Note: in this model, if the group so chose, they could appeal for such an item as a minister on part-time model to be present and funded.....there is no restriction other than what the board so chooses, and which does not interfere with the underlying rules as covered in M&S agreement.

I'd be very much in favour of such a model.

I am sure there are lots of things that i haven't thought of, but I have to think that there are already existing models in place that could be leveraged. I look to the UCC folks who are aware of these models to bring them forward.

 

At this point, it is just an idea to get people talking, kinda like the site was.

I am sure there are lots of things that i haven't thought of, but I have to think that there are already existing models in place that could be leveraged. I look to the UCC folks who are aware of these models to bring them forward.

 

At this point, it is just an idea to get people talking, kinda like the site was.

I dearly hope that Invision or whatever we use is immune to the double post issue .

 

Does formal affiliation with the UCCan have any implications for non-UCCan members such as chansen or myself serving on the Board or similar roles?

 

Would we consider the CUC as another organization to approach or do want to keep the ecumenical partnerships to Christian denominations? WC certainly fits in with our principles in more than a few ways. I can help facilitate that if there is interest once the model is established and a board is up and running.

 

Mendalla

 

This proposal will require legal opinion at a cost.

 

And once again, funding is an issue - so what is that cost?

 

I believe that people discussing the creation of a new Cafe need to understand the real costs.

 

Thank you, Pinga, for providing some information regarding costs, but there is really no explanation (with costs) on how to manage such a site.  Volunteerism, as altruistic as it is, will not support a 24 x 7 site.

 

What are the costs of saoftware, of hardware?  Where is the location of maintaining a new site?  What are the overhead costs of the physical location?  Who and how does one or many pay for those costs?

 

If the WC community wants to run with a resurrected Cafe, then be thoughtful about the logistics:  there is a cost to running a fairly complex site, there is a cost to the administration of such a site - handling user fees, legal fees, etc - and let us be clear: it would not be a pledge or a donation:  it is a user fee.   Unless someone ponies up and creates a not for profit incorporation, any membership fee is just that. 

 

No other organisation is going to take this on as a project.

Redhead, i will address your cost questions in the other thread.

I am thinking that the charter shoudl have something about the presence of uc can, but, i woudlnt' think that it would require membership, nor would it require active participation.  My guess is that the charter woudl say something like % of board which should be active members, % which shoudl be members of uccan, representation from any funding agency giving more than nominal amount.

 

I would be thrilled to approach CUC

I would anticipate that the legal expertise of the United Church of Canada would need to be engaged; however, there is also wisdom in the community which can be used to develop some models.

It sounds far too United Churchy to me. I would be out.

I like the model and I wonder if there should be a minimum number of United Church members/ministers on the board? My suggestion would be at least one United Church minister and one lay person - and the same number of any partner religious groups (CUC, which I'm assuming stands for Canadian Unitarian Church, for example).

It's just an idea.

 

I would love to hear other ideas, or contrary thoughts, or other tools.

 

I am just not someone to sit back and watch.

 

If there is an issue, let's look for solutions.

Some of the options that I see are

a) do nothing and close

b) negotiate with united church of canada an extension / suport

c) negotiation with united church of  canada a transfer to a new model

d) stand up fresh and clean unaffiliated

 

(Edit:  I had negation instead of negotiation in (c)

Pinga

I would be in favour of option C above as being the most successful.

 

Edit : Option C above  should read "negotiate" with the U.C.....??..not "negation" with the UC  which means negative or non negotiate...?..if I'm correct..?

lol, yeah, i just can't type.

 

Note: i say that with great respect for what the visionaries of Emerging Spirit designed, the site that they birthed and supported.

 

I am nto wishing to see it leave or to lose the vision and gifts of folks like Aaron (and the other admins)

the knowledge they hold does not exist to my knowledge in any other church organization 

 

i am also not wishing to lose the inventory of posts.  the depth of conversation contributed by so many over the years

I'd say C.

 

Sorry, I've been away working on stuff.

 

I prefer option D.

 

You mean you have a life away from this forum??? I'm shocked!

b or c. (If "negation" in c means "negotiation." :-)

For me:
A is not an option
B would likely bring us back to this place at another time (and thst is why I am not working at that. I tried to compose a letter. It felt like writing a letter after someone said "the divorce will be final on such and such date". The time for talking and working things out is before that. Sometimes, it just feels too late.
C would be ideal
D is a last resort
It would allows a new start, but loses all the wealth of knowledge, etc

You mean, the guy who has a history of getting everyone aligned against him and then changing his username, wants a fresh start with all the old posts gone? ;)

The place would stand a better chance of attracting a larger and more varied membership if it wasn't tied to the liberal denominations so posited. Personally I'd be hoping for some more conservative evangelicals to join in the discussions.

I'd enjoy that.

 

I don't really want more atheists. If this place was overrun with atheists and anti-theists, that would be boring. I think I do quite well without lots of help.

 

Azd is a pretty cool guy and more even-keeled than myself, and while still a polytheist, I greatly enjoy Witch's perspective as well.

I like the idea of C with B as a second choice. We need to find a way to transform and truly be a place for diverse opinions. I do not think going to a more conservative model would do that. I also am not convinced staying the same would do that. I think we do fairly well now, I mean we let chansen stick around  but we can indeed improve. I liked the idea that was floated around somewhere earlier about a joint effort with other denominations or groups. Like chansen, I do not want a group of people who are like me to be the main group. I like learning and being challenged by different views. I will also admit to enjoying sitting back and watching some of the arguments that come up.....

 

In what way will being aligned with liberal denominations foster diverse opinions? It will always be more heavily-weighted toward the left side, allowing things like the clique to develop anew.

We never went away, Jae.

Hi Pinga,

 

 

Which I understand is the path we are currently on.

 

 

If the United Church of Canada was interested in that then you think it would have been tried some point prior to  the announcement of the closing.

 

 

If the problem truly is the software upgrade costs then transferring to another cheaper model would be a possible solution.  The only problem is that the current approach appears to be an all or nothing approach in which nothing is the most economically feasible option

 

 

This, I suspect, will be the way that things eventually go and nothing will be imported.

 

Grace and peace to you.

John

duplicate

When you say the United Church of canada, you are really refering to GCO staff and the GCE. It is possible do to their work load they did not have the time or disscussions needed to examine other option than closing.  While there are many who would like to see WC close down, there are likely many who would like to keep it open, but have had no proposal presented that would work due to time constarint on staff. (especialy with the recent cuts and reorgaisation) 

 

IWhat I think is most important in Pinga's proposal is that the WC community take responsiblility for keeping it running, viable, and growing. If we do not see the value in WC than why would anyone else. 

 

Also since WC started as a communication project, perhaps others not involved in communication (as Pinga says M%S)  would be interested but have not been asked, or seen a proposal that would make a case for.

 

I think we need to come up with a propaosl that lowers both costs and time spent running WC (Which Inervision does I believe) 

 

BUt at some point we also need to have ways to support it, both finaicially and with people .  My perfered method is asking for donations, and having the ability to sighup for monthly donations.

 

Jae, please look at my post and see that I did not say we should be aligned with liberal denominations. What I did say was I did not want to go to a more conservative model. By that I mean the version of conservative that says they own the truth and no other view is worth hearing. I would like to be able to have discussions with both "left" and "right' and would prefer we ditch those labels. I have had many good discussions with people who hold very different political and religious views from me, and those have often been the discussions that create more growth. Sadly, we seem to be in a more polarilzed world these days. My MP will only engage with people who agree with his CPC script. I hope I am never that narrowminded. As for my previous post, you will see that I suggested we be aligned with a variety of denominations or groups. That suggestion could include conservative groups without slanting over to that or any direction.

I would also like to avoid over planning, and taking up peoples energies doing work that is not useful to practicall functioning of the board. While things like incorporation and a charter may be needed, others things need to be done first. If the flavour of WC changes after JUne, so be. 

 

To be successful Wc needs to fill a miche that is not being filled elsewhere. WHich if you look at the numbers who keep coming back now, it is filling a need/niche that is not being done elswhere. It are those characteristics that I seek to preserve. 

Boo..hoo..hoo..unfortunately Rev. John's opinion "d"  above  may be correct. He is saying if the UC  wanted to cut costs while still maintaining the WC  they probably  already   have had  intelligent financial   discussions along that line. Their decision to close the WC  as Aaron has presented it does seem  cut and dried. Rev. John pointed out in another post that the members of WC were not consulted. They or we were directed to peruse Facebook, Twitter etc. in place of the WC.

 

 

Hi Alex,

 

 

No.  I really am referring to the whole denomination.

 

 

I suspect that there has been very little discussion period.

 

 

You are spectacularly missing the point.  

 

We cannot take responsibility for WonderCafe.ca continuing to exist, it was never even considered an option.  It belongs to The United Church of Canada, is paid for by The United Church of Canada, administered by The United Church of Canada.  We are guests here.  Guest who will be asked to leave in a few months time unless things change.

 

As far as seeing the value in WonderCafe.ca.  I suspect the ongoing participation of members from the start until today demonstrates the value we place upon WonderCafe.ca.  The stories being shared about the impact that WonderCafe.ca has had on various member's lives demonstrates the value we place upon WonderCafe.ca.  Anybody wanting to know how valued we think WonderCafe.ca is had only to ask and they would have been told.

 

The United Church of Canada didn't bother to ask.  The acted.

 

 

M&S is severely underfunded and all ministries relying on it are learning that they will have to tighten their belts.  Many are being told that M&S can no longer assist them as it has in the past.  There is absolutely no way that M&S is going to fund WonderCafe.ca.

 

In fact we needed $10 million out of a $20 million dollar bequest to launch Emerging Spirit and WonderCafe.ca to begin with because there wasn't that kind of money available through M&S.

 

 

The proposal would be helpful and welcome if whomever is responsible for making the decision actually cared about the impact of the decision that they have just made.

 

 

A possibility.

 

At this point a very remote one unless somebody can be persuaded to rethink the decision made.

 

Grace and peace to you.

John

Thanks John, on this thread or another thread I posed a  question"What will the UnIted Church have to say about  posters  making all these plans. You have come the closest to giving an answer.WonderCafe.ca belongs to the United Church of Canada lock stock and barrell but a church should have a little more dignity and   ask the congregation of WonderCafe(posters) what their thoughts are on the matter.

I think John's assessment is 100% correct. Who wants to tell the UCCan which outreach programs they have to cut so we can continue to meet here instead of Facebook because we find Facebook too restrictuve for conversation?

 

The best case we can hope for, is to get the UCCan to hand over a dump of the forum database, and maybe the user list with email addresses removed, but I doubt it.

 

On a personal level, that really sucks. Most important to myself, I've been using WC.ca as a sort of diary of Carter's journey, so those posts mean something to me. I can save them like I save my posts that I don't trust Aaron with, and probably will, soon, but then they're only available to me.

 

As for where to go with it, there are dozens of forum alternatives, some free, some paid. I haven't been in the game for years, but I have used phpBB (free), vBulletin (paid), Invision Power Board (paid), and Simplemachines (paid). The one people seem to talk about now is XenForo, which costs $140 (USD) per year for the licence, plus hosting fees.

 

Other free forum software is MyBB, which some people really like. Put that together with cheap $10-$20 per month hosting, and the actual cost of a forum can be pretty small. One forum I'm on is actually on an old version of vBulletin and run from someone's home server. It gets thousands of hits per day and is almost always up. I will not be hosting WC, however. I have no desire to run Apache and MySQL server boxes. I tried. Once. It's hard for a dumbass like me.

 

There are services like gConverter which can convert your forum from Drupal forums to all these other forums, for a fee of about $100 or more. Probably more in this case because WC.ca is a customized Drupal site.

 

 

From my side of the world I'm looking across a vast expanse of ocean at this country called Canada, and this place called Wondercafe......

 

Distance lends itself to an overview, and what I'm seeing is something I've lived through many times before  - the five stages of grief......

 

 

When Aaron first dropped the bombshell about Wondercaf'e's  pending terminal illness the Wondercafe forums expressed  the first stage of denial. 

Disbelief was expressed -and I can't help wondering if others here felt, as I did, a certain numbness at the news?

Wondercafe is for many, a daily ritual, like brushing our teeth... Just like an old favourite relative it's always been "here", why shouldn't this always be so?

Surely there must be some mistake, have the bean counters of the UCCrechecked their original diagnosis to see if a mistake has been made?

 

 

Then came the next stage of grieving - anger.

How dare "they" do this without consulting the members !

Many members openly talked of their anger......

 

 

Now we seem to have reached the third stage - bargaining.

Is it possible for the concept of Wondercafe to continue in some other form?

 

 

Perhaps there are members who have reached the fourth stage of depression?

A sense of hopelessness at what the future holds without Wondercafe? Convinced that it will happen -but experiencing loss and dread?

 

 

Will there need to be  a fifth stage, acceptance of the demise of Wondercafe?

 

 

I have no idea how this will all end.....

 

Personally, I would like to see it continue in some format. I have stated often here my gratitude at the UCC for starting up Wondercafe.

Here in Oz I wouldn't have even known about the UCC, but for Wondercafe.

 

The irony of Wondercafe and it's forums and members helping me through my personal grief - and now seeing the impending death of Wondercafe doesn't escape me....

 

( I'm concerned that there may be members here that are more distressed by this news than they are saying. One thing that grief has taught me is that it's unwise to "put all your eggs in one basket". Explore the possibility of finding another forum where you can contribute. For me, it's been Facebook, but it doesn't have to be your choice......)

 

That said, it would be great if the concept of Wondercafe continued - and I don't give a bugger about what choice is best - just that the patient does a Lazarus....

 

 

Should we start a thread that is just exploring the technical aspects of a hypothetical move?

 

I think we're talking about two very separate issues here, simultaneously. I'm worried we're talking past one-another. Maybe just put Pinga, myself, and whoever wants to hang out with the geeks in a room and shut the door. It'll be a party.

 

Yeah, chansen, you missed it, as I popped a thread in facebook and kinda threw it around here, maybe another thread with the discussion in it, can't remember.

 

Here is the  site I setup for playing: http://a56565.demo.invisionpower.com

Mendella and I are currently admins and we setup SG as a moderator.

Mendella created a troll account.  He is good at it!
 

I also think a discussion for geeks/techs is a good idea. 

chansen

You mentioned needing the WC user list? Isn't this it...the member list? There are 424 pages, lots of spammers. The first few pages are the most legit I would assume?

 

http://www.wondercafe.ca/members

 

 

Right, but we'd need it in CSV form or access to the db to copy over the names with an automated script to make it efficient. I ain't copying all those by hand.

 

We'd also need to link the user accounts to posts. We'd really need access for that.

 

yup....the data migration part is a complex part of the process but, the first part is woud it be allowed and if so, how.

Yes. True. How many have joined us?

Okay, so the wondercafe geek squad can try to find ways to create a new "phoenix arises fron the ashes" site. 

 

Issues remain:  hard and soft costs, importing data from the existing site, which I suspect is a no-go, and running  a volunteer - driven site.  We all know the amazing work that volunteers can do, be we also know the limitiations of volunteerism.

 

I expect that data transfer is not going to happen.  I also suspect the annual costs of running WC has little to do with the hard costs of software, and more to do with personnel costs.  Do not get me wrong:  personnel essential to operating the site and stepping in as moderator(s).  And these  are integral functions as to how WC operates.

 

A simple, free forum run by volunteers will crash and burn, simply because there will be no one who takes on a full time equivalent job of coordinating volunteers' schedules and administration doties .

 

Running a more sophisticated software program adds the issue of handling money (IF importing data was even an option) - and let us be clear about the the language; it is membership fees: not donations.

 

So it seems that Pinga's option D  is most likely, and I hope it will fly, but I do suspect the odds are against it.

 

 

 

PP and Redhead

 

One thing at a time. I was told I would die soon when I was 23, than 27 than 30 and finally at 35. I am still here at 50. They told me I was in denial when I did not make plans to die.   IS everything the way I planed it to be, or would want it to be? No.  But I am still here.  Can I do what I could do at 23? No, but I can do other things that I could not do at 23.

 

I did not try to deal with all the issues at once. I took on problems as they needed to be.   I had  faith that whatevr happen would.  . No one knows what will happen in life , but that is good as well as scary.

 

 

Many hospitals were  owned by the UCC, like the UCC hospital in Bella Coola BC. It was once totally owned and operated by the UCC. THat relationship has evolved into a partnership with the community that used that UCC owned hospital.  Now they are making the hospital totally independant of the church.

So if the UCC can take something like a hospital that they own, paid for and administered why not Wondercafe? (Especially if we develope a good proposal that meets there concerns, and that may fit into their mission work?

 

 

So why not start a disscusion with the church now? ESpecially the staff and the executive, and or other UCC bodies and courts

alex, you are making me smile.

I'm assuming this isn't possible, but I think it's still worth asking.

 

Is it possible to shut this site down to new posts, put up a link, but leave all the posts here to be viewed?

 

Is there security issues with just leaving the site to viewers?  Will there eventually be compatibility issues.  What's the cost just to keep the domain?

There's nothing preventing us from just plain meeting and talking under a new name and/ or somewhere else. I don't understand why it needs to be incredibly complicated. I have seen a poster from here, from time to time, post on another site I read, under the same avatar. My point being- why not meet on/ join another moderated site or just an inexpensive one like Pinga found? We come to chat (reflect, debate), we come here socially, casually- we don't need bells and whistles. I don't need them. It's not like we need washroom facilities and a building permit. Why not just say "meetcha over at ___" I don't need a fancy set up, just a place to write that's less intrusive than facebook. The value of this place is in the people here- not in the technicalities or structure of the site (although it does look nice). We can meet somewhere else on the www, certainly. Do we need a constitution and a board or a committee- or just a basic user agreement to abide by wherever we are? Why not just join an existing site? Enough committees. I must say I get committeed out. UCC loves committeeing! ;) I don't need a model per say- just tell me where you'll be and we can meet up- is what I'm thinking. But maybe I am thinking too loosely about it. How hard is it just to start up something on WordPress? It's free, right? One of those. It could be a temporary meeting place so we stay in touch while we work on finding a better "home", i.e. fundraising or finding a new sponsor. Someone could collect emails and let WC "alumni" know when a new site is up and running or invite people to a new meeting place. But I don't mind meeting anywhere where I feel free to chat. Not a Facebook fan though. It's limited. As Rev John says...it blows chunks as a discussion forum. It's not private- it's a glorified high school yearbook.

That's rather pessimistic. Lots of community forums work just fine with volunteer moderators and minimal costs that are borne by either all members kicking in or just a handful of members. There are even free solutions that would require no money change hands, and the forum is hosted at a place which displays ads.