and Raffle!
Date: Wednesday, April 09, 2014
Time: 3:23:21 AM
Remote Address: 199.114.231.242
Message ID: 284620
Parent ID: 0
Thread ID: 284620
It’s time to kick off the 5th Annual Gasland Fundraiser, which this year will give away several prizes, including the grand prize, which will be the 1976 Rolling Stones Limited Commemorative Box Set, titled: 1976 Knebworth Fair featuring the Rolling Stones which is limited to just 250 copies.
First, about our fundraiser and why do we have one. This domain, keno.org, is owned by myself; along with our It’s A Gas! Gas! Gas! Message Board, which as I’m sure you know, is the oldest and longest running Stones board on the Net. Unlike the other Stones boards (and I believe there are only 3 of them left, besides Gasx3?), Gasland isn’t a free board, being that it’s privately owned and run by me, so I’m responsible for all the bills it generates, along with its upkeep. Up to 5 years ago I did pay for all the bills here without asking for any help, but hard times came my way financially, and some of you Gassers suggested that I hold a fundraiser to help pay for some of the bills. So I started to do that, but I only ask for help to pay the yearly rental fee for the server that we have to use here because of Gasland’s very heavy traffic.
Because Gasland is so popular and busy, unlike most other domains and boards on the internet, keno.org can’t operate on a shared server, in fact, no host will rent one of their shared servers to me any longer because of our heavy daily traffic, not that this board can handle such a server, as those of you Gassers who have been around for more than 6 years already knows. In the old days, Gasx3 would crash the shared server we were on about once a week on average (yes, that often!), and when keno.org went down along with Gasx3, so did the other 250 domains on the shared server. As soon as we switched to a standalone sever, that problem totally disappeared, and that’s even still true today, with the domain busier now than just a few years ago when we switched. True, minus Gasx3, my Stones site alone is still extremely busy - the Lyrics page especially, as are several of my other non-Stones sites on the domain. On some days either my Weather Center Home Page, or my Beatles Lyrics Page, receives even more page-views than our Gasland board sees, although overall, on most days the board’s home page is the top page viewed on the domain. But the thing is, those other pages take up little resources on the server, and no data base is used for them, as they are just regular HTML pages. Only the domain’s Poll pages, along with our Gas board, use the database via ASP programing, and that heavy traffic is what does in a shared server (we killed 2 different shared servers in the past, it was after the second one died that I was told I could not rent out another one). But killing servers is long in the past now, as the standalone server works great for us! The Land of Gas is still a very popular place to read and hang out at on the Net today, but at least it doesn’t crash the server anymore!
So yes, success was to blame for having to move to a very expensive standalone server, and one of the reasons why this fundraiser was started. Since the domain’s host, AIT, hasn’t gotten back to me yet on what the rental will cost next year, I’ll assume it will be the same price, so our fundraising goal this year is the same as last year (unless I learn otherwise), which is $600.00, and that includes the cost of my mailing off the prizes. AIT does give me a discount for paying the entire bill for the year all at once, if not, it would cost a lot more.
So if you can help out the Land of Gas via this fundraiser, I would really appreciate it, as I do take care of everything else around here and I will continue to do so. It doesn’t take a lot to reach our goal, and once the goal is reached, the fundraiser ends and about a week later we hold the drawing for the prizes! Oh yes - the prizes, let’s now talk about what they all are this year!….
If you are lucky enough to have your name come up in the drawing - and in the first 4 years it took on average only around 20 people to hit our goal (last year it only took only 16 folks), chances aren’t that bad at all that your name could be picked for one of the prizes! Everybody who donates gets their name placed in the raffle at least once, and twice for a donation of $25.00 or more. Whoever’s name is picked first, that person gets to pick first from the different prizes offered, whatever prize they want! The next name drawn picks second, and we keep going until we’re out of prizes.
I got a feeling the first prize picked this year will be the 1976 Knebworth Fair Box Set, featuring the Rolling Stones (playing their longest set ever!), along with 10cc, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Todd Rundgren, Hot Tuna and the Don Harrison Band.
This box set is contained in a handmade deluxe presentation box, and here is what’s inside this very big box: The festival’s official program; a cool show flyer; a ticket from the show; 20 8”x 6” color photos of the Rolling Stones; a 330 page book titled “There Must Be a Better Way”, about what went on behind the scenes at the Knebworth festivals from 1974 to ’79; an event T-shirt which is available in black or white and which normally sells for £12.95 on its own, and then 8 CDs, and 4 DVDs from the ’76 show! These CDs and DVDs are not sold separately from the box, you can only get them in the box, and they include 2 CDs of the Stones’ entire show, they performed 29 songs on this day (again, the longest Stones set ever). Then there’s a 13 CD song performance from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s show, which I just played from my boxset, and it's excellent, what a great show they put on that day! Also included are CDs for all the rest of the performers: 10cc, Todd Rundgren and Utopia, Hot Tuna, and the Don Harrison Band (I haven’t had the time yet to play these CDs, but I’m sure they are cool just by looking at their set lists), plus one more CD that I did play the other day, a bonus CD from the 1979 Knebworth Fair show put on by Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, and the New Barbarians (11 songs total from that show including JJF and HTW). For the DVDs, one is of the Stones hot ’76 show, showing 15 of the 29 songs they performed. Then a DVD called “The Spirit of Knebworth” which includes several performances from the many different shows put on from 1974 thru ’79, including one more, different song (not on the other DVD) performed by the Stones at the ’76 show (sorry, but I watched too many DVDs the other night and I might get the shows mixed up, but I think it was “Little Queenie” which the Stones play on this DVD, if I remember correctly). I very much do remember that Lynyrd Skynyrd performs “Free Bird” on here (again, from the ’76 show), which is so good that even if I’m much more a Stones fan, this performance is by far my favorite part of the box set, and that’s not taking anything away anything from the Stones DVD set, which is excellent! Also on this DVD are performances from Pink Floyd (1975), Led Zeppelin (1979), and other headliners who played live at the fair from past shows. Then there are 2 other DVDs from the ’76 show that I haven’t played yet, one is of 10cc’s show, the other is of Hot Tuna. At least, I think that’s all of what is on those 2, there could be more I guess since I haven’t viewed them yet.
Now this box set wasn’t donated to Gasland, but instead, I took 2 of these sets, one for myself, and the one I’ll give away, in exchange for 2 month’s of advertising on the domain. Some of you may have noticed that Rock Music Memorabilia, is a long time advertiser on keno.org, currently advertising this box set at the Stones site, along with other item’s advertised in the past at the Classic Rock site. But I must say - what a wonderful grand prize for our fundraiser!
Now here are the other prizes to be given away in this year’s raffle: Yet another DVD of the Stones excellent 1976 Knebworth Fair show! Normally this isn’t available as a standalone item, as again, you can’t buy this separately. But I already had a copy of this performance sent to me about a year ago from my friends at Rock Music Memorabilia, and I don’t need 2 of them, so I’ll give this one away. It’s only been played once and is in brand new shape!
Then the next raffle prize also comes from this same box set (well, directly from my own box set, that is), it’s the cool T-shirt from the ’76 show (see photo below).... since I already have one of these, plus this T-shirt is in size “M”, too small for me, so instead of giving this one away to one of my kids, I’ll give it away to one of you Gassers as a prize!... Next item to be given away is a large and very cool poster from the same ’76 show! I guess early on they were giving these away with the box set, but not anymore, as they are all gone, but they still sent me one that was left over. I already have a different poster from this show, so I’ll part ways with this new one and make it another raffle prize! The design of this poster came from an idea by MJ himself! Plus the back of the poster was signed by the promoter, Freddy Bannister. Finally, last but not least, the only non- Knebworth Fair prize to be given away in this year’s raffle, which is donated by Gasser devilsadvocate. This prize is the official program from the 1966 Stones US tour! It’s a collector’s item and DA has 2 of these, and that’s why she’s willing to part with one of them. There is a bunch of cool photos inside this program and any Stones fan will love to have this! Thank you again DA for this wonderful prize!
I do hope that this year’s fundraiser goal is reached in record time, just like we did last year, as the sooner we get this finished, then the better for me, as I rather not have to ask for anybody’s help in keeping this joint going. But things are as they are for me, and I do need your help in paying the server bill again this year.
For more info on our fundraiser, along with questions answered, including what it takes to donate (very little), how to donate (you can use your credit card, check, or a money order) and where to send in your donation, just click on this link: Donations to Gasland page. Or you can click on the Fundraiser banner on top of the board's home page!
I wish to note 2 things in closing.… First, if you donate via PayPal, they have a new feature on their page that you can check off if you like where you donate, that reads: “Make This Recurring (Monthly)” . I am not asking for monthly donations for this fundraiser at all, and that text wasn’t placed there by me. Please give only what you wish and what you can afford to give!.... Second, you don’t have to be a Gasser to donate and to get in on the raffle; in two of the first 4 years of this fundraiser, the largest single donation came in from 2 different lurkers, but regardless if you lurk or post, if you can help out, it will be appreciated very much and will directly help to keep Gasland going for another year!... If you can’t help for whatever reasons, that’s cool too, I’m happy that you at least visit and read our Gas board!
Here is what the box set looks like inside:
Below is the T-Shirt. The separate T prize is a short sleeve black T-shirt; the other shirt that comes in the box set, well I have no clue what the color is, since I didn’t open up that box, but it’s either a black or white shirt, and in short (not long as shown below) sleeve:
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