Subject: Thank you, and: Please help me keep CCL running...

From: Jan Labanowski <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 13:12:32 -0500 (EST)

Dear CCL subscribers...

I want to thank all of you who decided to support CCL with your donations,
contribution of materials, lively discussions, and participation.
Thank you for making the CCL possible... 

This is another infrequent appeal for support of CCL. Since I do not do it
every other day, please read through it. CCL needs your support to pay student
wages, cover the cost of operation (hardware, software, network access,
disposables), and facilities (office space, phone, utilities). The OSC, CCL
parent organization, is picking up the tab at the moment. The parent
organization is aggressively pursuing its leadership in various computing
and communication areas, and nobody on this planet can say with certainty what
priorities will emerge in years ahead. To operate in a more stable environment
CCL has to share (or better cover) costs of its operation and have some safety
cushion. I wish I was able to present the CCL to the OSC management as a
self-funding project/program rather than humbly request support every year. 
OSC will always be here to help CCL, but CCL must contribute to its own
existence. It would make life easier for everyone involved if CCL
was an asset. I am not sure how much stronger can my public statement be...

Of course, I hear advice to go after BIG SPONSORS. Even if it was easy and
the BIG SPONSORS were just waiting to give me cash, I have a problem with
having a few key supporters. Even if the supporters were angels, it would
endanger CCL's non-alliance and independence and would bring "politics".
I am not sure if I would like this and/or could actually do this dance.
Also, do not tell me to go to the XXX agency for support. They will not do it,
and there is even more politics there, since CCL would have to take money from
one of you. We can stay as an independent and open forum only if we do not
have to count on a handful of big supporters, but are kept in operation by the
large number of smaller donations from CCL subscribers/users. You see, if each
of you gave me $50 or so, I would not have to get any additional support, and
could even set up the rainy days fund. Every donation counts... I understand
that many of you just cannot help (e.g., your currency cannot be changed
to US Dollars), but most of you can...

You can support CCL in 2 ways:

   1) GIVE CCL A DONATION which is a convenient way of support for individuals
      and corporations. Such a donation is tax deductible in many countries
      (we are an educational institution as a part of Ohio State University).
      If you need a formal solicitation letter to convince people in your
      organization than let me know. I will craft a letter about CCL and
      benefits of supporting it. You are even encouraged to tell me what you
      want to hear...  After we receive your donation, we will thank you for
      your generosity with a formal letter needed for tax purposes, and we
      will acknowledge your donation in the CCL web site. Donations need not
      to be excessive. We will accept a million {:-)}, but many smaller
      donations will do as well (or better)...

   2) BUY STUFF FROM US. This is the most convenient way to support
      us when using your research funds, i.e., when you need a formal
      invoice/billing process. And since we are helping directly in
      your research, there is no problem in justifying your expenditure.
      The easiest (and we expect, also the most popular) solution is to buy
      from us one or more sets of CDs which represent the current content of
      CCL archive. They are priced at $250, and contain about 2 Gigabytes of
      stuff: messages, data, software, and documents. You can buy one set
      for work, and one set for home to browse in the evening. We are also
      willing to share our experience in setting up Web sites, mailing lists,
      help you maintain sites, and possibly house it, etc. We would be happy
      to share our experience with nonprofit organizations, associations, or
      with our subscribers. Of course, details have to be discussed, since
      we are not in competition with commercial vendors of such services,
      and our involvement should support our mission: education and research.

In short... Please consider supporting CCL. Details are available in our site:

     http://www.ccl.net/chemistry/aboutccl/supporting

and there is also a link to it on our home page at: http://www.ccl.net

If you have questions, please contact me directly. I will also be thankful
for suggestions and advice on how to improve our solicitation for CCL support.
Some of you, who know me personally, are aware that I am not a salesman type
and I would hate to bug you directly. At the same time I am committed to keep
CCL alive since it is in my opinion a useful resource. Please do not force me
to do "direct marketing" since I am not sure I could take it... Please help...

Jan K. Labanowski            |    phone: 614-292-9279,  FAX: 614-292-7168
Ohio Supercomputer Center    |    Internet: [email-masked] 
1224 Kinnear Rd,             |    http://www.ccl.net/chemistry.html
Columbus, OH 43212-1163      |    http://www.ccl.net/